[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 163 (Monday, September 21, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Page S5721]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                REMEMBERING JUSTICE RUTH BADER GINSBURG

  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, in the Jewish tradition, only a person of 
great righteousness dies at the end of the year, near Rosh Hashanah, 
because God determined that they were needed until the very end. On 
Friday evening, shortly after the sundown on the eve of the Jewish New 
Year, we learned that Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg--a 
woman of great righteousness, a woman of valor--passed away.
  She was many things to many people: a brilliant mind, a quick wit, a 
lover of the opera, a friend, a colleague, a workout guru, a feminist 
icon. She might be the only Supreme Court Justice to become a meme. 
What began as a joke, ``the Notorious RBG''--likening a legendary 
rapper to an octogenarian jurist--struck a chord of deep resonance in 
American society because Ruth Bader Ginsburg was, in fact, a rebellious 
force to be reckoned with.
  In a male-dominated legal establishment that wasn't waiting for 
someone like Ruth to shake up the system, she elbowed her way through. 
Her brains, her strength, her fortitude changed the world for women 
long before the rest of the world caught up.
  Over the course of two decades, as an academic and general counsel 
for the ACLU, Ruth worked to challenge the foundations of the legal 
system that had long treated women as a group that had to be 
``protected''--and thus excluded--from full participation in American 
life. Not only did she reverse those laws and convince the majority of 
the Supreme Court that the Constitution forbids discrimination on the 
basis of sex, she was a living, breathing example of how absurd an idea 
it ever was that women needed additional protections.
  And when she got to the Court, she ruled in a manner that brought the 
same equality and justice to so many different people, from all walks 
of life.
  The daughter of Russian immigrants who came to this country like my 
own grandparents, Ruth went to the same high school as I did in 
Brooklyn, NY--James Madison High School--two decades before I did. I 
followed her career and her ascent to the bench with that special pride 
you feel watching someone from your neighborhood make a great 
difference in the world. The fact that at the end of her long life and 
illustrious career, young women, and indeed young men across America, 
looked at Ruth Bader Ginsburg with the same sense of pride and hope and 
sometimes adoration, gives me great hope.
  May she forever rest in peace.

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