Lehman Students Fear the Impact of Justice Ginsburg’s Death
(Photo Credit: Sebastian Kim / August)
By Rebekah Gamble
The death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Sept. 18 devastated many Americans. For Lehman students, 68 percent of whom are female, the news caused a wave of uncertainty regarding the future of gender equality.
Samantha Didonato, a Lehman junior majoring in Anthropology, Chemistry, and Biology and a visible advocate against racial discrimination and for LGBTQ rights, cringed at the thought of what a more conservative supreme court could do to the country. “As a woman, I have the right to get an abortion right now if I felt it was necessary for me,” she said. “I think that if we have a Conservative appointed to the Supreme Court, I will likely lose that right.”
At stake with Ginsburg’s newly confirmed replacement, Justice Amy Coney Barrett, is the ability for a woman to exercise her right to an abortion. With the Supreme Court already leaning to the right with a 5-4 conservative to liberal vote, a sixth conservative justice can set back progressive change decades at a time. With conservatives in power, a woman’s right to choose an abortion could become illegal, and this could increase the number of children born in the US without tackling poverty and the lack of educational resources that are prominent in minority communities.
As an advocate for equal rights, the “Notorious RBG” was known throughout her career for her fiery dissents and powerful opinions. She did not hesitate to speak up for both men and women.
In the 1973 court case of Frontiero vs. Richardson, she became an outspoken leader against discrimination based on sex in the workplace. Before the determination that this violated the Fifth Amendment, the right to due process, women were not allowed the same benefits as men, and they could not report violations to their male supervisors.
In the 1975 case Weinberger vs. Wiesenfeld, Ginsburg fought for the rights of a father who lost his wife and needed social security benefits. When he went to apply for the benefits typically granted to widows, he was denied on the basis that he was male. According to The New York Times, “although he was caring for his child in an identical situation as a widow would be, [the benefits] were payable only to women and not to men.”
Through this case, Ginsburg sought a world where sex was not a reason to deny someone the right to an opportunity-filled life. During her tenure on the Supreme Court, the Affordable Care Act was challenged but never defeated.
Jean-Luc Thomas, a computer science junior at Lehman, said: “I look forward to fatherhood in the future, and I would feel more comfortable knowing that this country would support my child and me. I want paternal rights, and if the new nominee is the opposite of Ginsburg, we’ll all be in for hell.”
Some Lehman faculty reflected on how Ginsburg’s career paved the way for future generations, one court decision at a time.
Political Science Professor Ira Bloom stated, “Both as a litigator and later as a judge and then a Justice of the United States Supreme Court, she was one of the people at the forefront of expanding the scope of opportunities available to many of the people in succeeding generations.”
