Ruth Bader Ginsburg, one of, if not the strongest woman in the United States government, died Sept. 18, 2020. She was 87 years old. Her time as a Supreme Court Justice was spent fighting for women’s rights and gender equality, and Ginsburg was someone that many women, young and old, looked up to as a strong individual who they could rely on to get the message across that women deserve better. 

Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. in a press release issued by the Supreme Court, said of Justice Ginsburg, “Our Nation has lost a jurist of historic stature. We at the Supreme Court have lost a cherished colleague. Today we mourn, but with confidence that future generations will remember Ruth Bader Ginsburg as we knew her — a tireless and resolute champion of justice.” 

She was appointed as a Justice by President Bill Clinton in 1993, becoming the second woman in the Supreme Court, the first being Sandra Day O’Connor. She served 27 years in the Supreme Court, where she argued tirelessly for women’s rights and inspired many forms of change in the United States, including the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which was signed into law by President Barack Obama in 2009, making it easier for employees to win pay discrimination claims. 

Her most known achievement on fighting gender discrimination came with her writing of the court’s opinion in United States v. Virginia 1996, which abolished the male-only admissions policy for the Virginia Military Institute, ruling it was a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th amendment. In Ledbetter v. Goodyear in 2007, a case in which Lilly Ledbetter filed a lawsuit against her employer for pay discrimination based on gender, the vote came out 5-4, stating that the statute of limitations starts to run at the time of every pay period, even if a woman did not know she was being paid less than her male co-worker until later. The result was absurd to Ginsburg, she was adamant in calling out the many problems with the reasoning, including that women often don’t know they are being paid less until after they receive their paycheck. She called on Congress to amend Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and thus undo the court’s decision. After the election of President Obama, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act became part of the nation’s law, with Ginsburg being credited with helping create it. Her efforts in supporting abortion rights, equal pay, and striking down any form of gender discrimination will continue even after her death because of the influence she had on so many people, especially women. 

The day of her funeral, Rabbi Holzblatt, whose husband clerked for Justice Ginsburg from 2014 to 2015, spoke to the New York Times stating that R.B.G. “did not arrive like a lightning bolt, but rather through dogged persistence, all the days of her life…Real change, she said, enduring change, happens one step at a time.”

With her death, however, political battles have been ignited again. According to NPR, a few days before her death, Ginsburg told her granddaughter, Clara Spera, “My most fervent wish is that I will not be replaced until a new president is installed.” Without her, President Trump can appoint yet another conservative to the Supreme Court, shifting the balance in the court to six to three. This would also allow more cases that the Republicans bring to the court to go through, including possibly the challenge against the Affordable Care Act that includes Obamacare. 

Ironically, the incident displays the blatant hypocrisy that exists on both sides of the aisle. After the death of Justice Antonin Scalia in 2016, President Obama attempted to appoint Merrick Garland to the court, but Republicans successfully stonewalled the appointment and argued that a president should not be allowed to appoint a new Superior Court Justice so close to an election. Today, both parties have gone back on their statement because one of their own is in office and they are both saying the opposite of what they argued just four years ago. This is hypocrisy at its finest, which we can expect from the US government as of late.

As a result, one of Ginsburg’s last wishes is being completely ignored for the selfish benefit of others, and there’s nothing she can do about it. While Trump and the republicans wish to replace her as quickly as possible, what they are likely to find out is that Justice Ginsburg’s shoes are next to impossible to fill.