Thank all of our Reagan Foundation trustees, but in particular mr. Ted olson, a driving force behind this celebration. Ted, thank you so much for giving us this opportunity. [ applause ] we will turn to the legacy and discuss the contribution and the ways in which we will continue to see her hand in law and in the civic life of this great country. In 1966, outlining his vision of the creative society, Ronald Reagan advanced an initiative to take judges out of politics and articulated his vision of an ideal judge. He called for judges to be, quote, men with ability, men of honor and men who are fair minded. Well, when it came to his first nomination to the Supreme Court, president reagan delivered a nominee who realized his vision minus the men part. Listening to the sessions earlier today, we have gotten a taste of Justice Oconnors remarkable ability and the honor she brought to the court and the fairness and decency in which she approached her life and her craft. I like to think those would be the qualities our 40th president would offer of his first nominee to the Supreme Court. As one of Justice Oconnors clerks wrote, quite, without fanfare she hones her craft, deciding individual cases, answering concrete questions and in the process providing clear and enduring answers to the most important questions of the day. She was honorable because she judge and ruled without fanfare. She was fair minded and, therefore, able to decide individual cases, answering concrete questions without being blinded by ideology. And her ability allowed her to provide clear and enduring answers to the most important questions of the day. It seems to me then that the legacy our next panel will discuss resides not just in what she said but how she did it, too. With honor and fair mindedness. This dichotomy between the what and the how gets at another facet of Justice Oconnor. Her commitment to educating and cultivating a nation of civic minded citizens. As was references before in her public letter to americans nearly one year ago, Justice Oconnor charged all of us to Work Together and to, quote, commit to educating our youth about civics and helping young people understand their crucial role as informed, active citizens in our nation. This is what president reagan called informed patriotism. Why the Reagan Foundation has always had a civic mission, starting with the center dedicated to civic learning over ten years ago. Inspired by our 40th president and guided by the example and charge of Justice Oconnor, im honored to announce today that the Reagan Institute has launched a center for Civics Education and opportunity. This center, led by janet tran, and operating out of the Reagan Institute offices in washington, d. C. , will proudly embark in the work of engaging and supporting the next generation of informed, active citizens in our nation. We look forward to working and partnering with all of you on this truly noble cause in the coming months and years. We sincerely hope you will enjoy the next panel, the Lasting Legacy. [ applause ] please welcome to the stage our moderator, ms. Nina totenberg. Our panelists, the honorable ruth mcgregor, ms. Kathleen smally, dr. Carla hadden, ms. Meryl clhortoff. Okay. Lets make sure everybody can hear us. I guess you can. Or you would be saying something. I think were the biggest panel. Were going to dive right in. For those of us of a certain age, Sandra Day Oconnor was the rope that we had long hoped would be cast our way. A rope to cling to, a rope to use to climb up and through that glass ceiling. In closing her in disclosing her alzheimers to the country last year, Justice Oconnor was, i thought, typically forthright and aspirational. I hope that if i have inspired young people about receive civi engagement and paved the pathway for women pursuing their careers. She did that and way, way more. So now even though we have way too little time, were going to talk about her Lasting Legacy. Im going to start with chief Justice Mcgregor because you knew her longer than anyone here from her days as a state legislator through her nomination and first days on the Supreme Court, into her retirement. I am wondering how you think she changed over time. I dont mean ideologically necessarily. I mean in terms of her own selfconfidence and her own being as a justice. One thing that didnt change as we mentioned earlier, and that is the fact that she brought to the Supreme Court the same characteristics she brought to every job she had. Her work ethic, her intellect, her demand that everyone do the best they could. But what i think changed the most it probably was a result of growing confidence for her. There were a lot of people who werent very sure that this woman that they may not have heard of from an intermediate Appellate Court in arizona could do the job of a Supreme Court justice. She proved them wrong. I think what happened over the next quarter of a century is she saw more and more what she could accomplish, what impact she could have. She was very concerned about attacks on the rule of law and th the independence of the judiciary. She learned when she talked, they paid attention. Domestically and internationally she used her celebrity, i guess, but her abilities and the fact that people would listen to her to really make an impact in those