In suburbs, Ginsburg remembered for paving path for all
This story has been updated to correct the name of one of the vigil organizers.
Equality was the common denominator of Ruth Bader Ginsburg's career.
And it's the enduring trait that will define her legacy and drives those who idolized the U.S. Supreme Court justice, who died Friday at 87.
"I think we can all see a little bit of ourselves in her," said Courtney Lindbert, a medical malpractice attorney and marketing and communications officer for the Women's Bar Association of Illinois. "We are all fighting our own battles, and Justice Ginsburg is someone we can look to how to carry on that fight. But just to see the progress that one person was able to make throughout her lifetime was just incredible."
Her death was met with grief from across the political spectrum.
"This woman was an incredible force," said Jackie McGrath, the former co-president of the Palatine Area League of Women Voters. "She just represented who we are as Americans at our best."
Ginsburg, a famously liberal voice of dissent on the high court that was largely dominated by conservative appointees throughout her tenure, was nominated by former President Bill Clinton in 1993 and confirmed by the U.S. Senate by a 96-3 vote later that year. She joined Sandra Day O'Connor as just the second woman to sit on the nation's highest court.
"But she was never a woman judge, or a Jewish judge, or a judge that was only interested in racial issues," said Marcy Larson, vice president of marketing and communication at the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center in Skokie. "She was about fairness and equality for everyone, though she faced many more challenges as a woman."
The museum has been hosting an exhibition titled "Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg" for seven months, much of the time virtually because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The exhibit has reopened to in-person viewing, but visitors are still limited because of the pandemic. "It was on track to be our best exhibit ever," Larson said.
Gender bias was the catalyst for Ginsburg's legal career and shaped how she approached many of her legal decisions. In college, she fought against rules that placed campus curfews on female students, but not their male counterparts. She sued the postal service once because uniforms for women required wool pillbox hats in the summer while male postal workers wore mesh hats with visors and sunglasses.
Arguably her most famous dissent was in the Lilly Ledbetter case from 2006 that dealt with pay inequities between men and women doing the same job. From the bench, she blasted her eight male counterparts on the court - even the ones who agreed with her in her written dissent - for being indifferent about gender pay inequities.
"She stood up all the time, in every stage of her career, for the underdog because for so much of her career - based on her gender alone - she was the underdog," said Lake County Circuit Court Judge Patricia Fix. "Her career meant so much to so many women, not just women in the legal profession, but all women."
Laura Dias considers Ginsburg a role model. The Grayslake mother and former Chicago Public Schools teacher said Ginsburg's legacy is giving women the power to use their voice.
"For me personally it is her encouragement to speak your voice and disagree when you don't feel what is happening is right," she said. "Women, we are 51% of the population and we are not close to being 51% of the leaders. She wasn't just a safeguard for women's rights, but a safeguard for human rights, and now her whole life's work is in jeopardy."
In an outpouring of grief, hundreds of mourners lined the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court Building in Washington, D.C., Friday night following news of Ginsburg's death.
"It's her rock star status that's so impressive because she was a taciturn, small, almost shy woman," said Kathryn Johnson, a criminology professor at DePaul University and president of the board of A Safe Place, a Lake County-based organization fighting against domestic violence and human trafficking. "She embodied the America we aspire to and should be, the America of equality."
About 50 people gathered with posters from 4 to 5 p.m. Saturday at Northwest Highway and Arlington Heights Road in Arlington Heights. They were responding to a post by Brian Larson to a Facebook group The People's Corner.
And in Lombard, a candlelight vigil was held by the Veterans Memorial near Maple Street and Fairfield Avenue.
"A lot of people are feeling a little bit of pain around this and it's good for us to come together as a community and process this loss," said Quinn Murphy, one of the vigil's organizers.
A candlelight vigil is planned for 7:30 tonight at Century Park in Vernon Hills.