Washington (CNN)For Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the gloves are off and the collar is on.
As she did on Monday in an important employee wage dispute, Ginsburg dons her classic dissenting collar -- black with silver crystal accents -- over her robe when she is about to take the unusual step of protesting a majority decision from the bench.
Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Washington in 2013. She was the second woman to serve on the Supreme Court.
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Ginsburg was born Joan Ruth Bader on March 15, 1933. Here she is at 2 years old.
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A photo of Ginsburg from her high school yearbook.
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Ginsburg, 13, sits immediately to the left of Rabbi Harry Halpern at the East Midwood Jewish Center, a synagogue in Brooklyn, New York, in 1946.
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Ginsburg and her cousin Richard ski at a lodge in the Adirondacks circa 1946.
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Ginsburg is the maid of honor at a cousin's wedding in 1951.
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Ginsburg met her husband, Martin, while attending Cornell University, and both went on to study law. The couple were engaged in December 1953.
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Ginsburg and her husband married in June 1954. She was 21 at the time.
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The couple went on to have two children: Jane, born in 1955, and James, born in 1965.
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A portrait of Ginsburg from 1977. At the time, she was a professor at the Columbia University School of Law. She was also a general counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union.
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Ginsburg is joined by family members on the steps of the US Supreme Court after arguing a case there in November 1978. With Ginsburg, from left, are her brother-in-law Ed Stiepleman; her nephew David Stiepleman; and her son, James.
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Ginsburg was the first woman to be hired with tenure at the Columbia University School of Law. She also taught at the Rutgers University School of Law.
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Ginsburg, her husband and their two children -— James and Jane — pose for a photo off the shore of St. Thomas in 1979.
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In 1980, US President Jimmy Carter nominated Ginsburg to be a judge for the US Court of Appeals' District of Columbia Circuit.
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Ginsburg in her chambers at the US Courthouse in Washington.
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Ginsburg, her husband and their children vacation in Egypt in 1985.
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Ginsburg and her husband take a bus to Paris circa 1988.
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Ginsburg reads to a group of children at the 10th anniversary of the TV show "Reading Rainbow" in 1993.
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President Bill Clinton nominated Ginsburg to the US Supreme Court in June 1993. Here, Ginsburg is holding a photograph of Hillary Clinton singing "the toothbrush song" with Ginsburg's granddaughter Clara and her nursery school class.
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Ginsburg talks with a reporter after being nominated for the Supreme Court in 1993. On the far right is US Sen. Joe Biden. US Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan is wearing the bowtie.
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Ginsburg is greeted by her husband during her confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
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During her confirmation hearing, Ginsburg holds up a book titled "My Grandma is Very Special." It was written by Paul Spera, her grandson.
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Ginsburg takes the Supreme Court oath from Chief Justice William Rehnquist, right, in August 1993. Joining them were Clinton and Martin Ginsburg.
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From the steps of the Supreme Court, Rehnquist introduces Ginsburg to the press in October 1993.
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Ginsburg poses with family members at the Supreme Court in October 1993. With Ginsburg, from left, are her son-in-law, George Spera; her daughter, Jane; her granddaughter Clara Spera; her husband, Martin; her son, James; and her grandson Paul Spera.
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Ginsburg and her husband embrace while attending an event. The two were married for nearly 60 years. Martin Ginsburg died in 2010.
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This informal group photo was taken of the US Supreme Court in December 1993. From left are Clarence Thomas, John Paul Stevens, Antonin Scalia, Chief Justice William Rehnquist, Sandra Day O'Connor, Anthony Kennedy, David Souter, Ginsburg and Harry Blackmun.
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Scalia and Ginsburg pose on an elephant during their tour of India in 1994. Scalia once said they were an "odd couple" and he counted her as his "best buddy" on the bench.
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Ginsburg, second from left, and Scalia, second from right, appeared in the opening-night production of "Ariadne auf Naxos," an opera at the Kennedy Center in Washington in 1994.
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Ginsburg and fellow Justice Sandra Day O'Connor hold basketballs given to them by the US women's basketball team in December 1995.
