The Notorious RBG: Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the Cases That Changed a Nation

Before her days as a judge, Ruth Bader Ginsburg acted as general counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), where she argued over 300 gender discrimination cases—six before the Supreme Court—and co-founded the ACLU’s Women’s Rights Project. 

This course aims to introduce learners to a brilliant legal mind by taking them on a journey of legal reasoning, through the cases that strung together a civil rights movement, changing gender equality in America in enormous ways. 

The first class will introduce learners to RBG, and present the arguments and legal reasoning that led Ruth to win her first case of gender based discrimination at the federal appellate level, Moritz v. U.S.

The second class will focus on Reid v. Reid and Durren v. Missouri, where Mrs. Ginsburg wrote legal briefs and argued in front of the Supreme Court to apply the equal protection clause to gender. 

In the third class, learners will understand the legal strategy RBG employed during her advocacy days to not advocate simply on behalf of women, but to show that gender discrimination harms all of society - men and women alike. Frontiero v. Richardson and Craig v. Boren will be studied to illustrate this point.  

During the fourth class, we will turn to Justice Ginsburg and her time on the Supreme Court bench. Learners will study U.S. v. Virginia where Ginsburg penned the majority Supreme Court decision confirming gender equality as a Constitutional right.

The final case to be studied in this course will be in the fifth week. Learners will understand Ledbetter v. Goodyear, a case based on equal pay and gender discrimination, in which Justice Ginsburg  wrote a dissenting opinion, which provided the context of a Congressional change in legislation. 

In the sixth and seventh week, we will turn to recent cases before the Supreme Court and look at how RBG's sex discrimination cases apply before today's Supreme Court.  The Dobbs decision will be analyzed through the lens of RBG's case precedent and Skrmetti case will be analyzed.

In our final class we will reflect on the lawyers who served as role models and support for Ruth, such as Dorothy Kenyon, Pauli Murray, Melvin Wolf and Marty Ginsburg, in order to help learners understand that change and opportunity grows and builds with support from past and present. We will also consider what the future holds and learners will present their final project.

Along all eight weeks, this class aims to do several things. It aims to help learners see how the law can affect societal change and to consider how societal change can affect the law. It aims to give learners an early peak into legal reasoning and to introduce them to court cases in a manageable way to provide learners the confidence to know that the law is not inaccessible and to provide learners an easy way to understand case law. It also will provide a biographical sketch and introduce learners to a giant of the American legal field, the notorious RBG. Further, learners will leave this class with an understanding and knowledge of the doctrine of equal rights within our U.S. Constitution and how gender equality is looked upon by the law. Finally, the course hopes to showcase to learners that even great giants and change-makers of America were assisted by support from others and that those who came before blazed trails for them, just as they have blazed trails for us.  

The learning in this class will come in several ways. We will work through the cases together, interactively in order to understand them, we will have audio visual support as we work to understand the history and context, and we will have analytical discussions in an effort to engage critical thinking in learners about the choices made by RBG and the legal reasoning of the landmark cases. 

There may be some readings given in advance of classes to help provide context within the classroom. Additionally there will be an optional  project to be due at the last class. For those who would like either a grade or an assessment, I am happy to provide it, but then the optional project will be required in order for an assessment of learned material to be given.