AFRICA
Supreme Court Says Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is Out of the Hospital
On Friday, Justice Ginsburg had surgery for the removal of two malignant growths from her left lung in Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center of New York. The Justice was discharged on Christmas Day and is recovering at home per an email to press from court spokeswoman, Kathy Arberg. Doctors say all traces of the cancer were extracted so nothing remains.
Justice Ginsburg is 85 years old and was treated for cancer two other previous times. In 2009, she lived through pancreatic cancer and endured extensive treatment for colon cancer in 1999. Last month, she took a fall and cracked three ribs. It was during an examination of her fractured ribs that the cancerous nodules were discovered by chance.
In spite of health complications, Justice Ginsburg works as hard as ever, never absent from any arguments. Justices return to work on January 4. Their next meeting for the Supreme Court is scheduled for January 7.
The pop culture and liberal progressive icon, Justice Ginsburg, marked 25 years on the bench as of this year. Back in August, Justice Ginsburg said she’ll stay on for at least five more years following the example of a senior colleague, Justice John Paul Stevens, who stepped down at 90.
As portrayed in On the Basis of Sex, a recently released biographical film on Justice Ginsburg’s early days studying law, Justice Ginsburg’s first victory was in 1971 for a case called Reed v. Reed when the father, rather than the mother, was initially chosen to take charge of a deceased son’s estate for being male. This case pertained to equal protection under the law with the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. The worth of the estate totaled no more than $1000. Justice Ginsburg was aware she had to start with cases involving smaller amounts.
In Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company, Lily Ledbetter worked for Goodyear over the course of 19 years. She found out she was getting paid hundreds less than the lowest male coworker every month. She sued Goodyear and the statute of limitations, coupled with the split decision in her case, led to Ledbetter’s loss but Justice Ginsburg voiced her resent in her succinct but scathing opinion. She passed the baton of overcoming sex-based wage discrimination to Congress. In 2009, Congress voted for the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act under the Obama administration, extending the statute of limitations and bettering pay conditions for generations of women.
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