Skip to content

WIH Ruth Bader Ginsburg Mystery Cache

Hidden : 10/10/2020
Difficulty:
1.5 out of 5
Terrain:
1 out of 5

Size: Size:   micro (micro)

Join now to view geocache location details. It's free!

Watch

How Geocaching Works

Please note Use of geocaching.com services is subject to the terms and conditions in our disclaimer.

Geocache Description:


 

When I was in High School, I took an English class that focused on Women in History. I thought it was a good time to have some caches related to powerful and or influential women. Feel free to continue this theme and build caches related to Women in History. Use WIH and name of historical figure in title.
The cache is not at the posted coordinates. You need to solve the puzzle. All information needed to solve the puzzle is on this page. This cache is to focus on Women In History (WIH) that lead the way for us all. Information pulled from WIKI

Ruth Bader Ginsburg (RBG); 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. She was nominated by President Bill Clinton 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. During her tenure, Ginsburg wrote notable majority opinions, including United States v. Virginia (1996), Olmstead v. L.C. (1999), Friends of the Earth, Inc. v. Laidlaw Environmental Services, Inc. (2000), and City of Sherrill v. Oneida Indian Nation of New York (2005).

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.

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.[2] Ginsburg died at her home in Washington, D.C., on September 18, 2020, at the age of 87, from complications of metastatic pancreatic cancer.

Supreme Court tenure

Ginsburg characterized her performance on the court as a cautious approach to adjudication.[70] She argued in a speech shortly before her nomination to the court that "[m]easured motions seem to me right, in the main, for constitutional as well as common law adjudication. Doctrinal limbs too swiftly shaped, experience teaches, may prove unstable." Legal scholar Cass Sunstein characterized Ginsburg as a "rational minimalist (art movement)", a jurist who seeks to build cautiously on precedent rather than pushing the Constitution towards her own vision.

 

The retirement of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor in 2006 left Ginsburg as the only woman on the court. Linda Greenhouse of The New York Times referred to the subsequent 2006–2007 term of the court as "the time when Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg found her voice, and used it". The term also marked the first time in Ginsburg's history with the court where she read multiple dissents from the bench, a tactic employed to signal more intense disagreement with the majority.

With the retirement of Justice John Paul Stevens, Ginsburg became the senior member of what was sometimes referred to as the court's "liberal wing". When the court split 5–4 along ideological lines and the liberal justices were in the minority, Ginsburg often had the authority to assign authorship of the dissenting opinion because of her seniority. Ginsburg was a proponent of the liberal dissenters speaking "with one voice" and, where practicable, presenting a unified approach to which all the dissenting justices can agree.

During Ginsburg's entire Supreme Court tenure from 1993 to 2020, she only hired one African-American clerk (Paul J. Watford). During her 13 years on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, she never hired an African-American clerk, intern, or secretary. The lack of diversity was briefly an issue during her 1993 confirmation hearing. When this issue was raised by the Senate Judiciary Committee, Ginsburg stated that “If you confirm me for this job, my attractiveness to black candidates is going to improve.” This issue received renewed attention after more than a hundred of her former legal clerks served as pallbearers during her funeral.

Gender discrimination

Ginsburg authored the court's opinion in United States v. Virginia518 U.S. 515 (1996), which struck down the Virginia Military Institute's (VMI) male-only admissions policy as violating the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. For Ginsburg, a state actor could not use gender to deny women equal protection, therefore VMI must allow women the opportunity to attend VMI with its unique educational methods. Ginsburg emphasized that the government must show an "exceedingly persuasive justification" to use a classification based on sex. VMI proposed a separate institute for women, but Ginsburg found this solution reminiscent of the effort by Texas decades earlier to preserve the University of Texas Law School for Whites by establishing a separate school for Blacks.

 

Ginsburg dissented in the court's decision on Ledbetter v. Goodyear550 U.S. 618 (2007), a case where plaintiff Lilly Ledbetter filed a lawsuit against her employer claiming pay discrimination based on her gender under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In a 5–4 decision, the majority interpreted the statute of limitations as starting to run at the time of every pay period, even if a woman did not know she was being paid less than her male colleague until later. Ginsburg found the result absurd, pointing out that women often do not know they are being paid less, and therefore it was unfair to expect them to act at the time of each paycheck. She also called attention to the reluctance women may have in male-dominated fields to making waves by filing lawsuits over small amounts, choosing instead to wait until the disparity accumulates. As part of her dissent, Ginsburg called on Congress to amend Title VII to undo the court's decision with legislation.  Following the election of President Barack Obama in 2008, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, making it easier for employees to win pay discrimination claims, became law. Ginsburg was credited with helping to inspire the law.

