My Own Words

A term that does not appear in the volume’s index but which Ginsburg refers to repeatedly throughout is “collegiality,” the shared attitude of acceptance that pervades the Supreme Court justices. Ginsburg notes, “Collegiality is the key to the success of our mission” (xx). When describing the regular activities of the justices, she focuses on the “customs that promote collegiality” (56). Ginsburg continually stresses the idea that the court functions properly and completes its duties properly not because uniform agreement exists among the justices but rather because of their ability to disagree and still maintain a collegial fellowship.

The Fifth Amendment of the US Constitution is best known for the clause that protects an individual from mandatory self-incrimination, though several other individual protections are guaranteed under the Fifth Amendment as well. The protection frequently cited by Ginsburg in her work as a litigator for human rights states that no one can “be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” The 14th Amendment shores up these rights in its first section when it guarantees individuals “equal protection under the laws.” Litigators often refer to these guarantees as the “Equal Protection Doctrine.” Ginsburg cited these constitutional clauses frequently when seeking to overturn state and federal laws that arbitrarily singled out citizens according to gender.

As her biographers note, commentators referred to Ginsburg as the “Thurgood Marshall of the women’s movement” (116). Ginsburg earned this designation through her work to achieve “gender equality.” She sought to accomplish this by overturning as unconstitutional statutes that arbitrarily discriminated against women or men based simply on their gender. For instance, she wrote the Supreme Court’s majority opinion opening the VMI to women. As a litigator, she successfully advocated for an unmarried individual denied a tax deduction for caring for his mother because he was a son rather than a daughter. Her interest in gender equality dated to her childhood when, as a young woman, she could not participate in the bar mitzvah coming-of-age ceremony reserved solely for young Jewish men.