areas. I think you see the progression of that from the time she started on the court until she left the court and continued that into her retirement. Thats where i would have seen the greatest change. Meryl, you and i were whether we were talking prior to this panel, you talked particularly about her devotion to Judicial Independence, which is not only under attack in this country, its under attack in other countries that we identify with today. The uk, for example. Im wondering what she did concretely. Im told she was pretty fearless in her foreign visits. Well, when she left the court, the justice said that she felt she had five years to really accomplish something in her post court career. And so at georgetown law school, she started a project that was devoted to two things, civics and the independence of the judiciary. And about civics, she said the practice of democracy is not passed down in the gene pool, but needs to be learned new by each generation. And so we incubated with her what became civics. But because it was called civics, its called our courts. She felt there was a misunderstanding among young people about the role of judges in democracy. And the two things that came together, the concern about the independence of the courts and about civic education. She felt it was her responsibility to explain to young people what the rule was of judges to maintain the rule of law in the democracy. And the education role is something that she did not only in the United States, but aboard as well and she traveled with ted olson who is here, she traveled to asia, she traveled to africa and she met with judges everyplace that she went and she believed that our judges could be an asset to talk about Judicial Independence and of course today it may be that there are things that we can learn from judges aboard and i think that she would want to be you told me she once went toe to toe with some guy in china. Not in china. It was in bethesda. But it was a judge of the Chinese Court and she had traveled in china and the judge was quite insistent that in china the Supreme Peoples Court had the last word and she was equally insistent that the last word lay with the peoples congress. And of course she was correct about that. But she was willing to go toe to toe with the professor from the beijing university. And yet she said, ruth, that her the single decision she regretted was her vote that she regretted, was her vote in a case declaring state laws that barred candidates for judicial elections from campaigning about controversial issues that might come before them and that was in 2002. She wasnt a newbie at all. Why did she do that . I know she regrets that vote. But i think her goal she wrote a concurring opinion. And the concurring opinion said in essence, states, if you elect judges, you set yourself up for this problem and we shouldnt try to maintain Judicial Independence by limiting what judges say in elections. And her hope was that judges that states would think about this and would move from direct election of judges to merit selection of which she had been very supportive beginning when she was a state senator in arizona. It turned out that that didnt happen. There was a little but not a lot of Movement Toward merit selection and what did happen was what she feared the most, judicial elections became more partisan and it looked less like something that a independent judicial candidate would say. So i my own feeling has always been she hoped that by concurring in the opinion she could say, this is whats going to happen if you have elections, so states be realistic, be practical and move away from them, it just didnt work out that way. After she retired, one of her main decisions upholding the Mccain Finegold finance law was struck down. I wonder what her thoughts were about that . It happened that i was with her when she learned of this Citizens United decision and she seldom said anything that was negative about the current court, but she commented that they dont understand and this will not work out well. She didnt say much more. If you look at the two opinions, mcconnell and Citizens United, i think you can see why Citizens United was not an oconnor kind of opinion. First of all, it overturned a Decision Just from seven years earlier, you know, what happened to star decisis. And the opinion had given great deference to the legislative judgment about whether spending money in campaigns at certain times could be harmful, could raise the specter of corruption or at least the appearance of corruption. In mcconnell they had accepted that argument. In Citizens United, the court said that isnt true. There wont be corruption. We dont have to worry about that. And that, again, was, first of all, no deference to the legislature and saying something was different than being in another opinion without any reason for it. And the other thing i think you would see that would trouble her about Citizens United, we heard talk about how Justice Oconnor tried to deal with the four corners of the case presented to her, not make any sweeping comments and Citizens United, of course, the opinion went far beyond initially the question presented to the court. If you compare the two and look at her juris prudence, its clear why she would have thought it was a bad opinion and