fbpx

KidsKonnect

Ruth Bader Ginsburg Facts & Worksheets

Ruth Bader Ginsburg was an American lawyer who became the second woman and the first Jewish woman to serve on the United States Supreme Court.

Search for Worksheets

Worksheets /People /Ruth Bader Ginsburg Facts & Worksheets
Premium
Not ready to purchase a subscription? Click to download the free sample version   Download sample

Ruth Bader Ginsburg was an American lawyer who became the second woman to serve on the Supreme Court. From 1993 until her passing in 2020, she worked as an associate justice of the United States Supreme Court. She also made history as the first Jewish woman to serve on the United States Supreme Court.

See the fact file below for more information on Ruth Bader Ginsburg, or you can download our 25-page Ruth Bader Ginsburg worksheet pack to utilize within the classroom or home environment.

Key Facts & Information

EARLY LIFE AND FAMILY

  • Ruth Bader Ginsburg was born Joan Ruth Bader on March 15, 1933, in Brooklyn, New York.
  • She was born the second and youngest daughter to Nathan Bader, a Jewish emigrant from Odessa, Ukraine, and Celia Bader (née Amster), a New York native born to Jewish parents who came from Kraków, Poland.
  • When Ruth was 14 months old, her older sister Marylin died at age six due to meningitis.
  • Ruth’s father worked as a fur merchant during the Great Depression.
  • Growing up in an observant Jewish family, Ruth was involved in Jewish activities and traditions.

EDUCATION

  • Ruth’s mother, Celia put a premium on education, which is why starting at a young age, Ruth developed a love for learning.
  • When Ruth first entered school, there were multiple girls named Joan in her class, which is why her mother suggested that her teacher call her by her second name instead of Joan.
  • She attended James Madison High School in Brooklyn, where she excelled academically and became involved in student activities.
  • It was also during Ruth’s time in high school that her mother battled cancer.
  • Her mother died just days before Ruth’s high school graduation.
  • Ruth matriculated at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, where she graduated as a top student and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in government in 1954.
  • In Cornell, she met her would-be husband, Martin D. Ginsburg.
  • Ruth took a step closer to her goal of becoming a lawyer when she matriculated at Harvard Law School in the fall of 1956.
  • She was one of only nine women in a class of around 500 men.
  • Ruth’s third year in law school coincided with her husband taking a job in New York City, so she requested to complete her third year towards a Harvard law degree at Columbia Law School.
  • Erwin Griswold, the dean of Harvard Law, turned down her request, so Ruth transferred to Columbia Law instead.
  • In 1959, she obtained her law degree at Columbia and was tied for being the highest-ranking student in her class.
  • She also became the first woman in the Harvard Law Review and Columbia Law Review. 

EARLY CAREER

  • Despite Ruth’s extraordinary academic background, she faced gender discrimination in the workplace, which was not an uncommon social issue in the 1960s.
  • Following her graduation, Ruth initially struggled to find a job.
  • It was not until she was hired as a clerk for U.S. District Judge Edmund L. Palmieri that she set herself up in the law circuit. 
  • She worked for Palmieri for two years, from 1959 to 1961.
  • She was offered jobs in law firms but with lower wages than her male peers.
  • Instead of accepting those offers, she chose to work as associate director of Columbia Law School’s Project on International Procedure from 1962 to 1963.
  • While working for Columbia, she got immersed in studying Swedish civil procedure.
  • In 1963, she began working as a professor at Rutgers University Law School.
  • She earned tenure at Rutgers in 1969.
  • She left Rutgers in 1972 and accepted a job as a professor at Columbia.
  • At Columbia, she made history by becoming the first female professor to earn tenure.
  • In 1970, she became involved with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), specifically directing the organization’s Women’s Rights Project.

FIGHT AGAINST GENDER DISCRIMINATION

  • As the director of ACLU’s Women’s Right Projects, Ruth argued six landmark gender discrimination cases before the U.S. Supreme Court between 1973 and 1976. She won five of those cases.
  • During this time, she also contributed to many Supreme Court briefs that addressed gender discrimination. 

APPOINTMENT AND TENURE IN COURT

  • In 1980, President Jimmy Carter appointed Ruth to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.
  • She served there for thirteen years until President Bill Clinton nominated her as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court in 1993.
  • She assumed her new position as a Supreme Court Justice on August 10, 1993, making her the second woman to serve on the Supreme Court. 
  • Ruth continued to lead the fight against gender discrimination and advocated for women’s rights during her tenure at the Supreme Court.
  • She wrote the majority’s opinion in the United States v. Virginia case, ruling that the men-only admission policy of Virginia Military Institute violated the equal protection clause. 
  • She also criticized the court’s decision in the Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. case, which denied a female worker’s claim of being paid less than her male counterparts with the same qualifications.
  • She then worked with President Obama to pass the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009, the first-ever legislation he signed in office.

PERSONAL LIFE

  • Ruth married Martin Ginsburg a month after she graduated from Cornell.
  • The couple relocated to Fort Sill, Oklahoma, where Martin was stationed as a Reserve Officers’ Training Corps officer in the U.S. Army Reserve.
  • In 1955, she gave birth to their first child, Jane, after Martin was drafted for two years in the military.
  • Jane went on to become a professor at Columbia Law School. 
  • Upon Martin’s return from his military service, Ruth matriculated at Harvard Law.
  • She gave birth to their son, James Steven, in 1965.
  • Martin and Ruth went on to have four grandchildren.

HONOR AND LEGACY

  • In 2002, Ruth was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame.
  • She has been awarded honorary degrees from many universities, including Harvard, Princeton, and Columbia.
  • In 2015, she was named one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people.
  • She released her first book, “My Own Words,” in 2016.

CANCER DIAGNOSIS AND DEATH

  • At 87 years old, Ruth died on September 18, 2020, due to complications of pancreatic cancer.
  • She received her first colon cancer diagnosis in 1999, the first of her five bouts with the life-threatening disease.
  • Even while undergoing chemotherapy and treatment or right after undergoing surgery, Ruth did not miss a day on the bench.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg Worksheets

This is a fantastic bundle that includes everything you need to know about Ruth Bader Ginsburg across 25 in-depth pages. These are ready-to-use worksheets that are perfect for teaching kids about Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who was an American lawyer who became the second woman and the first Jewish woman to serve on the United States Supreme Court.

Complete List of Included Worksheets

Below is a list of all the worksheets included in this document.

  1. Ruth Bader Ginsburg Facts
  2. Color Me Correct
  3. All About Ruth
  4. Describing Ginsburg
  5. Sequence Of Events
  6. Name Association
  7. Acts For Equality
  8. About Reading
  9. Feminist Icons
  10. Take A Stand
  11. Guided Poem Writing

Link/cite this page

If you reference any of the content on this page on your own website, please use the code below to cite this page as the original source.

Link will appear as Ruth Bader Ginsburg Facts & Worksheets: https://kidskonnect.com - KidsKonnect, November 10, 2022

Use With Any Curriculum

These worksheets have been specifically designed for use with any international curriculum. You can use these worksheets as-is, or edit them using Google Slides to make them more specific to your own student ability levels and curriculum standards.

Related Resources