By Keaton Rahman

Established in 1789, the United States Supreme Court is the highest federal court in the United States. In 281 years, there have been 112 justices on the Supreme Court, and only five of them have been women: Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Sandra Day O’Connor, and the newest US Supreme Court Justice, Amy Coney Barrett. Each of these women have changed the way women are regarded in the working world and in the legal community, along with making significant advancements for women’s rights. Whether it’s affirmative action, gender discrimination, abortion, or LGBTQ+ rights, the women on the Court have used their voices in order to fight for what they believe.

Justice Sandra Day O’Connor Photo credit: Kingkongphoto.

The first woman on the court, O’Connor dedicated her entire life to fighting for women. Born on March 26, 1930, O’Connor had limited education options growing up, as women’s education was not considered as important as men’s. Raised on her family’s ranch in Arizona, O’Connor was deemed intelligent from a young age, and in order to get her a proper education, her parents sent her to live with her grandmother in El Paso, Texas. There, O’Connor attended the Radford School for Girls, graduating high school two years early. She then went on to attend Stanford University at age 16. Moving on to Stanford Law, O’Connor graduated third in her class after completing law school in only two years instead of the normal three, but O’Connor, “struggled to find employment in the legal field due to a heavy bias against women as attorneys.” Although she was disregarded constantly because of her gender, she never gave up in her fight for equality. In 1973, while in the Arizona State Senate, O’Connor became the first female majority leader in any state senate. 

In 1981, after being nominated by President Ronald Reagan and being unanimously approved by the US Senate (something that rarely happens anymore), O’Connor took her seat as the first woman on the US Supreme Court. Originally a Republican with generally conservative views, her votes became inconsistent during her time on the court, and she was considered a swing voter in many cases. Her stance on abortion led her to be the deciding vote in Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992), a case reaffirming Roe v. Wade (1973), which kept abortion a legal procedure protected by the Constitution. According to attorney Alex McBride, “Casey v. Planned Parenthood, though less famous than Roe v. Wade, is actually a more important case.” Not only did O’Connor fight for women’s rights, she also fought for racial equality and rights for minorities. Because of O’Connor, women finally had someone to represent them on the Supreme Court.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s official portrait in 2016. Photo courtesy of the Supreme Court of the United States.

Following O’Connor, the second woman on the Court, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, battled injustices against women, starting with those in her own life before arriving at the Supreme Court. Labeling Ginsberg a feminist icon does not do her justice. Ginsberg was constantly looked down upon because of her gender, her stature, and her religion, but she never let it deter her from goals. Through raising a family, caring for her husband with cancer, which included “keeping her sick husband up-to-date with his studies while maintaining her own position at the top of the class,” Ginsberg never allowed her personal struggles to affect her academic goals in any way. Ginsberg was one of only nine females in her 500-person Harvard Law class, and she was constantly berated for “taking a man’s spot at Harvard Law.” After her husband’s recovery, Ginsberg moved to New York to complete her law education at Columbia University, finishing at the top of her class. 

After law school, Ginsberg struggled finding work, and it wasn’t until, “a favorite Columbia professor explicitly refused to recommend any other graduates before U.S. District Judge Edmund L. Palmieri hired Ginsburg as a clerk.” After clerking under Palmieri for two years, Ginsberg was offered other positions at different law firms, but the pay was always less than her male counterparts. 

Ginsberg began her fight for women’s rights when she directed the “Women’s Rights Project of the American Civil Liberties Union” in the 1970s. During this time, she took six landmark cases to the Supreme Court and made it her goal to argue against gender discrimination. Ginsberg went on to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals for 13 years until President Bill Clinton nominated her for Supreme Court Justice in 1993. 

