ACS Announces Creation of Award in Honor of late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Immediate Release 

Contact: Pablo Willis, pwillis@acslaw.org

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The American Constitution Society today announced the creation of the ACS Ruth Bader Ginsburg Scholar Award during its 2021 Annual National Convention.

The award will recognize an outstanding scholar in the early stages of their academic career who has demonstrated those qualities exemplified by Justice Ginsburg: scholarly excellence, the ability to imagine how society might be more just and more equal, and the determination to use the law and one’s scholarship to creatively and strategically make the imagined real.

The winner will receive a $5,000 cash award.

“It is an honor for ACS to be able to create this award in memory of one of the most influential and inspirational lawyers and jurists in American history,” said ACS President Russ Feingold. “Through her towering intellect and unending courage, she used the law to create a better life for all Americans. It is only fitting that ACS continue her tradition by recognizing those who would follow in her footsteps.”

While Justice Ginsburg’s litigation career is widely praised, her significant academic experience and accomplishments are less well known to the public. Ginsburg began her academic career at Rutgers Law School, where she co-founded the first legal journal in the country to focus exclusively on the field of women’s rights law and taught her first class on Women and the Law, among the earliest taught on the subject in American law schools.

The first award is scheduled to be given out at ACS’s 2022 Annual National Convention. To be eligible, applicants must be tenure-track or tenured faculty or faculty with similar status who have been full-time law teachers for 10 years or less as of June 30, 2021.

Details on how to nominate or self-nominate for the award can be found on ACS website here.

The application and supporting materials must be received by Oct. 31, 2021 at 6 p.m. ET.

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