Abortion rights

Ginsburg discussed her views on abortion and gender equality in a 2009 New York Times interview, in which she said, "[t]he basic thing is that the government has no business making that choice for a woman." Although Ginsburg consistently supported abortion rights and joined in the court's opinion striking down Nebraska's partial-birth abortion law in Stenberg v. Carhart530 U.S. 914 (2000), on the 40th anniversary of the court's ruling in Roe v. Wade410 U.S. 113 (1973), she criticized the decision in Roe as terminating a nascent democratic movement to liberalize abortion laws which might have built a more durable consensus in support of abortion rights. Ginsburg was in the minority for Gonzales v. Carhart550 U.S. 124 (2007), a 5–4 decision upholding restrictions on partial birth abortion. In her dissent, Ginsburg opposed the majority's decision to defer to legislative findings that the procedure was not safe for women. Ginsburg focused her ire on the way Congress reached its findings and with the veracity of the findings. Joining the majority for Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt579 U.S. 15-274 (2016), a case which struck down parts of a 2013 Texas law regulating abortion providers, Ginsburg also authored a short concurring opinion which was even more critical of the legislation at issue. She asserted the legislation was not aimed at protecting women's health, as Texas had said, but rather to impede women's access to abortions.

Search and seizure

Although Ginsburg did not author the majority opinion, she was credited with influencing her colleagues on the case Safford Unified School District v. Redding557 U.S. 364 (2009). The court ruled that a school went too far in ordering a 13-year-old female student to strip to her bra and underpants so female officials could search for drugs. In an interview published prior to the court's decision, Ginsburg shared her view that some of her colleagues did not fully appreciate the effect of a strip search on a 13-year-old girl. As she said, "They have never been a 13-year-old girl." In an 8–1 decision, the court agreed that the school's search went too far and violated the Fourth Amendment and allowed the student's lawsuit against the school to go forward. Only Ginsburg and Stevens would have allowed the student to sue individual school officials as well.

In Herring v. United States555 U.S. 135 (2009), Ginsburg dissented from the court's decision not to suppress evidence due to a police officer's failure to update a computer system. In contrast to Roberts's emphasis on suppression as a means to deter police misconduct, Ginsburg took a more robust view on the use of suppression as a remedy for a violation of a defendant's Fourth Amendment rights. Ginsburg viewed suppression as a way to prevent the government from profiting from mistakes, and therefore as a remedy to preserve judicial integrity and respect civil rights. She also rejected Roberts's assertion that suppression would not deter mistakes, contending making police pay a high price for mistakes would encourage them to take greater care.

International law

Ginsburg advocated the use of foreign law and norms to shape U.S. law in judicial opinions, a view rejected by some of her conservative colleagues. Ginsburg supported using foreign interpretations of law for persuasive value and possible wisdom, not as precedent which the court is bound to follow. Ginsburg expressed the view that consulting international law is a well-ingrained tradition in American law, counting John Henry Wigmore and President John Adams as internationalists. Ginsburg's own reliance on international law dated back to her time as an attorney; in her first argument before the court, Reed v. Reed, 404 U.S. 71 (1971), she cited two German cases. In her concurring opinion in Grutter v. Bollinger539 U.S. 306 (2003), a decision upholding Michigan Law School's affirmative action admissions policy, Ginsburg noted there was accord between the notion that affirmative action admissions policies would have an end point and agrees with international treaties designed to combat racial and gender-based discrimination.[100]

Voting rights and affirmative action

In 2013, Ginsburg dissented in Shelby County v. Holder, in which the court held unconstitutional the part of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 requiring federal preclearance before changing voting practices. Ginsburg wrote, "Throwing out preclearance when it has worked and is continuing to work to stop discriminatory changes is like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet."

Besides Grutter, Ginsburg wrote in favor of affirmative action in her dissent in Gratz v. Bollinger (2003), in which the court ruled an affirmative action policy unconstitutional because it was not narrowly tailored to the state's interest in diversity. She argued that "government decisionmakers may properly distinguish between policies of exclusion and inclusion...Actions designed to burden groups long denied full citizenship stature are not sensibly ranked with measures taken to hasten the day when entrenched discrimination and its after effects have been extirpated."