On the court, Ginsberg continued to make an impact in the fight against gender discrimination. She was consistently considered a moderate liberal. One of her most well-known and impactful cases, United States v. Virginia (1996), challenged the policy that only men were allowed to attend the Virginia Military Institute (VMI) in Lexington. Ginsberg wrote the majority ruling, stating that, “Women seeking and fit for a VMI-quality education cannot be offered anything less, under the Commonwealth’s obligation to afford them genuinely equal protection.” This ruling opened up more opportunities for women to pursue educational opportunities that previously were only available to males. United States v. Virginia abolished the last two state-funded schools only available to men. They were, “forced to admit women or forego state funding.” 

In 2015, Ginsberg’s vote contributed to legalizing same-sex marriage in every state in Obergefell v. Hodges, further proving her opposition to discrimination. 

Up until her recent death in September, Ginsberg never missed oral arguments, no matter the circumstances. She worked out constantly, and she could lift more than some of the men on the Court. She continued to be a powerhouse on the Court, even through chemotherapy for pancreatic cancer, surgery for colon cancer, and her husband’s death. Ginsberg committed her life to fighting for gender equality, and she will be remembered as one of the greatest in the legal world for many years to come.  

Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Photo credit: Stacey Ilyse.

Truly living the “American Dream” is Sonia Sotomayor. Sotomayor was born in The Bronx, NY, to two native Puerto Ricans who both worked long schedules to make ends meet. When Sotomayor’s father passed away in 1953, her mother picked up even more nursing shifts, leaving Sotomayor to make her own way without many of the benefits of parental guidance. She taught herself how to speak English fluently and, with the goal of a legal profession in mind, graduated as the valedictorian of her high school class in 1972. She went on to earn a scholarship to Princeton, where she graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa. Post-Princeton, Sotomayor attended Yale Law and was editor of the Yale Law Journal. After working at “almost every level of our judicial system,” as well as working in private practice, Sotomayor got the nomination for United States District Court for the Southern District of New York by President George H.W. Bush in 1991. She was the youngest juror on the court, and during her time there she “presided over roughly 450 cases.” While on the USDC SDNY, she became most well known for being the judge who ended the Major League baseball strike in 1995, which had been the “longest work stoppage in professional sports history and had caused the cancellation of the World Series the previous fall.”

Six years later, Sotomayor was promoted to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit by Clinton. Through her success on this court, Sotomayor was nominated by President Barack Obama for the position of Supreme Court Justice in 2009, and she is the third woman on the Supreme Court and the first Hispanic. Her political leanings to the left are commonly known and have stayed consistent throughout her time on the court. Sotomayor is strongly in favor of affirmative action programs, which assist minorities in gaining equal opportunity into the workplace and the educational arenas, and she has made it her mission to assist minorities as much as she can.  

She stayed firm in this belief when she wrote her dissent, or opinion against the majority, in Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action (2014). This case was to determine whether, “an amendment to Michigan’s constitution that prohibits state universities from considering race as part of its admissions process does not violate the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause.” The case ended with a 6-2 majority vote that the amendment was constitutional. The majority opinion argued that because race was no longer being considered, “it provides equal protection under the law.” Sotomayor disagreed, and along with Ginsberg, dissented from the majority. She argued, “the democratic process does not provide sufficient protection against the oppression of minority groups, and that the Equal Protection Clause was intended for this purpose.” Sotomayor remains a voice for the groups that are underrepresented in our society. 

Justice Elena Kagan. Photo credit: Doc Searls.

Next onto the court, Elena Kagan was born in New York City to an elementary school teacher and a housing attorney. Kagan acquired an interest in law and academics from an early age. After graduating from Hunter College High School in NYC, Kagan attended Princeton University for her undergraduate degree. She graduated Princeton summa cum laude and with a major in history, and then went to Worcester College in Oxford, England and earned her master’s degree in philosophy. From there, she attended Harvard Law School and graduated magna cum laude. After earning her law degree, Kagan spent time at many different jobs in the legal industry, such as clerking for judges like former US Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall and becoming a professor at her alma mater, Harvard. She ended up becoming the dean of Harvard Law School in 2003. She was dean for five years until President Obama nominated Kagan to be the first female Solicitor General. The Senate approved the nomination in 2009, and just a year later, Obama nominated Kagan for the position of Supreme Court Justice. 

