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Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. delivered a fond tribute to former Justice Sandra Day O’Connor on Thursday, celebrating her legacy as the primary girl on the Supreme Court docket and her dedication to advancing civics and civility after her retirement.
Throughout an award ceremony at Duke College to acknowledge her contribution to civics schooling, Chief Justice Roberts reiterated his admiration of his former colleague, a vital swing justice who was sometimes called probably the most highly effective girl in America. He eulogized her in December shortly after her dying at 93.
“Sandra Day O’Connor expanded the general public picture of what it meant to appear like a choose,” he mentioned. “She sounded the alarm concerning the rising lack of appreciation of what it means to be a citizen.”
For her work in civics schooling, she was acknowledged on Thursday with the Bolch Prize for the Rule of Regulation, an award that has typically been given to honor judges, together with former Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, for lifetime achievements. The award was accepted by her son Scott O’Connor.
The paths of Chief Justice Roberts and Justice O’Connor have lengthy intersected.
On his first day of labor on the Justice Division in 1981, the younger Mr. Roberts was assigned to assist put together the longer term justice for her affirmation hearings within the Senate, placing collectively draft solutions to questions he anticipated her to face. She was finally confirmed by a vote of 99 to 0.
Justice O’Connor would then sit on the bench for each one of many greater than three dozen instances Chief Justice Roberts argued earlier than the Supreme Court docket as a lawyer, he instructed the viewers on Thursday.
Years later, in 2005, he was nominated by President George W. Bush to succeed Justice O’Connor when she introduced she would retire. The 2 finally served alongside one another on the bench for lower than a 12 months after the dying of Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist left a extra pressing emptiness.
For a quick interval earlier than the arrival of Justice Amy Coney Barrett in 2020, Chief Justice Roberts had a style of the function Justice O’Connor performed all through a lot of her time on the courtroom, serving because the swing vote and the ideological heart. In her almost 25 years on the courtroom, Justice O’Connor steadily staked out a center floor on contentious points like abortion, homosexual rights and affirmative motion.
Echoing earlier public remarks memorializing her, Chief Justice Roberts paid tribute to Justice O’Connor’s trailblazing function, citing how she had laid a basis for girls to comply with at a time after they weren’t seen as equals.
Flipping by pictures from early in her profession, he paused a number of instances to focus on the conspicuous shortage of different girls round her in her regulation faculty class, a moot courtroom competitors and in a while the Supreme Court docket, drawing laughs from the group.
“I definitely felt that she felt she had a accountability as the primary girl on the Supreme Court docket to point out that she might greater than sustain with the boys,” he mentioned on Thursday. “However I feel she additionally felt a accountability as probably the most highly effective girl in America to be on the market, placing her greatest foot ahead and selling the values that assist outline our nation.”
Justice O’Connor stepped down in 2006 to take care of her husband, who was battling Alzheimer’s illness, however remained energetic in public life, listening to instances on appeals courts and selling civics schooling, together with by establishing a web based program. In 2018, she introduced she had dementia.
Her instance helped open the door for others, nonetheless. As we speak, 4 of the 9 justices are girls.
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