After cancer treatment, Ginsburg receives honorary degree

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Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg accepted an honorary degree from the University at Buffalo on Monday, just days after the public learned she’d recently undergone cancer treatment.

The Supreme Court announced Friday that Ginsburg underwent three weeks of outpatient radiation therapy beginning August 5 for a tumor on her pancreas. It said there is no evidence of the disease remaining elsewhere in her body.

The 86-year-old justice received several standing ovations during an hour-long appearance Monday, when she also sat for a question-and-answer session. She referred to her health only briefly, saying she wanted to honor a commitment to appear she made last year.

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Before a capacity crowd of about 1,700 at UB’s Center for the Arts, the court’s oldest member mused over her celebrity status, evident in “Saturday Night Live” parodies, T-shirts bearing her image, a CNN documentary and the movie, “On the Basis of Sex.”

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg speaks at University of Buffalo School of Law in Buffalo, New York
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg smiles during a reception where she was presented with an honorary doctoral degree at the University at Buffalo School of Law in Buffalo, New York, on August 26, 2019. Reuters

“It was beyond my wildest expectation that I would one day become the Notorious R.B.G,” the justice said to applause and cheers while accepting an honorary law degree.

She called her contributions to gender equality “exhilarating.”

“The progress I have seen in my lifetime makes me optimistic for the future,” Ginsburg told the audience of mostly students and faculty. “Our communities, nation and world will be increasingly improved as women achieve their rightful place in all fields.”

Final year law student Abisha Vijayashanthar said she came away inspired.

“Are you kidding me? She’s a woman, a legend, the Notorious R.B.G.,” Vijayashanthar said. “I think she gives us hope and that’s exactly what we need today.”

Ginsburg was appointed by President Bill Clinton in 1993. Earlier in her career she argued and won groundbreaking legal cases for women’s rights and gender equality.

Her health is watched closely as the leader of the Supreme Court’s liberal wing. She has now been treated for cancer four times over the last two decades.

“I did not withdraw when my own health problems presented challenges,” Ginsburg said in her only reference to her health during the hour-long appearance.

After accepting her degree, Ginsburg shed her academic robes backstage and returned for a 30-minute question-and-answer session with Law School Dean Aviva Abramovsky. Later Monday, she was scheduled to address about 2,200 people at an event at Kleinhans Music Hall in Buffalo, where organizers said she would take questions from the public.

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Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg receives honorary law degree from the University at Buffalo

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