GINSBURG, RUTH BADER

born March 15, 1933, Brooklyn, N.Y., U.S. Ruth Bader Ginsburg. ne Ruth Joan Bader American attorney who became an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court in 1993. Ginsburg graduated from Cornell University in 1954. She attended Harvard Law School for two years, then transferred to Columbia Law School for her final year. She was elected to the law reviews of both schools and graduated tied for first in her class in 1959. Despite her outstanding academic record, after graduation Ginsburg was turned down for numerous jobs because she was a woman. She served as a clerk for U.S. District Judge Edmund L. Palmieri (195961) and later taught at Rutgers University Law School (196372) and at Columbia Law School (197280), becoming the first female tenured professor at the latter. During the 1970s she also served as the director of the Women's Rights Project of the American Civil Liberties Union, for which she argued the six landmark cases on gender equality before the Supreme Court. She won five of those six, establishing the unconstitutionality of unequal treatment for men and women. In 1980 President Jimmy Carter appointed Ginsburg to the U.S. Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit. She served there until she was appointed to the Supreme Court in 1993 by President William J. Clinton. As a lawyer, Ginsburg had been known for her pioneering advocacy of women's rights. As a judge, she favoured caution, moderation, and restraint.