Kagan began her time on the Supreme Court as the “youngest sitting justice and the only sitting justice with no prior judicial experience.” This led to her taking a more realistic and logical approach to her cases. For the first time in history, there were three women sitting on the Supreme Court bench. On the Court, Kagan maintains a fairly low profile to the public eye. In 2018, “A C-span poll asked respondents to name a sitting Supreme Court Justice, and only four per cent mentioned Kagan, putting her just ahead of Samuel Alito (three per cent) and [Stephen] Breyer (two per cent).” Unlike the female justices before her, Kagan uses her voice in a different way. She words extremely persuasive arguments in her attempts to use rationale to sway other justices’ decisions. 

Though she isn’t as outspoken as the other female justices on the court, her calculated opinions and decisions have garnered her respect and demonstrate a new role women can play on the court.  

Justice Amy Coney Barrett. Photo credit: Rachel Malehorn.

The most recent addition to the Supreme Court under outgoing President Donald Trump is Amy Coney Barrett. Sworn in on October 27, Barrett is now the fifth woman on the Supreme Court. Born and raised in Louisiana, Barrett attended St. Mary’s Dominican High School for girls in New Orleans, moving on to Rhodes College, where she graduated with honors, and finally attended Notre Dame Law School graduating summa cum laude. After a brief period of law practice, Barrett then spent 15 years teaching at Notre Dame. During that time, Barrett married Jesse Barrett, and together they have seven children, two of which are adopted and one who has Down syndrome.

In May 2017, President Trump nominated Barrett for, “a seat on U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, which covers Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin.” There, Barrett demonstrated her conservative opinions on topics such as abortion, Second Amendment rights, immigration, and the Affordable Care Act. After serving on the Court of Appeals for three years, President Trump nominated Barrett for the position of Supreme Court Justice on September 26, shortly after Ginsberg’s passing.

Her nomination sparked heated debate, as the Democratic party argued that Barrett’s nomination was, “a sham and hypocritical confirmation process so close to the Nov. 3 elections that will determine control of the White House and the Senate.” It was called hypocritical because in Obama’s final year of presidency, eight months prior to the 2016 election, Obama attempted to nominate Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court after the passing of Judge Antonin Scalia a month before. US Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) denied Obama’s nomination, claiming that it was too close to the election for him to be allowed to nominate another candidate. The US Senate under McConnell approved Barrett, however, just a month prior to the 2020 election. 

Barrett entering the Court marks her as the first justice who is a mother to school-aged children, and she will be the only current justice who doesn’t have a law degree from Harvard or Yale. At 48 years old, Barrett will be the youngest sitting justice on the court. Her strong will and belief in her ideas will impact the Court in many ways, and she will influence the Court for generations to come. Barrett has expressed her opposition to abortion, and many believe that she will be a factor in future Supreme Court decisions that could impact Roe v. Wade. 

Women on the Supreme Court were, until recently, rare. During O’Connor and Ginsberg’s time on the Court, they had to justify why they needed a bathroom near their chambers. Though sexual discrimination has decreased throughout the years, female justices still get interrupted more frequently than their male counterparts, and their personal lives get picked apart and focused on more than their ability to be a fair justice during confirmation hearings. They are judged if they are married, if they aren’t married, if they have kids, or if they don’t. Though it has nothing to do with their intelligence level or their body of work, it is an example of how women, not only on the Supreme Court but in all professions, have their personal lives analyzed and scrutinized more than men when up for the same jobs. 

Women are needed for a more diverse viewpoint on issues in courts, politics, and in the public sphere. Without women on the Supreme Court, there is no one to advocate for women as a whole, and decisions about things such as women’s bodies are left up to men. The five women who have been or are on the Supreme Court have introduced new opportunities for women and reinforced the norm of women in high-powered jobs. But there is still work to do. When asked once how many female justices will be enough, Ruth Bader Ginsberg replied, “When there are nine.”

Featured Image photo credit: Joe Ravi.