OP EDITORIAL
HARLEM COMMUNITY NEWSPAPERS
Ruth Bader Ginsburg Defended Important Social Justice Gains, Including Health Care By Ben Jealous
T
he late Ruth Bader Ginsburg
paying her less than men for years.
Ginsburg told a reporter that
was an intellectual giant with
She was denied justice when the Su-
she would like to be remembered as
a righteous spirit. She used
preme Court’s conservatives twisted
“Someone who used whatever talent
her brilliant mind and steely determi-
the federal law that was supposed to
she had to do her work to the very best
nation to protect the gains of the civil
protect employees from discrimina-
of her ability. And to help repair tears
rights movement and advance the val-
tion on the job. Wage discrimination
in her society, to make things a little
ues of freedom, equality, justice, and
harms Black women, who are typical-
better through the use of whatever
opportunity. She inspired generations
ly paid just 62 percent of what white
ability she has.”
non-Hispanic men are paid. It takes
We will remember her as that,
persistence. We who learned from and
are significantly worse than white
a typical Black woman 19 months to
and as much more. We will remember
looked up to Justice Ginsburg now
Americans. The ACA produced real
make what a white man earns in 12
her as a true patriot, committed to the
must fight for her legacy.
progress in narrowing health dispar-
months. Ginsburg’s dissent showed
American ideal of equality under law,
Ginsburg may be most remem-
ities, but President Donald Trump
Congress the path to put protections
a principle for which she fought liter-
bered for her lifelong struggle to
and the right-wing judges he has been
back in place.
ally until her dying breath.
overcome and eliminate obstacles to
putting on the courts—and would like
And I will never forget Ginsburg’s
With her writing and the example
equality and opportunity for women,
to fill Ginsburg’s seat with—would
blazing dissent from the right-wing
of her life, Justice Ginsburg bent the
including the right of women to make
do away with Obamacare and its ex-
justices’ 2013 vote to rip the heart out
moral arc of the universe in the di-
the most important decisions about
pansion of Medicaid. If they kill the
of the Voting Rights Act—gutting one
rection of justice. And when injustice
their lives, their bodies, and their
ACA, 23 million people will lose
of the greatest accomplishments of
advanced, she planted seeds of demo-
families.
health coverage.
Harlem Community Newspapers | October 8. 2020
of activists with the example of her
6
the civil rights movement. She doc-
cratic renewal that we must now nour-
The truth is that she was just as
Ginsburg served on the Supreme
umented the ever-changing tactics of
ish with our own lives and activism.
steady in her defense of the gains
Court at a time when the well-funded
voter suppression and intimidation
Ben Jealous serves as president
made by other great social justice
right-wing push for ideological dom-
targeting Black voters. And she called
of People For the American Way and
movements of our time, including the
ination of the federal courts began to
out the majority for failing to recog-
People For the American Way Foun-
fight to expand access to health care.
take hold. She often played the role of
nize the “transformative effect” that
dation. Jealous has decades of expe-
In the face of intense Republi-
the Great Dissenter. She denounced
the Fifteenth Amendment, enacted
rience as a leader, coalition builder,
can efforts to destroy the Affordable
right-wing justices’ indifference to the
after the Civil War, aimed to achieve.
campaigner for social justice and sea-
Care Act—known as Obamacare—
impact of their decisions on working
She was proved correct when
soned nonprofit executive. In 2008,
Ginsburg defended the ACA and the
people. She exposed the conservative
state after state, mostly old Confed-
he was chosen as the youngest-ever
constitutional powers of the federal
majority’s bogus justifications for un-
erate states, imposed new restrictions
president and CEO of the NAACP. He
government to protect people’s well-
just decisions.
on voting that fell most heavily on
is a graduate of Columbia University
being. The ACA has been hugely im-
Lilly Ledbetter went to court
Black citizens, whose disenfranchise-
and Oxford, where he was a Rhodes
portant to Black Americans, whose
when she discovered the company
ment the Voting Rights Act was de-
Scholar, and he has taught at Princ-
health outcomes and mortality rates
she worked for had been unfairly
signed to prevent.
eton and the University of Pennsyl-
Vol. 25, No 41 October 8, 2020
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