Early Life and Education
Born in Brooklyn, New York, Ruth Joan Bader was the second daughter of Nathan and Celia (née Amster) Bader. The family nicknamed her "Kiki". They belonged to the East Midwood Jewish Center, where she took her religious confirmation seriously. At age thirteen, Ruth acted as the "camp rabbi" at a Jewish summer program at Camp Che-Na-Wah in Minerva, New York.
Her mother took an active role in her education, taking her to the library often. Bader attended James Madison High School, whose law program later dedicated a courtroom in her honor. Her older sister died when she was very young. Her mother struggled with cancer throughout Ruth's high school years and died the day before her graduation.
She graduated from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, with a Bachelor of Arts degree in government on June 23, 1954, and that fall enrolled at Harvard Law School, where she was one of only nine women in a class of more than five hundred. When her husband took a job in New York City, she transferred to Columbia Law School and became the first woman to be on two major law reviews, the Harvard Law Review and the Columbia Law Review. In 1959, she earned her Bachelor of Laws at Columbia and tied for first in her class. In 2009 she was awarded an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Willamette University, in 2010 she was awarded an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Princeton University, and in 2011 she was awarded an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Harvard University.
Read more about this topic: Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Famous quotes containing the words early, life and/or education:
“To be candid, in Middlemarch phraseology, meant, to use an early opportunity of letting your friends know that you did not take a cheerful view of their capacity, their conduct, or their position; and a robust candour never waited to be asked for its opinion.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)
“I am content to live it all again,
And yet again, if it be life to pitch
Into the frog-spawn of a blind man’s ditch.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“From infancy, almost, the average girl is told that marriage is her ultimate goal; therefore her training and education must be directed toward that end. Like the mute beast fattened for slaughter, she is prepared for that.”
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)