Keep Ruth Bader Ginsburg's Hopes Alive

“We need women who are so strong they can be gentle, so educated they can be humble, so fierce they can be compassionate, so passionate they can be rational, and so disciplined they can be free.” Kavita Ramdas

"When the Supreme Court hears arguments on the Texas and Mississippi abortion bans, remember that these cases didn’t spring up on their own. Right-wing donor interests spent decades and massive amounts of dark money to make it happen." Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, October 26, 2021

Ruth Bader Ginsburg will always be a role model and inspiration for women all over the world.  Her struggles are our struggles, her triumphs our triumphs. We must continue to keep her hopes and dreams alive.

Ginsburg struggled to become a lawyer when she was a young wife and mother. At Harvard she tackled the challenges of motherhood and a male-dominated school where she was one of nine women in a class of 500. Still, she became the first female member of the Harvard Law Review. 

She faced gender-based discrimination when she graduated from Columbia, having moved to New York City when her husband took on a job there. She graduated first in her Law School class at Columbia, but had a hard time getting a job because of her sex.

I don't even have to imagine it, because like many women I shared her experiences. Even her exceptional academic record did not shield her from the discrimination women faced in universities and the workplace in the 1960s and 1970s.  Ginsburg had trouble finding a job until one of her Law professors refused to recommend any other graduates before U.S. District Judge Edmund J. Palmiri, who then  hired Ginsburg as a clerk.  I know that experience well.  

And so Ruth Bader Ginsburg took flight, soared like an eagle, followed a self-made career path that eventually took her to the Supreme Court. She committed herself to ensuring equality, equity and justice for all people. She dedicated her life to defying and dismantling institutionalized gender discrimination, both on her own behalf and ours.  

We stand on her shoulders. That's why we are committed to continue the struggle for which she fought until her dying breath, when she told her loved ones that her "fervent wish" was that a new president choose her successor. 

That did not happen.  Mitch McConnell, the gravedigger of democracy, made sure of it. He, Leonard Leo's Federalist Society, the Koch dark money networks danced on her grave with glee that they could steal another Supreme Court seat. 

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse is, thankfully, fully aware of the extent of the damage, and how it happened. We now have  a Court so devalued, a  Judiciary branch so corrupted by Mitch McConnell and his Republicans, that the majority of Americans in this pluralistic nation have lost trust in its impartiality and integrity.  Changes have to happen. Mitch McConnell's tactics and dark money funders should be investigated. The whole Judiciary branch needs to be cleaned up.

It's hard not to get discouraged. It's hard to keep fighting the same battles that Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton began in the early 19th century, and that the Grimke sisters, Lucretia Mott, Sojourner Truth, Lucy Stone, and hundreds of other pioneers, silent warriors, took up along with their wish to end slavery. It's hard to carry RBG's mantel into the future for our grandchildren and their children. But what choice do we have? We have to fight for the things we care about. We have to keep hope alive.

When Great Trees Fall by Maya Angelou
When great trees fall,
rocks on distant hills shudder,
lions hunker down
in tall grasses,
and even elephants
lumber after safety.
When great trees fall
in forests,
small things recoil into silence,
their senses
eroded beyond fear.
When great souls die,
the air around us becomes
light, rare, sterile. . . .
And when great souls die,
after a period peace blooms,
slowly, irregularly.....
Our senses, restored, never
to be the same, whisper to us.
They existed. They existed.
We can be. Be and be
better. For they existed.


Some sources
* Wikipedia for RBG biography; NYT and Washington Post obituaries.
* http://www.oyez.org/justices/ruth_bader_ginsburg
* https://www.scotusblog.com/2021/03/senate-judiciary-holds-hearing-on-dark-money-and-supreme-court/

Here's an option under consideration. I think it's time.