The Notorious R.B.G. Speaks: ‘Fight For The Things That You Care About’

Last month US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg a.k.a. the Notorious R.B.G. was awarded the Radcliffe Medal from Harvard’s Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study and she had some things to say to the young ladies out there.

It might be hard for us to imagine a time where, say, women serving on a jury would be an option, but not a necessity as a female citizen of the United States. But as recently as the 1970’s, that was exactly the case. “Young women today have a great advantage, and it is that there are no more closed doors. That was basically what the ’70s was all about. Opening doors that had been closed to women,” Ginsburg explained. And oh, open doors she did. Before being appointed to the bench by President Bill Clinton in 1993, Ginsburg was a law professor, co-founder of the Women’s Rights Project at the American Civil Liberties Union, and an advocate for Smart Girls everywhere.

She even successfully challenged the status quo in 1979 by making sure that women’s involvement on juries would no longer be volunteer only. Because, according to Ginsburg, “A law that says ‘women aren’t on our juries unless they volunteer’ is saying that women are expendable; we don’t need them.” So be sure to thank her the next time you, your sister, or your mom is summoned. All kidding aside, the legal victory is just one example of Ginsburg seeing an injustice and using the legal system to doing something about it.

Since there has been general progress for women over the last few decades, the Supreme Court Justice’s message to young girls living in 2015 was simple yet powerful: “Fight for the things that you care about, but do it in a way that will lead others to join you,” which is something we try to encourage Smart Girls to do in big and small ways.

What are some ways that you’ve invited your peers to join you to make a difference? Tell us about ’em in the comments section!

HT: Harvard Gazette
Image Credit: Public Domain