Native Americans

In 1997, Ginsburg wrote the majority opinion in Strate v. A-1 Contractors against tribal jurisdiction over tribal owned land in a reservation. The case involved a nonmember who caused a car crash in the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation. Ginsburg reasoned that the state right-of-way on which the crash occurred rendered the tribal owned land equivalent to non-Indian land. She then considered the rule set in Montana v. United States, which allows tribes to regulate the activities of nonmembers who have a relationship with the tribe. Ginsburg noted that the driver's employer did have a relationship with the tribe, but she reasoned that the tribe could not regulate their activities because the victim had no relationship to the tribe. Ginsburg concluded that although "those who drive carelessly on a public highway running through a reservation endanger all in the vicinity, and surely jeopardize the safety of tribal members", having a nonmember go before an "unfamiliar court" was "not crucial to the political integrity, the economic security, or the health or welfare of the Three Affiliated Tribes" (internal quotations and brackets omitted). The decision, by a unanimous Court, was generally criticized by scholars of Indian law, such as David Getches and Frank Pommersheim.

Later in 2005, Ginsburg cited the doctrine of discovery in the majority opinion of City of Sherrill v. Oneida Indian Nation of New York and concluded that the Oneida Indian Nation could not revive its ancient sovereignty over its historic land. The discovery doctrine has been used to grant ownership of Native American lands to colonial governments. The Oneida had lived in towns, grew extensive crops, and maintained trade routes to the Gulf of Mexico. In her opinion for the court, Ginsburg reasoned that the historic Oneida land had been "converted from wilderness" ever since it was dislodged from the Oneidas' possession.  She also reasoned that "the longstanding, distinctly non-Indian character of the area and its inhabitants" and "the regulatory authority constantly exercised by New York State and its counties and towns" justified the ruling. Ginsburg also invoked, sua sponte, the doctrine of laches, reasoning that the Oneidas took a "long delay in seeking judicial relief". She also reasoned that the dispossession of the Oneidas' land was "ancient". Lower courts later relied on Sherrill as precedent to extinguish Native American land claims, notably in Cayuga Indian Nation of New York v. Pataki. Ginsburg regretted her decision in Sherrill more than any other decision she made in the court.

Less than a year after Sherrill, Ginsburg offered a starkly contrasting approach to Native American law. In December 2005, Ginsburg dissented in Wagnon v. Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation, arguing that a state tax on fuel sold to Potawatomi retailers would impermissibly nullify the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation's own tax authority. In 2008, when Ginsburg's precedent in Strate was used in Plains Commerce Bank v. Long Family Land & Cattle Co., she dissented in part and argued that the tribal court of the Cheyenne River Lakota Nation had jurisdiction over the case. Ginsburg has suggested that the next justice should be US District Court Judge Diane Humetewa, who is an enrolled member of the Hopi Tribe. In 2020, Ginsburg joined the ruling of McGirt v. Oklahoma, which affirmed Native American jurisdictions over reservations in much of Oklahoma.

Other notable majority opinions

In 1999, Ginsburg wrote the majority opinion in Olmstead v. L.C., in which the Court ruled that mental illness is a form of disability covered under the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990.

In 2000, Ginsburg wrote the majority opinion in Friends of the Earth, Inc. v. Laidlaw Environmental Services, Inc., in which the Court held that residents have standing to seek fines for an industrial polluter that affected their interests and that is able to continue doing so.

EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO SOLVE THIS PUZZLE IS ON THIS PAGE

N 4A° 5C.DEF W 0BG° 5K.XHZ

 

RBG served on the supreme court for AB years

RBG was born on what month of the year? C

RBG died at the age of D7

19E0, President Jimmy Carter appointed RBG to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, where she served until her appointment to the Supreme Court

Ginsburg died at her home in Washington, D.C., on September 1F, 202Z

In 2G13, Ginsburg dissented in Shelby County v. Holder, in which the court held unconstitutional the part of the Voting Rights Act of 19H5 requiring federal preclearance before changing voting practices. Ginsburg wrote, "Throwing out preclearance when it has worked and is continuing to work to stop discriminatory changes is like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet."

X= on the 4Xth anniversary of the court's ruling in Roe v. Wade Ginsburg discussed her views on abortion and gender equality in a 2009 New York Times interview, in which she said, "[t]he basic thing is that the government has no business making that choice for a woman." 

K= More than a MMM minus 98 of her former legal clerks served as pallbearers during her funeral

Additional Hints (Decrypt)

YCP

Decryption Key

A|B|C|D|E|F|G|H|I|J|K|L|M
-------------------------
N|O|P|Q|R|S|T|U|V|W|X|Y|Z

(letter above equals below, and vice versa)