She made ‘mountains move,’ says UTEP professor of late Justice Ginsburg’s landmark work for gender equality

EL PASO, Texas -- Long before her time on the nation's highest court, Ruth Bader Ginsburg "changed the way that the United States looks at women in relation to the law," a Borderland educator told ABC-7.

"It's like making mountains move - what she managed to do in just five years arguing before the United States Supreme Court," said Todd Curry, an associate professor for the University of Texas at El Paso. "I think that's her largest legacy."

Thanks to Ginsburg's historic U.S. Supreme Court victories from 1971 to 1976, women can rent apartments and own their own credit cards.

"Really, I feel like Ruth Bader Ginsburg's legacy is through the service she put in her time as a litigator," Curry said.

Ginsburg died on Friday at the age of 87.

"Within the last like five years, we've seen Justice Ginsburg merge into sort of a popular culture figure," Curry said. "Something that at least in my lifetime, I can't remember."

Curry said his freshman political science students entered the university already familiar with the justice's work.

"I can't remember a justice who has made that sort of crossover to where introductive level students in my college classroom knew who she was, Curry said. "They knew Ruth Bader Ginsburg. They knew 'Notorious RBG.'"