Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Ruth Bader Ginsburg (born Joan Ruth Bader; March 15, 1933 – September 18, 2020) was an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1993 until her death in September 2020. She was nominated by President Bill Clinton, replacing retiring justice Byron White, and at the time was generally viewed as a moderate consensus-builder. She eventually became part of the liberal wing of the Court as the Court shifted to the right over time. Ginsburg was the first Jewish woman and the second woman to serve on the Court, after Sandra Day O'Connor. Ginsburg was born and grew up in Brooklyn, New York. Her older sister died when she was a baby, and her mother died shortly before Ginsburg graduated from high school. She earned her bachelor's degree at Cornell University and married Martin D. Ginsburg, becoming a mother before starting law school at Harvard, where she was one of the few women in her class. Ginsburg transferred to Columbia Law School, where she graduated joint first in her class. During the early 1960s, she worked with the Columbia Law School Project on International Procedure, learned Swedish, and co-authored a book with Swedish jurist Anders Bruzelius; her work in Sweden profoundly influenced her thinking on gender equality. She then became a professor at Rutgers Law School and Columbia Law School, teaching civil procedure as one of the few women in her field.

Ginsburg spent much of her legal career as an advocate for gender equality and women's rights, winning many arguments before the Supreme Court. She advocated as a volunteer attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union and was a member of its board of directors and one of its general counsel in the 1970s. In 1980, President Jimmy Carter appointed her to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, where she served until her appointment to the Supreme Court in 1993. Between O'Connor's retirement in 2006 and the appointment of Sonia Sotomayor in 2009, she was the only female justice on the Supreme Court. During that time, Ginsburg became more forceful with her dissents, notably in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. (2007). Ginsburg's dissenting opinion was credited with inspiring the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act which was signed into law by President Barack Obama in 2009, making it easier for employees to win pay discrimination claims.

Ginsburg received attention in American popular culture for her passionate dissents in numerous cases, widely seen as reflecting paradigmatically liberal views of the law. She was dubbed "The Notorious R.B.G.", and she later embraced the moniker. Ginsburg died at her home in Washington, D.C., on September 18, 2020, at the age of 87, from complications of metastatic pancreatic cancer. Given the proximity of her death to the 2020 election and Ginsburg's wish for her replacement not to be chosen "until a new president is installed", the decision for President Trump to appoint and all but one of the Republican Senators to confirm Amy Coney Barrett as her replacement proved controversial after the Senate Republican majority's prior refusal to hold a hearing or vote for Merrick Garland in early 2016 under Barack Obama after the death of Antonin Scalia.

Serious-minded, individualistic and thorough, the ISTJ personality types like to plan, schedule and drive through to completion, in a logical linear sequence. Any deviation from the plan would be questioned and may take some convincing of its merits. The ISTJ is essentially the engine room, the behind-the-scenes worker making it happen. Concentration, willpower and persistence epitomises the ISTJ approach to work and to life and they will begin at the beginning and end at the. Spontaneity and flexibility are less important to the ISTJ. Conservative and risk-averse ISTJs excel when it needs a steady hand and they are unlikely to ever drop the ball.

The ISTJ is the behind-the-scenes worker making things happen. Their sense of duty and loyalty means that they will rarely be happy in the front line, preferring to be in the back room making it all happen. The ISTJ is the sensible, ‘prefect-type’ character, who wants to get it right and 'do good.' Their value to the team is protection, from mistakes, from omissions, from self-delusion and from going off-track. The ISTJ loves seeing things come to fruition. Ideas, complexity and imagination are of value only if they lead to a practical end result. An ISTJ needs to be clear on what is expected, and then will plan and work with consistent and steady energy towards completion. Their opinions will be slowly arrived-at and, consequently well-thought-through, tried and tested. The ISTJ is not prone to bursts of emotion, flying by the seat of their pants nor will they thrive in a chaotic environment, unless they have the opportunity to formalise it and make it non-chaotic.

Serious-minded, individualistic and thorough, the ISTJ may focus so much on the task that they can forget the needs of others, including themselves. ISTJs like to plan, schedule and drive through to completion, in a logical linear sequence. Any deviation from the plan would be questioned and the ISTJ may take some convincing of its merits. An ISTJ can be trusted to complete, to work hard and play by the rules. However, they may not always articulate how they are feeling or even how things are progressing. The ISTJ plans the work and works the plan, so why should there be any need for up-dates. They naturally tune into the actualities and specifics of life and thus they will be reliable, loyal and work with existing, known facts and data. Conscientious, hardworking and serious about their undertakings ISTJs are built for attrition, to work tirelessly in achieving the agreed goals. The ISTJ may not have been the one to set the goals but they will make sure they are met - to the letter, working methodically, carefully and taking it very personally. Everything is taken literally (with no irony) and they pride themselves on being careful and accurate about ‘the facts.’ ISTJs are built to execute, exactly as agreed.

Quiet and thoughtful, the ISTJ work best when they are clear on what is expected and then allowed to get on with it without interruption or interference from others, preferably in a familiar way in familiar surroundings. The ISTJ does not like being thrown in at the deep-end and they have to feel that whatever they are being asked to do makes logical sense. The new, the untried worries the ISTJ as they rely instinctively on experience and prefer the known and the traditional and, as they learn best through doing so any activity with which they have no direct first-hand experience will cause a wariness and mistrust initially. Sure, the ISTJ can change but they need to see a logical reason for doing so, and they’ll need to think it through. Anything perceived as woolly will not compute. Conservative, risk-averse and methodical ISTJs come into their own when it needs a steady hand and abject attention to detail. And they are unlikely to ever drop the ball. The ISTJ will not be prone to say: ‘let’s give it a whirl.’

Others may see them as slightly cold and impersonal, possibly even uncaring. However, their decisions are based on what makes the most logical sense and as such this can mean the feelings of others may not necessarily be factored into this process. The ISTJ will then systematically carry out the task diligently and to the letter, which can make them appear inflexible, but this is simply a sign of the seriousness with which they embrace responsibility.

ISTJs will begin at the beginning and end at the end, no deviations. They have a keen sense of what’s right and wrong, are known for dedication to duty, and so doing things right, being punctual, doing what they say they’ll do, are the values they live by.