‘Pioneer’ Supreme Court justice a consensus builder
WASHINGTON — Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, the first woman on the Supreme Court, was remembered Tuesday at a funeral that nodded to her role on the court as a consensus builder.
“Gracious and wise, civil and principled, Sandra Day O’Connor, daughter of the American West, was a pioneer in her own right, breaking down barriers in the legal and political world and in the nation’s consciousness,” President Joe Biden said in remarks at Washington National Cathedral.
“She knew no person is an island,” he added. “The fabric of our nation, we are all inextricably linked, and for America to thrive, America must see themselves not as enemies but as partners in the great work of deciding our collective destiny.”
Chief Justice John Roberts also gave an eulogy for the justice, who as the ideological center of the court wielded considerable power during her tenure.
“It has been said the Supreme Court is like a family — a family composed entirely of in-laws,” he said, adding that “she had to ignore slights and work to bring people together in social, professional and political life.”
Acknowledging her pathbreaking role, he recalled, “Her leadership shaped the legal profession, making it obvious that judges are both women and men.”
O’Connor, who died of complications from dementia this month at 93, was baptized in the Episcopal Church, regularly worshipped at the National Cathedral and had sat on its governing board.
The service, the second day of ceremonies in Washington, where the justice had served for 24 years before she retired in 2006, drew hundreds of mourners, including all nine current justices and retired Justice Anthony Kennedy.
On Monday, she lay in repose in the Great Hall of the Supreme Court, as her former law clerks took turns watching over her coffin.
The current justices, along with retired Justice Anthony Kennedy, attended a private service at the court, along with the justice’s family and clerks.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the third female justice, spoke of O’Connor’s commitment to creating an atmosphere of collegiality at the court and added that she believed O’Connor would be “smiling, knowing that four sisters serve” on the nine-member court.
The Rev. Jane E. Fahey, one of O’Connor’s first clerks in the 1980s, remembered her for “her cowgirl grit, energy and no-nonsense sense of duty.”
Vice President Kamala Harris and her husband, Doug Emhoff, later arrived to pay their respects. O’Connor, the daughter of an Arizona rancher, spent a colorful childhood on the Lazy B, where her family raised cattle in the high desert along the border of Arizona and New Mexico.
She joined the Supreme Court in 1981. Fulfilling a campaign promise to appoint the first woman to the court, President Ronald Reagan nominated O’Connor, who at the time was an appeals court judge in Arizona.
She announced her retirement because her husband, whom she met when both were students at Stanford Law School, had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease years before.
During her retirement, the justice focused on two causes, judicial independence and civics education. She also traveled with her grandchildren and wrote two children’s books that drew from her childhood on a ranch.
In October 2018, she announced that she had been diagnosed with the beginning stages of dementia and would withdraw from public life.