You Don’t Have To Agree With Someone’s Beliefs To Recognize Their Accomplishments.

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died last Friday after a battle with pancreatic cancer, leaving behind family, friends and colleagues who loved her, and an amazing legacy on and off the bench.

When I heard the news from my brother, I, like millions of others, was left in a state of shock. I mean, how could someone as impactful and iconic as RBG be gone in an instant?

Admist the well wishes and condolences, I noticed that there were many who were so quick to vilify her because her stances on certain issues didn’t mirror theirs. It saddened me & reminded me that in our current state as a world, we are losing the art of common decency & empathy.

I believe that you don’t have to agree with every single position/stance a person makes to properly honor their life. Since when did one’s value become measured by their political beliefs?

I will be one to admit that I don’t think RBG had the perfect voting record and I didn’t always see eye to eye with her, but I choose now to let my personal opinions cloud my empathetic nature. Instead, I choose to remember a person who dedicated her life to fighting for the rights of others.

To quote RBG: “You can disagree without being disagreeable.”

With that being said, here are a few things I admire about the late Justice Ginsburg:

1.) She fought for the rights of women.

Justice Ginsburg will best be remembered as a champion for women & gender equality. She has solidified her place amon other women's rights champions and became a feminist icon. Before becoming a Supreme Court Justice, Ginsburg co-founded and became the director of the Women's Rights Project at the American Civil Liberties Union, or the ACLU. During that tim, she argued six gender equality cases and won five of them. She helped secure basic rights that women in the United States enjoy today, like applying to open a bank account without a male co-signer and not being fired from your job for being pregnant.

2.) Her friendship with Antonin Scalia

Justice Ginsburg, who was one of the court’s most liberal justices, was good friends with Justice Antonin Scalia, who was a conservative on the Court. Their friendship, in my opinion, can serve as a model to us during the current political state of our nation. Ginsburg and Scalia show the world that you can disagree with someone politically and still be friends.

3.) Her grit & determination

Justice Ginsburg’s journey to the Supreme Court wasn’t an easy one, or one she even thought was possible. I listened to a podcast the other day where Ginsburg explained her life & career and she said that become a Supreme Court Justice or a judge in general never crossed her mind until she saw women being appointed to lower courts.

Upon graduating law school, Ginsburg faced gender discrimination of her own. It was tough for her to get clerkship opportunities, despite graduating at the top of her class, simply because she was a woman. She went on to become a law professor at Rutgers, where she faced gender pay discrimination (Ginsburg and some of her female colleagues sued the university and won). The list demonstrating her grit & determination goes on and on.

Justice Ginsburg may have been tiny & soft-spoken, but in many ways, she was a giant. Rest well, RBG.