why she also given her more practical approach believed it wouldnt work. Kathleen, you were in her first crop of law clerks and if theres one thing i learned from evan thomas book, it was that as much as Justice Oconnor was i couldnt say terrified, but certainly understood the challenge before her as she undertook this position, having never operated in a federal court in her life, basically. She was thrilled, thrilled to be playing in the big leagues and that she could have some affect. Could you talk about that a little bit . It was very, very visible in the way she conducted herself around chambers. There was a fair amount of stress because all of the issues were new and we felt like we worked harder because we had to get her prepared on issues she hadnt seen before. But when she came back from argument or when she came back from conference or when we circulated an opinion, she was almost singing her way back into the chambers. She was so exhilarated by what she had done. If shed persuade somebody to join one of our opinions, that was a big moment and a cause of celebration and you could tell that she felt like she had made a difference. Im going to intervene here to ask you, when she left the court and founded icivics, how do you think her vision of all those years of everything from National Security to abortion, the issues in which she played a role are as wide as the country this country is. I wonder how her vision animated her idea of icivics. I think it comes partly out of her time on the court and partly out of all the other things she did. At the at the court, she decided important cases, but shes often said that icivics is her greatest legacy. And a lot of people have doubts about that. But one of the things i learned clerking for Justice Oconnor, if she says something thats counterintuitive, you should stop and think about it because she is probably right. This comes out of her love not only for the court as an institution but where the court fits within our overall democratic structure and coming from experience in the executive and the legislative and federal and state level, she really understood at a deep level how it all works and how dependent it is on having an educated citizenry. You cant have a functional democracy if you dont have citizens who can play their role in it. And i think what she saw is that people dont understand what judges are supposed to do. They dont get it that in our system its not supposed to be a partisan decision and as a result were in danger of losing that functioning democracy. So her decisions on the court obviously are really important legacy, but decisions can be cut back, can be overturned, some of them have a shelf life. They describe in some of the cases that this is a current problem. We wont have this rule 25 years from now maybe. But the need for our functioning democracy goes forever. And today, i think, we see that we have citizenry who arent well educated because weve eliminated civics from the curriculum. What icivics has done is to create an interactive set of simulations where students can play roles in our democracy and really learn how its supposed to work. And we are currently reaching over 6 Million Students a year. We havent yet accomplished what the justice set as the goal of reaching every student in america, but were on our way. And i think the justices family have been involved in this. When she stepped off the board actively, her son joined us, one of our big accomplishments recently is the enactment of legislation in arizona to set up a new civics curriculum and it was led by her son scott. So the family buys into it that this is perhaps her most important legacy, she thinks so. And if we reach her goal, it is perhaps at least on a par with her other legacies. And can i add something . She loved going out in the early years of this to meet with young people, to address audiences, to talk about icivics and they loved her. That was very exciting. She got a lot of energy out of that. And i will tell one story, in the very earliest icivics day before it got started, julie took her son up to the court and they played video games with the justice and the justice didnt know that much about video games and she said, this could be a great way to teach young people about civics. So it was really part of the extended clerk family that helped launch it. That is so important. This is a woman who didnt do her own emails, and now shes sponsoring video games because she says thats where kids are. And im jumping out of my seat as something involved with civic literacy, to be able and the fact that she knew, even though she wasnt a technical person, to reach young people, we have to use the tools of today and to be open to that, was just wonderful. And Public Libraries and School Libraries all over this country are looking at icivics and saying we need to have that available on our websites. And Justice Oconnor hated the term swing justice or swing vote. She thought that it suggested some sort of indecision, but i have to say, in fact, in 25 years on the court, she was the fifth and deciding vote in 330 cases at various points i suppose infuriating the right or the left. So i want to ask each of you, except for karla whos not expected to be a Supreme Court observer, what you think in hindsight will