After an on-and-off decades-long battle with cancer, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has died at 87. Justice Ginsburg served 27 years on the Supreme Court and fought for women’s rights for nearly half a century.

Ginsburg represented hope and progress for many women around the country and at Creek.

“Justice Ginsburg represented female strength and justice in the government,” sophomore Mia Andre said. “I’ve always looked up to her.”

Ginsburg was born Joan Ruth Bader on March 15, 1933, in Brooklyn, New York. From a young age, she was impassioned about empowering women and fighting for their rights.

She attended Harvard Law School, one of only nine women in her class, and graduated from Columbia Law School, tied for first in her class.

Ginsburg was known around the globe as an inspiration to young girls and feminists everywhere, fueling the Me Too movement and encouraging women around the world to challenge men in politics and to speak up and take action in the most crucial times.

She always pushed for more women in power, once saying that “women belong in all places where decisions are being made.”

In the 1970s, she fought in the courts for gender equality when few would. In her first case, Reed v. Reed, she represented Sally Reed in order to try and make her the primary executor of her son’s estate instead of her ex-husband. This case challenged the question of whether a state could openly prefer men over women as executors of an estate. The court struck down the state law because Ginsburg proved that it was discriminatory based on gender.

This was only the beginning of her fight for women. She continued to fight for the underdogs, because she too had been an underdog. NPR said “she changed the way the world is for American women.”

Justice Ginsburg may be gone, but her legacy lives on.

“I feel that her death is allowing young activists like myself to truly see the importance of voting, as well as the repercussions of our actions,” junior Maria Despradel said.