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Ginsburg, front right, poses with other prominent Jewish-Americans while standing in a maze on New York's Ellis Island in 1996. It was part of a project by photographer Frederic Brenner. Also in the front row, from left, are artist Roy Lichtenstein, actress Lauren Bacall, violinist Itzhak Perlman and playwright Arthur Miller.
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Ginsburg sits in her Supreme Court chambers in 2002.
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Ginsburg makes her way through a crowd after an address at an ACLU conference in June 2003.
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Ginsburg and her husband laugh as they listen to Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer speak at Columbia Law School in September 2003.
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Ginsburg stands with President George W. Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice at the Department of State in January 2005. Ginsburg had sworn in Rice that day.
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From left, Supreme Court Justices Stephen Breyer, John Roberts, Ginsburg and Anthony Kennedy pose for a photo before meeting with French President Nicolas Sarkozy in Paris in July 2007.
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Ginsburg wears a "Super Diva" sweatshirt as she works out at the Supreme Court in August 2007.
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Ginsburg talks with filmmaker David Grubin about his PBS series "The Jewish Americans" in 2008.
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Ginsburg arrives to a joint session of Congress where President Barack Obama was speaking in 2009. That month, Ginsburg had surgery and treatment for early stages of pancreatic cancer. A decade before, she had successful surgery for colon cancer.
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The only women who have become Supreme Court justices pose together in 2010. From left are Sandra Day O'Connor, Sonia Sotomayor, Ginsburg and Elena Kagan.
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While standing to receive an honorary degree from Harvard University, Ginsburg was surprised with a serenade from Spanish tenor Placido Domingo in 2011. Domingo also received an honorary degree.
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Ginsburg visits with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at the State Department in Washington in 2012.
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In August 2013, Ginsburg celebrated her 20th anniversary on the Supreme Court.
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President Barack Obama hugs Ginsburg as he arrives to deliver the State of the Union address in January 2015. Ginsburg didn't shy away from fashion. She often accessorized her black robe with intricate lace collars and an array of different gloves.
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Ginsburg, with an extra from "Carmen," attends the opera at the Kennedy Center in Washington in October 2015.
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Ginsburg acknowledges applause before a speaking event in Chicago in September 2017.
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Ginsburg arrives to speak at New York University's law school in February 2018.
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Ginsburg gives a keynote address at Columbia University in February 2018.
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Ginsburg and other Supreme Court justices attend a Presidential Medal of Freedom ceremony at the White House in November 2018.
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The US Supreme Court, with newest member Brett Kavanaugh, poses for an official portrait in Washington in November 2018. In the back row, from left, are Neil Gorsuch, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Kavanaugh. In the front row, from left, are Stephen Breyer, Clarence Thomas, Chief Justice John Roberts, Ginsburg and Samuel Alito.
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Ginsburg leaves a private ceremony at the Great Hall of the Supreme Court, where former Justice John Paul Stevens was lying in repose in July 2019.
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Ginsburg makes her first public appearance since it was announced in August 2019 that she had undergone recent treatment for pancreatic cancer. While accepting an honorary degree from the University at Buffalo, she made remarks and briefly referenced her health.
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In December 2019, Ginsburg was awarded the Berggruen Institute Prize for Philosophy and Culture. She planned to donate the $1 million prize to a number of organizations that promote opportunities for women.
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Ginsburg participates in a discussion about the 19th Amendment at the Georgetown University Law Center in February 2020. The 19th Amendment guaranteed women the right to vote.
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"Nothing compels the destructive result the court reaches today," she said, adding in her written opinion that the majority was "egregiously wrong," retrenching on 80 years of federal labor law that sought "to place employers and employees on more equal footing."
Her forceful tone Monday, combined with earlier cases this session and the nature of controversies yet to be resolved, suggest Ginsburg and the three other liberals may increasingly be in the minority as the court nears the end of its annual session in late June -- and more likely to speak out.
At age 85, Ginsburg is the eldest of the nine sitting justices. A 1993 appointee of Democratic President Bill Clinton and the second woman named to the bench, Ginsburg has achieved an icon status, particularly among young lawyers. Her dissents have enhanced her prominence. The "Notorious RBG" meme, a play on the rapper Notorious B.I.G.," began as fans responded to her dissenting opinion in a case in which the conservative majority curtailed the reach of the federal Voting Rights Act.
