Ruth Bader Ginsburg (March 15, 1933 – September 18, 2020) was an American lawyer and jurist who served as an
associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1993 until her death in 2020. She was nominated to the
Supreme Court by President
Bill Clinton to replace retiring justice
Byron White, and at the time was generally viewed as a moderate consensus-builder. She eventually became part of the liberal
wing of the Supreme Court as the Court shifted to the right over time. Ginsburg was the first Jewish woman and the second woman to serve on the Supreme Court, after
Sandra Day O'Connor. During her tenure, Ginsburg wrote notable majority opinions, including
United States v. Virginia (1996),
Olmstead v. L.C. (1999),
Friends of the Earth, Inc. v. Laidlaw Environmental Services, Inc. (2000), and
City of Sherrill v. Oneida Indian Nation of New York (2005). This official photographic portrait of Ginsburg was taken by Supreme Court photographer Steve Petteway in 2016.
Photograph credit: Steve Petteway