RUTH BADER GINSBURG was born in Brooklyn, New York, on March 15, 1933. She received her B.A. from Cornell University, attended Harvard Law School, and received her LL.B from Columbia Law School. Ginsburg served as a law clerk to Judge Edmund L. Palmieri of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York from 1959-1961. She then became associate director of a comparative law project sponsored by Columbia University which required her to study the Swedish legal system. In 1963 Ginsburg joined the faculty of Rutgers Law School in Newark, New Jersey. In 1972 she was hired by Columbia Law School, where she taught until 1980. Ginsburg served as a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences in Stanford, California from 1977-1978. In the 1970s Ginsburg litigated sex discrimination cases for the American Civil Liberties Union, and was instrumental in launching its Women’s Rights Project in 1973. She served as general counsel of the ACLU from 1973-1980 and on the National Board of Directors from 1974-1980. President Jimmy Carter appointed Ginsburg to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in 1980. On June 14, 1993 Ginsburg accepted President Bill Clinton’s nomination to the Supreme Court and took her seat on August 10, 1993.

Image Credit: Collection of the Supreme Court of the United States, Photographer: Steve Petteway