Hollywood, D.C. React To The Death Of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Tom Tapp and Erik Pedersen

Longtime Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died today at 87. Tributes from friends, colleagues, fans and Hollywood figures are flooding social media. Take a look at a sampling below.

Ginsburg long had been a champion for equal rights, dating to the days when she graduated at the top of her law school class but then couldn’t find work at a law firm because the places she applied would hire a woman for the job. She moderate-to-liberal force on the high court since her nomination by President Clinton in 1993. Among the causes she championed from the bench were health care for low- and middle-income families, marriage rights and discrimination against LGBTQ Americans in the workplace.

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Both President Donald Trump and former vice president Joe Biden have commented on the justice’s death. The news broke as Trump was addressing a rally in Bemidji, MN. He found out when reporters asked him for a reaction, to which the president said, “She just died? Wow. I didn’t know that. She led an amazing life.” See video of Trump’s full reaction among the tweets below.

Biden also reflected shortly after the news broke telling reporters that Ginsburg, “stood for all of us” as she pursued “the highest American ideas of equality and justice under the law.” Video of his full reaction is also in the tweets below.

Presidential historian John Meacham said on MSNBC Friday night, “The country, I think, should rightly pause and mourn this remarkably pioneering life, which was given to a realization that what Thomas Jefferson wrote in a different era could mean real change and real possibility from era to era to era.”

The Motion Picture Association CEO Charles Rivkin tweeted — see below — and issued a statement saying, “Ruth Bader Ginsburg exemplified the best in America.” He called her, “a champion for equality, a fierce defender of free speech, and a passionate supporter of the arts” and a “towering figure in the world of copyright.”

“Most notably,” wrote Rivkin, “Justice Ginsburg proved the power of the dissenting voice. It has and will continue to inspire countless storytellers. And, while her life has been celebrated on screen in films like RBG and On the Basis of Sex, her true legacy is inspiring all creators to tell their own stories.”

In Sundance two years ago for the debut of the RBG documentary, Ginsburg was a rock star among rock stars. The film was was introduced by a praise-filled Robert Redford himself who said, “I can’t think of any greater honor than to introduce a person I so admire.”

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That documentary was directed by Betsy West and Julie Cohen, the latter of whom tweeted twice about the news of Ginsburg’s death on Friday.

Here are just some of the deluge of reactions and tributes posted this evening:

WGA East president Beau Willimon and executive director Lowell Peterson called Ginsburg “a jurist of extraordinary intellect and perseverance, a woman whose remarkable career and thoughtful jurisprudence has inspired and awed us for many years. She tirelessly upheld the principle of equality in all walks of life, particularly the workplace. With the loss of Justice Ginsburg, Americans have lost a hero. They should not lose the Supreme Court.”

“In addition to protecting racial and gender equality,” they said in a joint statement, “Justice Ginsburg fiercely defended a person’s right to vote. In her dying words, she said “My fervent wish is that I not be replaced until a new president is installed.” She knew that a functioning democracy must represent the will of the people. With just over a month before the next election, it is imperative that the White House and Senate not attempt to fill her vacancy until whomever is chosen to lead our government on November 3rd takes office.

“Millions of workers, including many in our own Guild, are desperately awaiting help from the federal government in the next COVID-19 relief package. If the Senate Majority accelerates a Supreme Court appointment while they cannot muster the energy to address the most profound economic and public health crisis in modern times, it will be clear that they value neither democracy nor working people, only power.”

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