Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Submission 28,082

About

Ruth Bader Ginsburg is a Supreme Court Justice of the United States. Ginsburg is well known for her progressive positions, as well as having a straightforward way of expressing herself and her opinions. Online, Ginsburg is also respected and regarded as a pop culture icon by many feminists and progressives.

History

Ruth Bader Ginsburg was born in Brooklyn, NY in 1933. She was educated at Cornell, Harvard, and Columbia, and worked as a law clerk for other judges, a professor of law, the general counsel for the ACLU, and the editor of law journals before becoming a judge herself by appointment by Jimmy Carter in 1980. In 1993, she was nominated for the Supreme Court of the United States by President Bill Clinton, and she was confirmed by a 93 to 6 vote of the Senate. She is the second female Supreme Court Justice and the first Jewish female Justice.^[1]

During her career as a Justice, Ginsburg has written many famous opinions, including most recently the dissent in the Burwell v. Hobby Lobby decision of 2014 and the dissent in the Bush v. Gore decision of 2000, which famously ruled that the recount of Florida's votes should cease and that George W. Bush could become President without it.

Health

Fall Injury

On November 8th, 2018, the Associated Press reported that Bader Ginsburg fell in her office and fractured three ribs.^[8] She was hospitalized and the court-appointed Brett Kavanaugh without her present. The extent of the injuries is not known. In response to the news, liberals on Twitter expressed well wishes for the justice, with some going so far to hyperbolically offer their own ribs for her. These responses were covered by Daily Dot.^[9] The news gained over 24,000 points on Reddit's /r/news.^[10] Twitter also ran an Events^[11] page for the news.

Lung Cancer Surgery

While being treated for her fall, Ginsburg's doctors found an early state lunch cancer. On December 21st, 2018, Ruth Bader Ginsberg underwent a lobectomy to remove the cancer.^[12] Doctors removed "one of five lobes of the lung."

Ginserberg recovered quickly. Later that day, she cast a vote on the Trump administrations immigration policy, specifically for those seeing asylum at the border. According to reports, doctors expect her to make a full recovery.

Death Conspiracy Theory

On January 7th, 2019, about two weeks after her surgery, Ginsberg missed oral arguments at the Supreme Court for the first time in 25 years. Shortly after, the some began spreading conspiracy theories that Ginsberg was either dead or near death. On January 9th, one Voat user wrote, ^[13] "Again…..RBG IS DEAD (or in a veggie state)!! All of a sudden Cuomo and HRC demand Roe v Wade to be codified in the next 30 DAYS!! Running out of time???" The post received more than 3,100 views and 200 upvotes.

Others theorized that the "deep state," a shadow government that works against the interests of United States President Donald Trump, was hiding her death until an opportune moment. For example, Twitter user @EllaaaCruzzz tweeted,^[14] "Ruth Bader Ginsburg is leaving. That is a fact. The question is: When will they put her to sleep?
And when will they use her death to distract people from a major truth bomb? If Comey/Mueller or anything related to FISA is about to come out, then she will be announced dead." The tweet received more than 240 retweets and 450 likes in two weeks (shown below).

Fox and Friends Accidental Death Announcement

On January 21st, 2019, the Fox News morning talk show Fox and Friends aired a graphic that reported that Ginsburg had died.^[15]

Following the airing of the graphic, Fox and Friends-host Steve Ducey apologized for the mistake. "We need to apologize […] A technical error in the control room triggered a graphic of RBG with a date on it. We don’t want to make it seem anything other than that was a mistake. That was an accident."

That day, YouTuber newshounds posted a video of the graphic and the apology. The post received more than 10,000 views in 24 hours (shown below).

Online History

Justices of the Supreme Court do not maintain online presences of their own, however, there is evidence online of a fandom of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. For instance, an algorithmically-generated Facebook page for the Justice has over 23,000 likes as of November 2015,^[2] and in the month of October 4th 2015-November 4th, 2015, there were over 6,000 mentions of the Justice on Twitter.^[3] There are over 3,000 posts using the hashtag #ruthbaderginsburg on Instagram^[4] and there are over 10,000 videos mentioning or featuring the Justice in some way on YouTube.^[5] In addition, the social justice fan blog Notorious R.B.G. (see below) has acquired a substantial following.

Notorious R.B.G.

Notorious R.B.G. is a social justice blog depicting U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg as a "badass," gangster-like figure. The trend has spawned a variety of image macros, paraphernalia, and books.

Dissent of Burwell v. Hobby Lobby

Burwell v. Hobby Lobby is a United States Supreme Court case between the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Sylvia Burwell and Oklahoma-based arts and crafts store chain Hobby Lobby which examined whether closely held private corporations are required to cover the costs of contraception for female employees as part of the health care coverage mandated under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. In June 2014, the case became a heated topic of bipartisan debate in the social media after the Supreme Court ruled that family-owned corporations are exempt from such regulations under the protection of the U.S. Constitution and federal laws concerning religious freedom. Ginsburg wrote a famous and much-quoted dissent of the decision, for which she was lauded by progressives and women's rights advocates, some of whom created widely-disseminated fan art.

Sleeping at the State of the Union

On two occasions, in 2010 and 2015, Ginsburg has been photographed napping at the President's yearly State of the Union address. In 2015, Ginsburg was asked about whether or not she had fallen asleep, and she admitted that before the speech, she and the other justices had gone out for "dinner and drinks" and that she was not "100% sober" during the proceedings. The incident was covered in many major publications, including USA Today^[6] and Politico.^[7]