Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg of the United States Supreme Court has passed away at the age of 87.

Justice Ginsburg was an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1993 until her death and was known for furthering women’s rights both prior to, and since, her appointment to the Supreme Court.

She would take a leading role on the Supreme Court, writing the majority decisions on several cases, including United States vs. Virginia, Olmstead v. L.C., and Friends of the Earth, Inc. v. Laidlaw Environmental Services, Inc.  She wrote the dissenting view on Ledbetter v. Goodyear which helped inspire the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act law, and had an influence on the decision in Safford Unified School District v. Redding.

She was also a supporter of a woman’s right to choice to have an abortion.

Justice Ginsberg started her career in academia, first as a research associate at Columbia Law School Project on International Procedure, and later as a professor at Rutgers Law School.

From 1977 to 1978, she was a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University.

She was appointed a Judge in the U.S. Court of Appeals in 1980, remaining there until her appointment to the Supreme Court in 1993.

Justice Ginsburg was a fan of opera, and appeared as a supernumerary in several operas, including Die Fledermaus (2003), and Ariadne auf Naxos (1994 and 2009.)  In those cases, she appeared alongside fellow Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia.  In 2016, she  spoke lines penned by herself in The Daughter of the Regiment (2016).

Justice Ginsburg died on September 18th, 2020 from pancreatic cancer.