Ruth Bader Ginsburg
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50 free Ruth Bader Ginsburg trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg spent decades changing what the law expected of women, first as a litigator who picked her cases with a strategist's care and then as a justice whose dissents were read far beyond the courtroom. Late in life she became something rarer for a judge: a pop-culture figure with a nickname, a signature collar and a gym routine people talked about. This quiz follows the whole story. It covers her childhood and schooling, the doors that stayed shut to a top graduate who happened to be a woman, the equality cases she argued and won, her time on the appeals bench and the Supreme Court, and the opinions and dissents that defined her. It also takes in her marriage, her friendships across the aisle, her passions outside the courtroom, and the films, sketches and tributes she inspired. The questions suit students of history and government, fans who know her simply as RBG, and anyone hosting a trivia night who wants answers that come with a story attached.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which rap star's stage name inspired the nickname a law student gave Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Tumblr?
The Notorious B.I.G.
The Notorious B.I.G. lent his name to the Notorious R.B.G., a nickname law student Shana Knizhnik coined after a fiery voting rights dissent.
Q 02Which exercise could Ruth Bader Ginsburg do twenty of in a session with trainer Bryant Johnson before turning 80?
Push-ups
Push-ups were part of her twice-weekly sessions with Johnson, a former Army reservist, which began after cancer treatment in 1999 left her weak.
Q 03On which late-night host's show did Ruth Bader Ginsburg rule that a hot dog counts as a sandwich?
Stephen Colbert
Stephen Colbert joined her gym workout in 2018 and put the question to her; she ruled that under his definition of a sandwich, a hot dog qualifies.
Q 04Which insect did researchers name after Ruth Bader Ginsburg because its neck plate resembles her lace collar?
A praying mantis
A praying mantis got the name Ilomantis ginsburgae in 2016, and the species was identified from female rather than male specimens, a nod to her fight for equality.
Q 05Which conservative justice did Ruth Bader Ginsburg consider her closest colleague on the Supreme Court?
Antonin Scalia
Antonin Scalia and Ginsburg often dined together, and the pair had already served side by side on the D.C. Circuit appeals court in the 1980s.
Q 06Which Saturday Night Live cast member began playing Ruth Bader Ginsburg in 2015, capping each insult with a dance?
Kate McKinnon
Kate McKinnon had her version of the justice call the insults Ginsburns, and took the character to a sketch at the 2016 Republican convention.
Q 07Ruth Bader Ginsburg joked in 2016 that she might move to which country if Donald Trump became president?
New Zealand
New Zealand was her quip in a July 2016 interview; she later apologized for commenting on a presidential candidate, calling her remarks ill advised.
Q 08Which household job did Martin Ginsburg take over because his wife Ruth Bader Ginsburg was famously terrible at it?
Cooking
Cooking became Martin's domain and he grew into an accomplished French chef; after he died, a fellow justice's wife published his recipes as Chef Supreme.
Q 09Which president nominated Ruth Bader Ginsburg to the Supreme Court, where the Senate confirmed her by 96 votes to 3?
Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton picked her to replace the retiring Byron White, making her the first Jewish justice since Abe Fortas resigned in 1969.
Q 10In which art form did Ruth Bader Ginsburg appear on stage in non-speaking walk-on roles, including in Die Fledermaus?
Opera
Opera drew her on stage as an extra more than once, and in 2016 she spoke lines she had written herself in The Daughter of the Regiment.
Q 11Ruth Bader Ginsburg was the second woman to serve on the Supreme Court; who was the first, retiring in 2006?
Sandra Day O'Connor
Sandra Day O'Connor served alongside her for more than a decade, and the two are the joint subject of Linda Hirshman's book Sisters in Law.
Q 12In which New York City borough was Ruth Bader Ginsburg born and raised, the daughter of a Jewish emigrant from Odesa?
Brooklyn
Brooklyn was home to her family's Flatbush household, and in 2023 a public hospital bearing her name opened in the borough, with a bronze statue of her in its lobby.
Q 13Which English actress played the young Ruth Bader Ginsburg in the 2018 film On the Basis of Sex?
Felicity Jones
Q 21At which Ivy League university did Ruth Bader Ginsburg earn her first degree and meet husband-to-be Martin at 17?
Cornell
Cornell awarded her a government degree in 1954 as the highest-ranking woman in her class and a member of Phi Beta Kappa.
