orig. Ruth Joan Bader
born March 15, 1933, Brooklyn, N.Y., N.Y., U.S.
U.S. jurist.
Although she graduated at the top of her class at Columbia Law School (1959), she was turned down for numerous jobs because of her gender. From 1972 to 1980 she taught at Columbia, where she became the first tenured female professor. As director of the Women's Rights Project of the American Civil Liberties Union , she argued six landmark cases on gender equality before the Supreme Court of the United States . In 1980 she was appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals, and in 1993 she was appointed by Pres. Bill Clinton to the Supreme Court as only its second female justice. A member of the court's minority moderate-liberal bloc, she favoured caution, moderation, and restraint.