A Closer Look at “Shining Star”

Even before her groundbreaking decades of achievement as a Supreme Court Justice, Ruth Bader Ginsberg was changing the world for working women.  As a public interest attorney, she brought a series of lawsuits to the United States Supreme Court challenging gender-biased statutes.  Her landmark case resulted in the Supreme Court’s pronouncement in 1971 that it is unlawful to discriminate “on the basis of sex”.  That triggered legislation and more lawsuits which have significantly narrowed the gap and have provided fair opportunities for women to advance and further protections for pregnancy and other female-related issues. See below for more details about this remarkable achievement.

This song celebrates her extraordinary voice, which changes the world.  I always admired and connected with Ruth due to her passion for opera.  She would often attend opera in Washington, DC, with her political adversary, Justice Antonin Scalia.  The opera interlude in the song, featuring soprano Donna Friedman, signifies how music can bring us together to try to solve the world.

THE FULL STORY

The landmark Supreme Court case where Ruth Bader Ginsburg successfully established that it is illegal to discriminate on the basis of sex was Reed v. Reed (1971). [1, 2, 3]

In this unanimous decision, the Supreme Court ruled for the first time in history that the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment prohibits differential treatment based on sex. [1, 2]

Background and Context

• The Dispute: When a divorced couple in Boise, Idaho, experienced the tragic loss of their teenage son, both parents petitioned the court to act as the administrator of his small estate. [1, 2, 3]
• The Discriminatory Law: Idaho law mandated that when both a man and a woman were equally qualified to administer an estate, “the male must be preferred to the female”. [1, 2]
• The Legal Brief: Working as a law professor and co-founder of the ACLU Women’s Rights Project, Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote the principal brief presented to the Supreme Court. She successfully argued that this statutory favoritism violated the 14th Amendment’s guarantees. [1, 2, 3, 4]

Broader Impact

• This was the first time the Court ever struck down a state law on the grounds of gender discrimination.
• The decision shattered the historical legal precedent that gender classifications were rationally justifiable, paving the way for Ginsburg’s subsequent wins in cases like Frontiero v. Richardson (1973) and Weinberger v. Wiesenfeld (1975).
• You can read the official unanimous opinion and summary provided by the Supreme Court Historical Society to learn more. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]