Sharon Osbourne has paid tribute to Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died on Friday (September 18) due to complications of metastatic pancreas cancer. She was 87.
On Saturday (September 19), Osbourne took to her Instagram to write: “This is a huge loss for this country and the world. Ruth Bader Ginsburg, one of the shining lights for gender equality, women’s interests and civil rights liberties passed away. Now, more than ever we needed this powerhouse of a lady to be the voice of reason and to keep our rights safe. I worry for the future of the decisions made without her on the Supreme Court. How lucky are the young girls to have had her as an example for the years she was with us.
“We lost a role model, an independent thinker and a game changer in every sense of the word. Devastating.
“‘My mother told me to be a lady. And for her, that meant be your own person, be independent.’ ~Ruth Bader Ginsburg~
“Rest In Power @ruth.bader.ginsburg”
Ginsburg graduated from Columbia Law School, going on to become a staunch courtroom advocate for the fair treatment of women and working with the ACLU’s Women’s Rights Project. She was appointed by President Jimmy Carter to the U.S. Court of Appeals in 1980 and appointed to the Supreme Court by President Bill Clinton in 1993.
The justice, who sat on the bench for 27 years, was the second woman confirmed to the top court.
Supreme Court justices serve for life or until they choose to retire, and supporters have expressed concern that a more conservative judge might replace her while President Donald Trump, a Republican, remains in office.
On Friday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said that he will hold a vote on Trump‘s nominee to fill the vacancy left by the passing of Ginsburg on the Supreme Court despite the fact that, in the days before she died, Ginsburg reportedly told her granddaughter that it was her wish that she not be replaced before Inauguration Day.
“My most fervent wish is that I will not be replaced until a new president is installed,” Ginsburg reportedly said.
McConnell blocked former President Obama‘s Supreme Court pick from receiving a confirmation hearing after Justice Antonin Scalia died in 2016, the year of the last presidential election. At the time, he and other GOP lawmakers maintained that a Supreme Court vacancy should not be filled the same year as a presidential race.
