The Midlands remembers Ruth Bader Ginsburg

The Midlands joins the rest of the country in mourning the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Columbia, S.C. (WOLO) — The Midlands joins the rest of the country in mourning the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.  She passed away Friday at 87 years old from complications of metastatic pancreatic cancer.

“It obviously is an enormous legacy that she leaves behind,” said Joseph Seiner, a law professor at the University of South Carolina School of Law. “Her legacy is one of civil rights, it’s one of gender equality. She’s very well-known for her dissents and her dissenting opinions.”

All weekend long, people gathered to pay their respects and honor the Supreme Court Justice.

“I was sworn into the Supreme Court Bar a number of years ago, and while she’s diminutive in stature, she has an enormous presence. And I was very honored and privileged to have the opportunity to meet her,” said Seiner.

RBG began her tenure on the Supreme Court in 1993, but her career began as an attorney who fought for equal rights for women.

“She knew how to slowly change the law, such that it’s not what it was decades ago,” said Seiner. “Many people forget, and they’ve only known her as a Supreme Court justice, but she was one of the few people who joined the bench who was already an icon because of her work in the ACLU.”

She leaves behind a lasting legacy.

“The value that she really put on never stopping, particularly when she’s not in the majority which was so many years in her career. And the ability to really leave an impact when it’s a single voice, that I really think is the import of what her legacy stands for,” said Seiner.

Seiner says that the next seat will have a dramatic ideological impact on the court.

“Justice Roberts, now the chief judge, really is the center of the pendulum and that’s going to change. You’re going to see that bend, if it’s filled by a conservative judge shift to the right, if it’s not it’ll stay where it is,” said Seiner.

RBG suffered from five bouts of cancer before dying.  She will lie in repose at the United States Supreme Court on Wednesday and Thursday.