After operating with only eight justices for parts of 2016 and 2017, following Antonin Scalia's death, the Supreme Court is in its first full session with Justice Neil Gorsuch, President Donald Trump's appointee. The bench appears to have moved beyond the interim pattern of incremental steps and compromise and returned to sharp 5-4 ideological divisions, led by Chief Justice John Roberts on the right and Ginsburg on the left.
That divide, as well as Ginsburg's continued legacy, will be tested in upcoming weeks with pending cases.
Among them is a major labor dispute that could determine the financial fate of public sector unions. The court is considering whether to reverse a four-decade precedent that permits unions to collect certain "fair share" fees from non-members to cover the cost of representing them in collective bargaining.
Also pending is a case pitting gay rights against religious interests, brought by a Christian baker in Colorado who refused to make a wedding cake for two gay men, and separate voting-district disputes from Wisconsin and Maryland testing the constitutionality of partisan gerrymanders.
In Monday's case, decided by a bitter 5-4 vote, the conservative majority ruled that employers may forbid employees from banding together to fight wage and other workplace issues covered by arbitration agreements. The court said a federal arbitration statute overrides federal labor law intended to protect workers' bargaining power.
Speaking for the four liberal dissenters, Ginsburg said the decision threatens to return the country to a time in the late 19th century and early 20th when workers were forced to take jobs strictly on the boss's terms and "yellow dog" contracts, forbidding employees from joining labor unions, were common.
The employees who had brought Monday's case claimed they had been underpaid in violation of the Fair Labor Standards and wanted to join in a class-action lawsuit in federal court. The Supreme Court majority agreed with their employers that the arbitration contracts they had signed prohibited any collective proceedings.
'RBG': First look at upcoming CNN Film 02:21
Ginsburg declared the agreements "arm-twisted, take-it-or-leave-it contracts." She noted that the cost of a lawsuit dissuades most workers from seeking to redress a grievance on their own and emphasized the "strength in numbers."
She said federal laws dating to the 1930s protect workers' rights to band together to confront employers about working conditions. "Federal labor law does not countenance such isolation of employees," she insisted.
So dire was her warning about a return to pre-New Deal conditions that Justice Gorsuch, who wrote for the majority, spent nearly half of his bench announcement on Monday morning responding to the dissent. Of Ginsburg's claim that the majority decision resurrected the long-dead "yellow dog contract," Gorsuch said, "This is a false alarm."
He devoted five pages of his 25-page opinion addressing Ginsburg's dissenting statement.
Gorsuch said the majority properly interpreted the text of arbitration law. He cited past cases favoring arbitration in commercial disputes.
Ginsburg says equal pay is not yet a reality 05:26
Liberals had insisted the labor context was different. "As I see it," Ginsburg added, "in relatively recent years, the court's Arbitration Act decisions have taken many wrong turns. Yet, even accepting the court's decisions are they are, nothing compels the destructive result the court reaches today." She predicted the decision would lead to the underenforcement of federal and state labor laws.
Gorsuch acknowledged in his written opinion that because individual workers might not sue on their own, class actions can help enforce federal and state wage laws. But he added, quoting Ginsburg in a 2010 case, "it's also well known that they can unfairly 'place pressure on the defendant to settle even unmeritorious claims.'"
Joining Gorsuch in Monday's Epic Systems Corp. v. Lewis were Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito. Dissenting with Ginsburg were Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.
The nine divided along similar lines last month when the court disallowed overtime pay for certain automobile workers. Ginsburg wrote for dissenters in that case, Encino Motorcars v. Navarro, that the conservative majority was undermining worker protections from the 1930 New Deal era "without even acknowledging that it unsettles more than a half century of our precedent."
The same split could emerge in what is likely the most important labor case of the term, testing the constitutionality of state laws that require public-sector employees who decline to join a union nonetheless to pay fees to cover the cost of collective bargaining.
In past cases, conservative justices have signaled that they might be ready to rule for the challengers who say being forced to pay any fees infringes on their free speech rights.
Advocates for such "fair share" payments contend a high court decision letting employees benefit from representation without paying would seriously cripple labor unions in America.
A supreme interview with Ruth Bader Ginsburg 01:14:14
