To fully appreciate the impact that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had on women's rights, it's essential to look back on the blatantly discriminatory reality in America at the time she powered her way through college and graduated first in her class in 1959 at Columbia School of Law. Before transferring to Columbia, she had been one of only 9 women admitted to Harvard Law School in 1956. The dean invited those women to a private dinner, Ginsburg once recalled, and asked: "Why are you at Harvard Law School, taking the place of a man?"

Chief Justice John Roberts noted that harsh reality in a memorial service Wednesday while paying tribute to Ginsburg's 27-year career on the nation's highest bench. Ginsburg "won famous victories that helped move our nation closer to equal justice under law, to the extent that women are now a majority in law schools, not simply a handful," he said.

Ginsburg's unrelenting drive, persistence and patience should serve as an inspiration to all taking up the fight for justice and equality today. Her fight was no cakewalk. The world was an unforgiving place for women when her career began. In some states, women were not even allowed to own property, secure a bank loan or start a business without their husbands' consent. Parents often refrained from giving their newborn girls middle names, assuming that their maiden last names would suffice once they got married.

Discrimination based on sex was entirely legal at the time, and Ginsburg felt that sting profoundly upon graduation as she bounced from interview to interview with all-male law firms, only to be told no positions were open for women. Even Justice Felix Frankfurter rejected her for a clerkship — not because she lacked stellar credentials but simply because she was a woman.

Ginsburg refused to give up. She wound up co-founding the Women's Rights Project at the American Civil Liberties Union, a job that ultimately would give her six opportunities to argue gender-discrimination cases before the Supreme Court. She won five of them.

She was hardly the only fighter on this front. In fact, it was conservative Justice Sandra Day O'Connor who first broke the glass ceiling and preceded Ginsburg on the bench by more than a decade, having experienced similarly blatant discrimination after obtaining her law degree.

The fight is far from over. Some of the most basic questions of women's rights — the right to control their own bodies — will weigh heavily in the process of filling Ginsburg's vacancy on the bench. The fact that male-dominated legislatures around the country, including Missouri, continue to apply a different standard between men and women underscores how much work remains to be done. But it's because of Ginsburg's relentless fight that the job will be far easier for all women who dare follow in her footsteps.

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