be her most Lasting Legacy as a decision in the textbooks. If it stays around. Let me start with you, ruth. Okay. Just let me say here, i dont think she minded at all being the deciding vote. She just thought swing vote sounded kind of frivolous. I think she liked being the deciding vote. The court is changing so much, i dont know how many of her opinions will survive, but at least as part of the development, i think youll continue to see attention to her opinions in the area of first amendment, religion, separation of church and state. I think in the area of gender discrimination and i think also that at least as a part of the development, her decisions in the abortion area, i think will survive. Kathleen . Well, im married to a law professor, so i actually asked what was in the textbooks and i am pleased to announce that our decisions are still in the textbooks. They are commissioner versus tufts and im not seeing a lot of recognition in the crowd. That would be because my husband is a tax professor. Which i think is really kind of an important perspective on the justice, if i could take a second on that, we were the first term after the justices had come on board. 18 months ago she had been on the intermediate Appellate Court and a year and a half later, shes writing these cases on federal income tax that are classics and are still taught to students because theyre so important as contributions to an area of law that she couldnt have known. Linda . So i think her most lasting decision was her earliest decision, hogan versus the mississippi Womens University and ruth was there for that decision. She came onto the Supreme Court of the United States, there were boxes of case files and stuff all piled around her office floor, she organized a system to try to get to the first conference in the fall so she would look competent. And when she got there, she found out that the justices organized their cases according to a different system than the obvious one, so at lunch she had to run back and reorganize her case books, am i right . This is what she goes into. And in her head, she is saying, its okay to be the first but i dont want to be the last. And she gets a case hogan versus mississippi where the eight male judges, justices are divided, 44. So she has to make the fifth vote to decide whether it is unconstitutional to segregate public universities by sex. And she cast the first the decisive not the swing the decisive fifth vote to say that it was unconstitutional to segregate public universities by sex in 1981. It was 15 years later that the court decided virginia United States versus virginia, the Virginia Military institute case. So i would say she laid down her marker in the first term she sat. What courage it took to do that. Have i missed anybody . Yes, so i think appropriate because we are at Reagan Institute event, it is a dissent in a federalism case, south dakota against dole. And it was one of the earlier coercive federalism cases. It was a case where she was actually on the losing side but the important point is that she made the point that there is only so far the federal government should be able to go in coercing states using the power of the purse because there are so many federal grants and aid programs. And there is a linear projection from what she said in that case to some of the cases that are going on now, where the states are asserting their power visavis the federal government. So that was a very important, early marker on coercive federalism, which is having repercussions today. I just have to tell one story here because i often observe that it may be a gender difference. She arrives at the court and she is organized. She has everything piled up. She does not want to be humiliated at that first conference and shea does everythi she does everything to be completely up on everything. Justice scalia who had been a federal judge for a long time arrives at a similar time, just before the first conference. Looks at all this stuff and says i cant possibly be up on this. Im not going. And he didnt. He went to the next conference. I mean amazing. Women always have this idea that, you know, if youre there you better do the job. Thats where the first, even though a nonjurist, resonated so much with me, being the first and the idea of it. You dont want to be the last. You know that everything youre doing is being weighed in a different way. And so to have that joy come through and i got a lot out of it just saying, boy. Shes something. You know, linda, although the two were often allies, justices ginsberg and oconnor had very different approaches to judging. Could you talk about that difference . That is actually responsive to your first question about legacy. Justice oconnor, i loved what someone said earlier this afternoon, in some sense the heir to a common law judging tradition. And so she is making decisions in very much a casebycase way, and each one confined to its facts. This is going to constrain her legacy. Okay . What is an undue burden on the right to choose abortion . Right . Justice oconnor had an idea and a casebycase way as each burden came in front of her as to which one was undue and which one was not. That is not something you can pass along very easily to your heirs. Justice ginsburg came with a very well worked out