A Eulogy for Ruth Bader Ginsburg

By Gabrielle Grosbety, Staff Writer

Venerable Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who was the second woman to serve on the Supreme Court and who also spearheaded the fundamental fight for women’s rights and equality, died at age 87 from complications of metastatic pancreatic cancer in her home in Washington, D.C.

Ginsburg, who served faithfully on the Court for 27 years, encouraged us to go after our hopes, dreams, and aspirations with a fiery passion and refusal to back down, even when the odds were stacked against us. She stood out as one of the sole women in her field and will forever be remembered as a dissenting light shining out in the darkness of the injustice that preceded her and haunts our history to this day. She was endlessly willing to fight for what was right, even before it was popular or normalized, resulting in a substantial capacity for progressive action in our political landscape.

Change is born from women like Ginsburg, who give us eye-opening insight into the idea that we always have the capacity to grow and unfailingly stand by our principles. As someone who attends Bryn Mawr, a historically women’s college, Ginsburg is the reason I feel emboldened to continually find ways of thriving in my own identity and making my own impact, no matter how large or small.

As women, we must find ways to come together and support one another and build bridges stronger than the troubled waters that comprise our uncertain future. We must vote to enact change in the spirit of Ginsburg, who would want us showing up with a fervor incapable of being quashed. We should also hold steadfast to the belief that our equality doesn’t rely on excluding well-meaning men, but rather on including them as allies in our continued endeavor to build a world which involves us all equally.

What is deeply sad, though, is that we can’t wholly grieve a maverick as filled with the utmost integrity and deep-seated care for people as Ginsburg was without politicizing her death. As her death is inextricably linked with the future of our democracy. With that said, however, I yearn for this moment to be about remembering Ginsburg for the good-willed individual she was, while also acknowledging the reality at hand in a healthy dose.

We must not forget that it was Ginsburg’s deepest wish that she not be replaced on the Supreme Court until the next president was inaugurated and confirmed, which invites us into her sense of personhood and mind with a claimed sense of warm last intimacy. I hope her final plea won’t be forgotten while those like Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell seek to push through the next Supreme Court nominee, Amy Coney Barrett, as rapidly as possible. Such an act would stand in stark contrast to the treatment of Merrick Garland’s nomination, and would be gravely disrespectful to Ginsburg’s memory. She deserves more dignity than that, and the appropriate time to be grieved.

Ginsburg deserves the chance to be honored reverently and with a passion as great as the one she brought to everything she did. One way of doing so would be for us all to trek forth and act with kindness of spirit, generosity of heart, and capability of intellect on the road ahead. It is my greatest hope that we follow the legacy she dutifully laid out for us with the kind of precision characteristic of her, and continue to work to rebuild the fundamentals of who we are as a nation. It is imperative that we rally to recover our world from the ways that it has been cataclysmically affected on account of the assault on sense of truth, fact, and reason. We must persist, as it remains up to us to carry on with fortitude in the revolution of our choices. While Ginsburg will be missed with a lasting poignancy, we are forever stronger for all the ways she fought in her personal and professional battles, indelibly changed our perception of equality, justice, and governance, and implanted in us the idea that our own actions can be some of the most ineffably valuable.

Image credit: Wikipedia