The late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg will be featured on a U.S. Forever stamp in 2023- the first Supreme Court justice to grace our postage since 2003 (Thurgood Marshall). 

She is also the first female justice to be featured on a stamp (although not the first female Supreme Court justice- that was Sandra Day O’Connor, sworn in to the Court in 1981)-- although with the increase in female justices (the Court currently has four female members- Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Amy Coney Barrett, and Ketanji Brown Jackson) we suspect she will not be the last! 

Supreme Court justices have been depicted on postage stamps before, although Thurgood Marshall was the first more “modern” justice to appear. Other justices appearing on stamps include William Brennan Jr., Louis Brandeis, Hugo Black, and Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. Featuring RBG on a stamp is notable in several ways, much like the late Justice herself. Her portrait on the stamp features the Justice wearing what she described as her “favorite” collar. Justice Ginsberg was known for wearing elaborate collars over the top of her black judicial robes- check out an article with photos of some of them here, along with stories about their provenance. 

Submitted by Babler,Emma on November 2, 2022

This article appears in the categories: Law Library