Navy Announces Honor for Ginsburg

Recognizing that it's among the beneficiaries of Ruth Bader Ginsburg's work to secure gender equality, the Navy has announced a ship will be named for the late Supreme Court justice. "She is instrumental to why we now have women of all backgrounds, experiences and talents serving within our ranks, side by side with their male Sailor and Marine counterparts," Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro said in a statement Thursday, the final day of Women's History Month, Reuters reports. Ginsburg died in September 2020.

The next replenishment oiler ship will become the USNS Ruth Bader Ginsburg, said Del Toro, who specifically mentioned that Ginsburg wrote the 1996 majority opinion throwing out the males-only admissions policy of the Virginia Military Institute. The ships carry oil and transfer fuel to operating carrier strike groups. The Ginsburg will join others in its class, named for John Lewis, that honor people who contributed to the advancement of civil rights, per CBS News. Ships so far have been named for Robert F. Kennedy, Sojourner Truth, and Lewis, the civil rights icon and member of Congress who died in 2020. (More Ruth Bader Ginsburg stories.)