liberal jurisprudence from her training at cornell under robert cushman. She said it at her confirmation hearings. She said, her vision of the constitution was of an ever increasing circle of inclusiveness, from the property free white men at the beginning to most recently lets say lgbtq people. So she had a big vision of what the jurisprudence of what should happen. Justice oconnor had an incremental version. It was a product of their philosophies or its just life that Justice Oconnor got to enact her vision into law, right . She had the and Justice Ginsburg not so much once she got on to the court. You know, theres been a lot said today. I missed the first panel, i think, but im sure theres been a lot said about Justice Oconnor as the glue of the court and the story that is in edwin thomass book about her persuading Justice Thomas when he first got to the court after his confirmation hearings to come to lunch. And he says that she is the glue that holds this place together. But the court was often very divided, 54, on the biggest cases. I suppose the ultimate one was busch versus gore. And this was a case where oconnors idea of breaking bread will make things all better didnt quite work, right . Not as well as she hoped. There was some reference earlier today about terms in which clerks became divided. And to understand how important this is to Justice Oconnor you have to really keep in mind that it was really important for her that people be able to Work Together and that they could disagree but do so agreeably. And so during the condensed time period that bush versus gore was heard, the clerks really took sides. And this troubled Justice Oconnor because it went beyond judicial differences and philosophical differences. It became personal in the two groups of clerks. And this is the case of course she has spoken about most publicly about saying that perhaps the court shouldnt have taken it, that it did great damage to the court as an institution. So that was one problem for her. But the other was just this personal fall out. Not among the justices but among the law clerks. And so she tried to get everybody together at a Cocktail Party of sorts afterwards but the strains were too great and sh she couldnt bring everybody back again. She has at least told me that was one of her great regrets that a case that perhaps shouldnt have gone to the court caused this kind of personal fall out. I gather there was a close to a fist fight among the law clerks who of course im not sure we should say should be forgiven for their youthful zeal but at least they had the youthful zeal. They had youthful zeal. You know, in private, she the kind of judge she was when she served on the court is so different from what we see today. Im wondering, meryl, what made Sandra Day Oconnor a reagan appointee, a states rights advocate, a woman of the west, what, if anything, made her different from conservatives she certainly thought of herself as a conservative from conservatives on the court today . Hum. [ laughter ] yeah. I asked you. So she had enormous has enormous empathy. And she really puts people in the center. People are at the center of the jurisprudence. And while she cares a lot about states rights, when its a balance of states rights against the people, the person wins out. And this was true in terms of her ability to make friends but also in her jurisprudence she is thinking about the people. And i went back. I actually looked at a chapter in evans book because i wanted to think a little bit about her role as a state trial court judge. And there is a story in there that i dont know, personally, but if evan wrote it then i believe it, that she had to give a sentence in a criminal case to a woman. And it was a very difficult sentence. And he kind of whacked her and gave her five to ten years. And then she went back to chambers and she wept. So she did the right thing. She was just. But she also really cared about the people. And i think that that really marks her jurisprudence as a conservative jurisprudence but a very humane jurisprudence. It also has to do with how she took things on a casebycase basis because the people were very three dimensional to her. We heard this all day. Her clerks were very three dimensional to her. They said in an interview i got for my book that it was hands down the happiest chambers on the Supreme Court. So i think thats probably a piece of it. In bush against gore, you know, she said it had to be decided. This is part of her westernness, you know, that sense that the bucks got to stop with somebody. It has to be decided. And that somebody is the judge and thats another reason why i think that this influenced her interest in having young people understand the role of the judiciary that it has the last word in so many areas. Could we talk for a minute about certainly Justice Oconnor was a trailblazer but from the Vantage Point of social change in the country, what her appointment meant. I mean, i will speak here personally. I had covered the court for years at that point. [ laughter ] i had heard more than one president say he would like to name a woman to the court and it just never was serious. It never happened. And i didnt frankly i dont think i took Ronald Reagan seriously was my mistake. I took it to be a promise or a pledge that he was