Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts speaks at Duke to honor ‘pathbreaking figure’

U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts visited Duke University Thursday evening to speak at a private ceremony honoring the late Justice Sandra Day O’Connor.

O’Connor, the first woman to serve on the nation’s highest court, received this year’s Bolch Prize for the Rule of Law from the Bolch Judicial Institute at the Duke School of Law. The prize has been awarded annually since 2019 “to an individual or organization who has demonstrated extraordinary dedication to the rule of law and advancing rule of law principles around the world.”

O’Connor, who died in December, was honored for her contributions to civics education, notably through her founding of iCivics, a nonprofit that provides free civics resources and games for more than 9 million students each year. O’Connor founded the organization after she stepped down from the Supreme Court in 2006 — one of several post-retirement initiatives that contribute to her legacy of advancing civic education and civil discourse.

Thursday’s ceremony at the Karsh Alumni and Visitors Center included remarks from Roberts and Scott O’Connor, Justice O’Connor’s son, as well as Duke Law Dean Kerry Abrams, Duke Law professor and former O’Connor clerk Lisa Griffin and retired U.S. District Judge Paul Grimm, director of the Bolch Judicial Institute.

Throughout the ceremony, speakers highlighted their personal connections to O’Connor, as well as her accomplishments on the Supreme Court and beyond, including her many trips to countries with fledgling democracies.

Roberts presented archival photos of O’Connor and called attention to one that perhaps best illustrated O’Connor’s lasting legacy: O’Connor, watching as a young girl worked on a laptop computer, exploring the world that was opening to her through her studies. The late justice, who had opened doors for women and girls throughout her career, placed her hand gently on the girl’s shoulder.

“As Justice O’Connor told her sons, our purpose in life is to help others along the way,” Roberts said, referencing the photo.

In a December announcement that O’Connor would receive the award, Roberts called O’Connor “a pathbreaking figure.” When former President George W. Bush picked him to join the Supreme Court in 2005, Roberts was originally nominated to replace the retiring O’Connor, until William Rehnquist’s death created an opening in the position of chief justice.

Grimm described O’Connor’s post-retirement efforts, for which she was primarily awarded the Bolch Prize, as “the capstone of a life dedicated to advancing and protecting the rule of law.”

“Justice O’Connor realized, better than most of us, that without a civically informed public, the rule of law cannot thrive,” Grimm said. “And in order for the public to have faith in our judicial system, which itself is essential to maintaining our democratic form of government, people must first understand how the three branches of government work together.”

O’Connor’s roots and legacy

O’Connor, whom former President Ronald Reagan nominated to the Supreme Court in 1981, was born and raised in Texas and Arizona — the latter being where she spent much of her life.

Throughout Roberts’ remarks, he displayed photos from the duration of O’Connor’s life and career, from her time studying at the Stanford University School of Law, to preparing for her Supreme Court confirmation hearings, to high-fiving basketball player Charles Barkley and dancing with Reagan.

Throughout her career, O’Connor held positions in all three branches of government, serving as assistant attorney general of Arizona, then in the Arizona state Senate, then in two separate courts in Arizona prior to joining the U.S. Supreme Court.

On the Supreme Court, she was known as a moderate and frequent swing-voter who “worked to build consensus” among her fellow justices, a biography published by the Bolch Institute states. When consensus wasn’t possible, O’Connor “often wrote a narrow majority decision or carefully concurred to blunt the impact of a decision that she thought was too broad.”

In a 2003 landmark decision on the consideration of race in college admissions, for example, O’Connor wrote the majority opinion that upheld the University of Michigan Law School’s narrow use of such policies. The precedent set forth in that case stood until last summer, when the court — in a decision written by Roberts — ruled in cases involving UNC-Chapel Hill and Harvard University that such policies are unconstitutional.

Griffin, who served as a clerk for O’Connor at the Supreme Court, said in the Bolch Institute’s December announcement that she “had an extraordinary ability to find the middle ground in the most emotional debates, including those involving reproductive rights and affirmative action.”

Griffin said Thursday that O’Connor is “rightly celebrated for expanding what was possible for women in every profession and, of course, for the careful and pragmatic decisions that she wrote on the Supreme Court.”

O’Connor’s post-retirement work

Beyond O’Connor’s professional accomplishments, Griffin largely focused her remarks on O’Connor’s personality and character, noting that she “was more interesting than the icon that everyone could see from a distance, because she contained some contrast.”

O’Connor was diligent and driven, tending to not show signs of stress, Griffin said. She was focused and calm, but not necessarily relaxed. This was evident during her annual outing with her clerks to see Washington, D.C.’s cherry blossoms, which Griffin described as “a scheduled forward march, regardless of the inclement weather.”

Roberts’ photo presentation included another example of one of O’Connor’s outings with her clerks: a whitewater-rafting trip, with water sprayed high around the inflatable raft, which Roberts noted was beyond the “extracurricular activities” he and other justices offer their clerks.

“Justice O’Connor knew the power of directness, and that included direct engagement with people. I certainly felt that she felt she had a responsibility as the first woman on the Supreme Court to show that she could more than keep up with the boys,” Roberts said. “I think she also felt a responsibility as the most powerful woman in America to be out there putting her best foot forward and promoting the values that help define our country.”

Grimm said Thursday that the Bolch Judicial Institute is “immensely honored” to add O’Connor to its list of recipients.

O’Connor’s son Scott noted that the Bolch Institute was founded the same year, 2018, that O’Connor’s dementia led her to withdraw from public life — but he surmised that she would have been drawn to its purpose and “happily traveled to Durham” to meet its founders and participate in its programming.

Previous recipients of the Bolch Prize are: former Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, Deputy Chief Justice Dikgang Moseneke of the South Africa Constitutional Court, retired Chief Justice Margaret Marshall of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Judge J. Clifford Wallace of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and the International Association of Women Judges.