News Story

For additional information about Justice O'Connor's visit and the Law School, please go to the press kit page.

One Monday, October 22, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor began her second day as Distinguished Jurist in Residence at the Law School by taking in the view of campus from the seventh floor of Myron Taylor Hall tower in the company of women leaders of student organizations at the school.

Over coffee and croissants she spoke with them about her upbringing on a cattle ranch in a remote region in western Texas, how she came to consider a career in law at a time when few women did so, why she thinks education and an independent judiciary are essential to a well-run society, and what she considers are the world’s most pressing problems.

Some of her responses resurfaced at a press conference with local media later that morning and a well-attended “fireside chat” with Cornell Provost Biddy Martin that afternoon in Anabel Taylor auditorium. Here are a few of her remarks.

On growing up on a ranch: “I learned poker from ranch hands, raised an abandoned bobcat my father brought home in his pocket, and kept a wild horse we tamed, Chico, whom I wrote about in a book for children. I learned how to read at a young age—my mother kept a wonderful library and books were my friends.” Her most enduring memories are of “the wide sky and endless sense of space. The stars looked so close you could reach up and pluck them. You had the sense that human beings were just infinitesimal in this vast universe.”

On choosing law: “At Stanford I took a law class for undergraduates taught by Harry Rathbun. Because of him I thought of applying to law school. I loved the study of law, found it fascinating.”

On her first job: “I graduated first in my class at Stanford law school. I wanted to work at work worth doing, but I couldn’t get an interview, much less a job. I didn’t spend a lot of time wringing my hands though.” Instead she related how she talked her way into a non-paying job as a lawyer with San Matteo County that led to a paying one with the county, after a vacancy occurred. When the family moved to Phoenix she started her own small private law practice with a male partner. Volunteering with her local Republican Party led eventually to her appointment as assistant attorney general of Arizona to fill a mid-term vacancy. Later she was elected to the post and also won a successful state ballot measure to eliminate the election of judges.

On balancing work and family: “I wanted to be married and have a family as well as practice law.” She managed to keep her legal mind active while taking time off from law to raise her children by grading state bar exams, handling bankruptcy cases, serving on the county zoning board and refereeing youthful offenders.

On her first visit to the Supreme Court: “It was the Korean War. My husband and I were living in North Carolina, where he was training as an officer. One cold, snowy day I said, ‘Let’s drive up to D.C.’ I wanted to see the Supreme Court. When we arrived, the building was closed, so we walked up the icy steps and I took a picture of him in front of the columns. I said, ‘That’s the closest we’ll ever get to the court.’”

On her role at the Supreme Court: “I decided I’d put all my energy into deciding a case, and not look back later and second guess what I’d done. But there is one case, Minnesota v. White that concerns an independent judiciary that is causing a lot of trouble. You law students can look it up.”

On how that role is portrayed in the media: “I detest the term ‘swing vote.’ What does that conjure? Someone sitting on a swing, back and forth, doesn’t matter.”

On her most controversial decision: “There are a lot of people who were very unhappy with the Bush v. Gore decision [which stopped the recounting of votes in Florida in the 2000 presidential election]. But the Supreme Court did not decide the vote. The result [in Florida] was not changed by three recountings. A couple of times in our nation’s history the candidate who won the popular vote did not win the electoral vote. That was the case in the 2000 election. We elect our presidents by an electoral college system—not a popular vote. It was a compromise made at the time of the Constitution that was a protection for smaller states. A Constitutional amendment would be needed to change that.”

On the world’s most pressing problem: Water, not oil is probably the number one. There is not enough water worldwide for irrigating crops or for drinking. We’re going to have figure out how to desalinate water from the ocean less expensively and grow more crops that tolerate slightly saline water. You can make all the difference in the world by providing clean drinking water in places that need it, doing something as simple as digging a well.”

On her female colleague on the Supreme Court, Cornellian Ruth Bader Ginsburg: “She’s so gifted. She writes well, thinks well, is enormously competent. We’ve enjoyed a wonderful relationship.”

While Justice O’Connor said she disliked the attention that being the first woman on the court brought her, she is pleased women in law school and law practice are now commonplace. “I have lived through an entire revolution,” she said. She challenged her fireside chat audience to determine why 50 percent of law students are women in the United States, but only 35 to 40 percent of recent law graduates in law firms are women. And two years out of law school, only 15 to 20 percent of law firm associates are women.

She also spoke proudly of her visit the previous week to Seneca Falls, N.Y., the site of the first Women’s Rights Convention: “I was privileged to go with a group of marvelous women to visit the spot where that first conference was convened in 1848 by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott. We stood by the remaining wall of Wesleyan chapel and read Mrs. Stanton’s speech. It was so moving it brought tears to our eyes. That was the start. But getting women the right to vote took a long time, till 1920.”

Another highlight of the day: Justice O’Connor and Dean Stewart Schwab, who had clerked for her early in her second term, presented a paper they co-authored on the future of affirmative action, at a brown bag luncheon workshop with Law School faculty in the MacDonald Moot Court Room.

The paper was inspired by Justice O’Connor’s majority opinion in Grutter v. Bolinger in which she ruled race could remain a factor in college admissions because of “educational benefits that flow from a diverse student body,” but also stated “[t]he court expects that twenty-five years from now, the use of racial preferences will no longer be necessary to further the interest approved today.”

During the workshop she expressed her worries about “the fragility of the decision,” which barely garnered five votes when she was on the court and may not stand in her absence, she said. She voiced her concern that minority admissions were significantly down at universities in states like California, where affirmative action in college admissions has been banned. “We’ve got to do what we can to improve these statistics,” she said.

“I’m extremely impressed by her intelligence, her confidence, her presence,” said first-year law student Joe Ronca. “She is a captivating speaker, and I was in awe of her at the Moot Court.”

“How many opportunities do you get to hear a former U.S. Supreme Court justice,” said first year law student Melissa Delaquila, who attended Justice O’Connor’s “fireside chat.” “She an extraordinary person and an incredible role model.”

Reported by Linda Myers