Dissenter on the Bench: Ruth Bader Ginsburg's Life and Work

The book is concise and well written, but it is not what I expected. It does talk about ner life, so I guess it is a biography, but it doesn't read like one. It is a series of cases, which RBG took part in at some point in her career. It tells you what, in her life previous to the case, helped shape her opinion, and how the cases affected her going forward. I found it boring, seeing I am not really interested in law cases, but that is just my experience.

Dissenter On the Bench, Ruth Bader Ginsberg shined a light for me to know how totally acceptable it was for me to disagree with prevailing wisdom. I eventually learned to express my views. It has made all the difference in my life!

Everything about this book is 5 stars. The writing, the parts of Justice Ginsberg that Dean Ortiz highlights, the editing etc. It doesn't read like a musty, dry legal book. It reads like an amazing story about an amazing lady. It's an absolute must for attorneys and non-attorneys alike. Justice Ginsberg is someone everyone should admire and this book explains why. The writing is superb and the subject is wonderful. Thank you Victoria Ortiz for writing such a great book!!

We bought this book for my daughters book report, really easy to read and it has plenty of information my daughter learned a lot about notorious RBG.

Would recommend this to any young women.

"Dissenter on the Bench," by Victoria Ortiz, is an entertaining and informative overview of Ruth Bader Ginsburg's life and work. The book opens with Ortiz presenting the case of Savana Lee Redding, a thirteen-year-old who was an honor student in an Atlanta school in 2003. Much to her horror, two of Savana's classmates falsely accused her of distributing drugs. As a result, at the direction of the assistant principal, not only did school authorizes go through Savana's personal possessions, but they also strip-searched her without her or her parents' permission. Even after they found no contraband, the authorities failed to apologize to Savana, who was traumatized by this humiliating experience. She subsequently left the school, and her parents contacted the American Civil Liberties Union. Adam Wolf, Redding's attorney, argued that Savana's fourth amendment rights had been violated. In 2009, the case reached the United States Supreme Court. The court ruled in Savana's favor, eight votes to one. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg helped convince her colleagues that the assistant principal's "treatment of young Savana was 'abusive and it was not reasonable for him to believe that the law permitted it.'"This opening chapter sets the stage for the remarkable true story of Joan Ruth Bader, who was born in 1933 in Brooklyn, New York. Bader was a voracious reader, musician, and top student who was popular with her peers and participated in a variety of extracurricular activities. Ruth was mature for her age, and in 1946 she wrote: "No one can feel free from danger and destruction until the many torn threads of civilization are bound together again." Having grown up in the shadow of the Great Depression, the Nazi onslaught, and McCarthyism, Ruth understood the importance of "kindness, justice, and fairness for everyone.""Dissenter on the Bench" provides terrific lessons about the American judicial system and shows us how cases are handled at every level, from the lowest to the highest court in the land. Ortiz discusses Ginsburg's career as a lawyer, judge, law school professor, and revered member of the Supreme Court since 1993, and also focuses on her outstanding personal qualities. Justice Ginsburg works tirelessly; pays meticulous attention to detail; has a wonderful sense of humor; and is collegial towards her fellow justices (she was a close friend of the late Justice Scalia, with whom she differed on many issues). In addition, we learn about Ginsburg's volunteer work for the ACLU, and her support of such issues as equal pay for equal work, desegregation in education, and freedom of expression. The author provides many examples of Ruth Bader Ginsburg's efforts to safeguard the protections that the U. S. Constitution affords to all people, "regardless of their race, gender, religion, national origin, status, or wealth." This enlightening and inspiring work of non-fiction provides a well-rounded picture of a much-admired national figure.

The appendix and source notes alone make this a book worth having, especially in this time of civics illiteracy in the United States. The anecdotes about perhaps one of the most interesting liberal Supreme Court Justices since Thurgood Marshall reveal much about who Ginsburg is as a person, as opposed to her fiery bench persona, which gets used, rightly or wrongly, as a totem of liberal judicial philosophy. These anecdotes also make this a book worth owning and reading.It's the case analyses where I have some quibbles. The relevant facts and outcomes are presented clearly and in a way that non-lawyers can grasp. However, the issues and rulings are discussed in terms of gender equality, when many of the cases are, strictly speaking, about sex. Not gender expression. These are two separate axes of discrimination that may often, but do not always, coincide. When they do not coincide, they may actually conflict, which makes precision important when discussing them.Still a worthy addition to my library. Should be required reading in middle school/high school social studies classes.