going to name a woman and that he was quite determined to do it and i i mean, her confirmation hearings were the first that were televised. I remember walking into that court just i had not understood how much i resented looking at nanine men until i looked at eight men and one woman. So i thought maybe the rest of you, you know, she certainly had that burden but she but it meant a lot to women in the country. I mean, things changed for women after that. It was like a spark. They did. Id been practicing seven years when she was nominated by president reagan. And i think that women lawyers across the country just all had the same reaction. It was very emotional. It was finally, because weve been hearing for years that for this position or that position or that position women just didnt have enough experience. They just werent there yet. They just werent good enough to do this. I mean, i was a trial lawyer and i heard all the time that wasnt something that women should do. And now we had somebody once she was confirmed on the Supreme Court. That took away in my view and the view of my women lawyer friends any argument that women couldnt do whatever they wanted to do in the law. And it was a game changer. It was a tsunami. It gave us an argument to make when anybody thought that women werent qualified to do something in the law. And it continued, you know, young girls. Their mothers. Their grandmothers. The letters that came to the chambers from all of these people. I cant think of anything in my memory that has been that definitive a change, not that there werent obstacles in the future but that changed the attitude of people toward women in the law. I was just coming out of law school when this happened. And at the time there were still a lot of things that were challenging for women lawyers. And having this happen let you know those were going to get fixed. It might not be immediate but in the long term things would work out the way they should. It was part of my reaction. What ive seen over the years has kind of cemented that reaction in how important it has been to women of all ages. Ive lost count of the number of little girls ive met who for some reason find out i clerked for Justice Oconnor and want to tell me how they dressed up in a black robe for their third grade presentation about some famous person in American History, and this is their person. Theyre thrilled to meet me because i met her. And every time i have traveled with her or been out in public women of my age and older will come over obviously nonlawyers so this wasnt just our profession and say, arent you judge sandra . And it matters to them. I was on some panels in upstate new york organized by the Roosevelt Library and she talked about what it meant to her as a girl meeting and seeing eleanor roosevelt. I mean, there were so few women you could model yourself after. And when she by the time sh a left office there were so many, just in the law. Forget all the other things reporters, scientists, whatever but in the law now you go into a state Supreme Court and there are many more women. There are many more women advocates. Youve seen this in i take it librarians have gone from the library and the card catalog to being the librarian of congress. Role models make a difference. And thats why evans book and im going to get mine autographed right after. I am a librarian. I did bring my own copy. The inspiration, though, and i read it cover to cover, of that being a first, a female, that the collar, the lace collar and her mother gave her that first collar, just being able to be female and be able to perform and sometimes out perform and the joy of that went beyond law. It really did. Justice oconnor served on the court for 12 years alone. I think all of us remember being the only woman somewhere. I for way too long. And it must have been incredibly lonely. So she said she didnt want to be the last, and 12 years later Ruth Bader Ginsburg appears on the Supreme Court of the United States. And very few people know this. But in the years when ginsburg was in the d. C. Circuit and oconnor was in the Supreme Court, she took more clerks from Justice Ginsburgs chambers than from the chambers of any other lower court judge. And when Justice Ginsburg arrived, Justice Oconnor wrote a million letters, right . This is what makes writing about her so wonderful. But theres a letter from oconnor to senator goldwater and she is just talking about, i dont know, some arizona things. Suero cactuses or something in this normal letter. Then it says, p. S. , quite unprovoked, Ruth Bader Ginsburg is a very capable and knowledgeable justice. Just fyi, senator goldwater. She did an incredibly generous thing when ginsburg was pretty junior justice and oconnor was assigned the vmi case. She said to Justice Stevens who assigned it, no. This opinion should be ruths. That is an incredibly generous thing. That is a big deal opinion. And when Justice Ginsburg announced the opinion she cited that mississippi case and she lacked do looked down the bench at ginsburg and the two of them had this moment that probably no one else in the courtroom noticed but they did. That was all that really mattered. It sort of, i always thought it was kind of important. Linda, your book, you know, let me just say this outright. Youre a