This article first appeared on NBCNews.com.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the Supreme Court justice who was as pioneering as she was brash, died Friday, the high court said.
She was 87.
The court said Ginsburg, a lifelong champion of women’s rights and a fierce advocate for gender equality, died “surrounded by her family at her home in Washington, D.C., due to complications of metastatic pancreas cancer.”
Chief Justice John Roberts said: “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.”
Despite her diminutive stature — she was reportedly 5 feet, 1 inch tall — Ginsburg was larger than life, both on and off the bench.
Viewed as a feminist icon, she broke countless barriers, dedicating her legal career to challenging laws and regulations that discriminated on the basis of sex. Along the way, she never shied away from making contentious comments, whether about her high court opinions or her octogenarian workout routines. Her refusal to hold her tongue earned her the nickname the “Notorious R.B.G.” by her rabid fan base.
Diagnosed with cancer four times, Ginsburg had had numerous health scares, including several recent hospitalizations. Her death will open a pivotal seat on the court less than 50 days before the presidential election.
In her final days, according to NPR, Ginsburg dictated one final dig at President Donald Trump to her granddaughter Clara Spera, declaring, “My most fervent wish is that I will not be replaced until a new president is installed.”
But hours after her death Friday night, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he has no intention of waiting and will put forward whomever Trump nominates.
“President Trump’s nominee will receive a vote on the floor of the United States Senate,” McConnell said in a statement.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer hailed Ginsburg as “a champion for justice” and a “trailblazer for women” and tweeted, “The American people should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court Justice. Therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new president.”
The line was the exact phrase McConnell used in 2016 to block then-President Barack Obama’s nominee to fill the seat left vacant by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia.
Ginsburg’s death devastated her followers. Outside the Supreme Court on Friday night, crowds gathered in an impromptu memorial for her.
The news broke as Trump was speaking at a rally in Minnesota. Unaware of her death, he said during his speech that “the Supreme Court is so important. The next president will get one, two, three or four Supreme Court justices.”
After learning the news, Trump told reporters, “I’m actually saddened to hear that.”
“Whether you agreed or not, she was an amazing woman who led an amazing life,” Trump said. He later tweeted a statement in which he referred to Ginsburg as a “titan of the law” and a “fighter to the end.”
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, meanwhile, said Ginsburg “stood for all of us,” praising the obstacles she overcame early in her career.
“She never failed. She was fierce and unflinching in her pursuit of the civil and legal rights of, the civil rights, of everyone,” he said.
As for her successor, Biden added: “The voters should pick the president and the president should pick the justice for the Senate to consider.”
Former President George W. Bush issued a statement saying, “Justice Ginsburg loved our country and the law. Laura and I are fortunate to have known this smart and humorous trailblazer, and we send our condolences to the Ginsburg family.”
In a tweet, former President Bill Clinton who appointed Ginsburg to the Supreme Court in 1993 called her “one of the most extraordinary Justices ever to serve on the Supreme Court.”
“Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s life and landmark opinions moved us closer to a more perfect union. And her powerful dissents reminded us that we walk away from our Constitution’s promise at our peril,” Clinton wrote.
Despite her ailing health — Ginsburg had announced in July that she was being treated for cancer — she made a public appearance as recently as the end of August, when she officiated an outdoor wedding of a family friend.
A sharp-tongued moderate liberal, Ginsburg became justice after being confirmed by a Senate vote of 96 to 3. She had repeatedly vowed to stay on as long as her health permitted, even when some liberals pressured her to step down during the Obama administration so a Democratic president could be guaranteed to appoint her successor.
“Tell me who the president could have nominated this spring that you would rather see on the court than me?” was the justice’s tart response at the time.
Those who faced her ire were offered no protection by political prowess or fame. She once called then-presidential candidate Trump a “faker” and publicly criticized NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick for refusing to stand during the national anthem. She later apologized for the criticism of Trump and of Kaepernick.
Despite ruffling some feathers, Ginsburg had a fervent following, with devotees who cared about her rigorous fitness regimen almost as much as they cared about how she voted on the high court. Her likeness appeared on female empowerment T-shirts and other paraphernalia.
Ginsburg, who was only the second female justice to sit on the nation’s highest court, credited her mother, who died of cancer a day before Ginsburg graduated from high school, with influencing her advocacy for women.
“My mother told me two things constantly: One was to be a lady, and the other was to be independent. The latter was something very unusual … because for most girls growing up in the 1940s, the most important degree was not your B.A., but your ‘M.R.S.,’” Ginsburg said in an appearance at Duke University in 2005.
Her path to the Supreme Court was laden with obstacles.
Born March 15, 1933, in Brooklyn, New York, Ruth Joan Bader graduated with a degree in government at the top of her class from Cornell University in 1954, the same year she married her college sweetheart, Martin Ginsburg.
The couple moved to Fort Sill, Oklahoma, where he was stationed with the Army Reserve. She worked for the Social Security Administration — only to be demoted after becoming pregnant with their first child, who was born in 1955.
Returning East, Ginsburg enrolled in Harvard Law School in 1956 before transferring to Columbia Law School. She tied for first in her class when she received her law degree in 1959. But when she applied for jobs afterward, she discovered that most law firms didn’t want her, despite her sparkling credentials.
“In the Fifties, the traditional law firms were just beginning to turn around on hiring Jews. But to be a woman, a Jew and a mother to boot — that combination was a bit too much,” she once wrote.
Ginsburg eventually got a job clerking for U.S. District Judge Edmund Palmieri in Manhattan before she moved to Rutgers University, where she was a law professor from 1963 to 1972.









