Ledbetter argued the pay disparity was due to her gender and a violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Lilly Ledbetter sued her employer of 19 years, Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company, for gender discrimination, after she discovered the company had been paying her less than her male counterparts. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company, decided in 2007. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company, 2007Īnother one of RBG's famous dissents came in the case of Ledbetter v. The “unjustified isolation” of Curtis and Wilson “perpetuates assumptions that persons so isolated are incapable or unworthy of participating in community life,” she wrote. The court voted 6–3 in favor of the two women, ruling that Georgia had violated the “integration mandate.” Ginsburg wrote the majority opinion, in which she reinforced an important right afforded to individuals with disabilities, including mental illnesses. Both were voluntarily admitted to the psychiatric unit of a state-run Georgia hospital, but were then held there in isolation in the years following their initial treatments - even after being medically cleared to move to a more community-based setting. The Supreme Court heard arguments on behalf of two women, Lois Curtis and Elaine Wilson. This landmark case focused on the rights of people with mental disabilities to live in their communities (known as the “integration mandate”), under Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Ginsburg assigned the opinion to Justice Elena Kagan.Īccording to the Court, the vagueness of the legislation struck down was in violation of the due process clause, making a strong precedent against legislative vagueness in future court cases. This case marked only the sixth time that a female justice has ever assigned the majority position. Throughout Ginsburg’s two-plus decades on the bench, a more senior justice would join the liberal justices in a vote when they had the numbers, and as a result would choose who wrote the majority opinion. “Throwing out preclearance when it has worked and is continuing to work to stop discriminatory changes,” Ginsburg wrote in a blistering dissent, “is like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet.”Īccording to Slate, the case was the first time in her entire court career that she assigned a majority opinion as the most senior justice in the majority. And in a 5-4 opinion, the Supreme Court agreed, claiming that the restrictions were outdated in the modern era and that it was an unconstitutional violation for Congress - rather than states themselves - to set the terms of elections. before making any changes to their voting requirements.īut in 2013, Alabama’s Shelby County challenged the constitutionality of the decades-old act. Under Section 5 of the act, a policy known as “preclearance” required states like Alabama, Texas and Arizona to receive approval from the attorney general or a three-judge panel in Washington, D.C. Section 4b of that landmark legislation, which was intended to bar racial discrimination in voting, enacted special requirements for certain parts of the country that had a particularly terrible track record of suppressing minority voters. Holder, 2013Īs shorthand, this court ruling is often referred to as the decision that “ gutted” the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Ultimately, the court ruled 5-4 in favor of legalizing same-sex marriage. “That ended as a result of this court’s decision in 1982 when Louisiana’s Head and Master Rule was struck down … Would that be a choice that states should be allowed to have? To cling to marriage the way it once was?” She also derided a procreation debate by asking whether a 70-year-old heterosexual couple would be allowed to marry when clearly they could not procreate either. “Marriage was a relationship of a dominant male to a subordinate female,” she told them, according to a report by The Guardian. As a former officiant of same-sex weddings and an advocate for LGBTQ rights, it is believed that Ginsburg’s outspokenness affected public opinion.ĭuring oral arguments, she called out the regressive attitudes ofJohn Bursch, the lawyer representing states who wished to uphold a same-sex marriage ban, as well as Justices John Roberts and Anthony Kennedy, who wondered whether the Court could overturn marital tradition. This landmark case granted same-sex couples the right to marry in all 50 states. She famously wrote in her opinion, “I dissent.” The phrase was a somewhat harsh departure from the court’s decorum, in which dissenting justices usually note that they’re using the term “respectfully.” Obergefell v. Ginsburg’s dissenting opinion made it clear that she disagreed with the court’s favoring of Bush.
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