Q 22From which law school did Ruth Bader Ginsburg graduate tied for first in her class after transferring from Harvard?
Columbia
Columbia later made her its first tenured woman law professor; she had transferred there when her husband took a job in New York City.
Q 23At which organization did Ruth Bader Ginsburg co-found the Women's Rights Project in 1972 and become general counsel?
American Civil Liberties Union
Felicity Jones starred opposite Armie Hammer as husband Marty, and the real justice makes a cameo appearance in the film.
Q 14Who was confirmed to Ruth Bader Ginsburg's Supreme Court seat shortly before the 2020 presidential election?
Amy Coney Barrett
Amy Coney Barrett was sworn in on October 26, 2020, although Ginsburg had dictated a wish not to be replaced until a new president was installed.
Q 15Ruth Bader Ginsburg's 1996 majority opinion ended the male-only admissions policy of which state-run college?
Virginia Military Institute
Virginia Military Institute had offered a separate program for women instead, which she likened to Texas once creating a separate law school for Black students.
Q 16Ruth Bader Ginsburg's 2007 dissent urged Congress to act, inspiring a fair pay law named for which Goodyear worker?
Lilly Ledbetter
Lilly Ledbetter had sued over years of lower pay than male colleagues; the Court ruled she had filed too late, and Congress later made such claims easier to win.
Q 17Ruth Bader Ginsburg's Shelby County v. Holder dissent likened scrapping a voting rule to discarding what in a rainstorm?
An umbrella
An umbrella, she wrote, should not be thrown away just because you are not getting wet; the 2013 ruling had struck down part of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Q 18Ruth Bader Ginsburg's 2014 dissent opposed letting which retailer drop contraception coverage on religious grounds?
Hobby Lobby
Hobby Lobby won a decision she called one of startling breadth, and musician Jonathan Mann later turned part of her dissent into a song.
Q 19Which president met with Ruth Bader Ginsburg to nudge her toward retiring while his party still held the Senate?
Barack Obama
Barack Obama made the case in 2013, but she refused, saying she would stay as long as she was mentally sharp enough to do the job.
Q 20What is the name of the decorative lace collar that Ruth Bader Ginsburg wore over her robes and collected worldwide?
Jabot
A jabot in black and gold signalled a dissent, while a yellow and cream one, a gift from her law clerks, marked a majority opinion.
The American Civil Liberties Union project took her to the Supreme Court six times between 1973 and 1976, and she won five of those cases.
Q 24Which landmark ruling did Ruth Bader Ginsburg criticize for cutting short a democratic movement to change state laws?
Roe v. Wade
Roe v. Wade, she argued on its 40th anniversary, halted a growing drive to liberalize abortion laws that might have built a more durable consensus.
Q 25Ruth Bader Ginsburg was the only woman on the Supreme Court from 2006 until who joined her on the bench in 2009?
Sonia Sotomayor
Sonia Sotomayor's arrival ended a three-year stretch in which Ginsburg, for the first time, read several of her dissents aloud from the bench in one term.
Q 26Ruth Bader Ginsburg's courtroom wins for women's rights earned her comparison with which earlier Supreme Court justice?
Thurgood Marshall
Thurgood Marshall was the comparison first drawn in 1985 by Erwin Griswold, the Harvard dean said to have once asked why she was taking a man's place.
Q 27After Ruth Bader Ginsburg's final Supreme Court argument, William Rehnquist joked about putting whom on the new dollar?
Susan B. Anthony
Susan B. Anthony was his suggestion; Ginsburg considered answering that women would not settle for tokens, but chose to say nothing.
Q 28Ruth Bader Ginsburg is believed to be the first Supreme Court justice to officiate at which kind of event, in 2013?
A same-sex wedding
A same-sex wedding between Kennedy Center president Michael Kaiser and economist John Roberts was the occasion, in the summer the Court bolstered such marriage rights.
Q 29Ruth Bader Ginsburg gave her blessing for a toy version of herself to cameo in which 2019 animated film?
The Lego Movie 2
The Lego Movie 2 shows her mini-figurine in a brief segment, and the figure was then sold in toy sets after the film's release.
Q 30Where was Ruth Bader Ginsburg buried beside her husband Martin, a former Army officer, in September 2020?
Arlington National Cemetery
Arlington National Cemetery received her eleven days after her death, once thousands of mourners had filed past her casket outside the Court.