Insights and hopes for the future from interview with late Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor
I was saddened to hear about the passing of the inspirational former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor at the age of 93. I was fortunate to be able to interview her in 2009 about her deeply held convictions on the need for civic education and engagement, her belief in the power of young people, as well as the vital need to have more women and diversity in government and on the Supreme Court—a path she trailblazed when she became the first female Supreme Court Justice in 1981.
Although she is renowned for being the first female in that role, O’Connor shared with me this poignant hope for equality: “I believe that it is only a matter of time before the structural barriers to women or minorities are effectively dismantled. I look forward to the day when I am thought of as the 102nd Supreme Court Justice rather than the first female Supreme Court Justice.”
A passionate advocate for civic education, O’Connor also spoke about a project she created, after retiring from her esteemed 25-year career, to educate people on the courts and our government, motivated by research she described as « disheartening » that showed that « only a third of the public can even name the three branches of government… yet two-thirds of Americans can name one of the judges from American Idol. »
O’Connor founded Our Courts, which is now iCivics, an online learning resource “designed to teach students civics and inspire them to be active participants in our democracy. » Since then, iCivics has become “the nation’s premier non-profit civic education provider of high-quality, non-partisan, engaging and free resources to more than 9 million students annually, in all 50 states.”
Revisiting our interview, I was struck by how much timely wisdom and insights O’Connor had to share that still feel so relevant and powerful in this moment, especially given the current threats we face in this country, including attacks on voting rights and our democracy, wide-ranging political dysfunction in Washington and a conservative-leaning court, which overturned an abortion decision O’Connor helped write in 1992 and is now targeting affirmative action, another area of interest for O’Connor for which she was often the key vote.
From the education of young people through iCivics to the generations of female lawyers she inspired, including the five women who served after her nomination on the high court, O’Connor’s legacy lives on in many ways.
Here are some highlights from our interview:
Marianne Schnall: Was there any one observation of our society that motivated you to create the Our Courts website [now known as iCivics.org]?
Sandra Day O’Connor: Two observations compelled me to develop Our Courts. First, I was concerned about mounting attacks on courts and judges. I have seen attacks on the judiciary before, of course, starting with the « Impeach Earl Warren » billboard on the highway near the Lazy B Ranch where I grew up. But recent attacks are broader and more vitriolic than any I have seen in my lifetime. That is not to say that judges are above criticism or that people should not voice disagreements with judicial decisions. The freedom to criticize judges and other public officials is necessary to a vibrant democracy. The problem comes when healthy criticism is replaced with more destructive intimidation and sanctions.
My second observation was that many of these attacks stemmed from a fundamental misunderstanding of the role of the judicial branch of government. In fact, surveys show that approximately 75% of the public cannot distinguish the role of a judge from the role of the legislature. Only a third of the public can even name the three branches of government. Compare that to the two-thirds of Americans who can name one of the judges from American Idol, or the nearly three-quarters who can name two of the Three Stooges, and the numbers are disheartening.