lefty. And youre more [ laughter ] youre more in sympathy i think with Justice Ginsburgs over arching way of approaching the law. But you came to believe that oconnor was the perfect first as you put it. Why . So this was oconnors personal impact on me. Right . When i was writing the book about her and ginsburg. And i started out, i dont want to admit my lefty, pinko, new york, frizzy hair. But as i got to know her, as i learned about her character and her relationship with her law clerks and her relationship with ginsburg, i came to revere her as a great, political figure. Its so important that the person who is first be a great first. Otherwise you have to start again. And the cherry on the sundae was when i was interviewing Justice John Paul stevens the nicest man in the world. May he rest in peace. And his book, six amendments had some disagreements with some of the decisions oconnor had made and i thought i had a scoop. And being a journalist i am of course relentless so i was leaning on Justice Stevens to Say Something critical of Justice Oconnor. And finally, he looked at me and he said, linda, she never gave us any trouble. [ laughter ] at all. About anything. And i thought to myself, she was the perfect first. She never gave them any trouble that they knew of. [ laughter ] actually, that makes her the perfect first. I wonder, kathleen, and ruth, and meryl, you all knew her for an extended have known her for an extended period of time when she was on the court and off and when she was first on the court. As a kind of a huge span of years to observe someone, how did she do that . I mean, she was not a shrinking violet at all. And yet, Justice Stevens said she never gave them any trouble, as i said, that he knew of. Im sure she gave him plenty of trouble but he just didnt know it. Meryl, you want to take a whack . Well, first of all she was relentlessly charming. She charmed everybody. I was at an event with her at Hunter College in new york and my mom, who is the inveterate new yorker came, and she said, are you meryls mother . Oh, and my mother felt like a million dollars. And she could do that. She made everybody feel like they were the most important person in the room. And that was a gift. And that was a real politicians gift. And thats another thing that made her a perfect first along with her beautiful children and her handsome husband and, you know, the Junior League and all of that. So, i mean, she was sort of quintessentially american. But, kathleen, lets face it. She could be really bossy. Oh, yes. That goes with having life tenure and being able to make the decisions, right . I wish i could put my finger on exactly what it was that worked for her because i would do that, too. Certainly the kinds of things that evan flags in the book that she didnt have bad things to say about anybody, her ability to make people feel like they were the center of attention, and her ability also not to fight and i think its partly what everyone was talking about earlier today, not picking big fights that she didnt need to but she wouldnt necessarily disagree with you in a casual conversation if it didnt need to happen. With the result that you always felt like she agreed with you, therefore she was smart, you were smart. Everybodys smart. Everybody got along. It was great. But it is sort of a magic combination that she had. And i never saw her obviously working with the other justices to get votes but i saw her in other groups of men, and she was just masterful. She was able to make everybody think that they were in charge and then they would come out exactly where she wanted them to be. And its a real skill and not many people can do that. But by the way she asked questions, by the way she agreed or sort of disagreed but not in an unpleasant way, she always got people to where she wanted them to be. And i suspect that that is what she may have done with her brethren on the court, too. People talk about the scaliaginsburg friendship but there is also the great oconnorbreyer friendship which crosses ideological lines. And they worked together on Civics Education and they greatly admired each other. Well, breyer and oconnor are and were much more incrementalists justices. Thats right. They are not huge, broad stroke people, which scalia certainly was and other people are today. So it sort of, i breyer once said to me that even though he disagreed with her, not infrequently, they thought the same way. I think what he meant by that is that they approached the problem in a much more practical, what jeff might call common law kind of way and realistic kind of way to understand the problems that people this was going to create or solve or prevent in the cases that they were dealing with. You are the perfect book end in a way for this panel, although we can continue to talk a bit, but because Justice Oconnors papers are housed here in the library of congress, and not every Supreme Court justice has done that, so what did she why did she choose the as the loc as you all call yourself, how much of these papers will be public . How soon . And can you explain the reasons for her decisions about the papers . I do want to start by saying that justice marshalls papers are here as well. Right. And scott berg is currently working on a biography to be published. And mr. Thomas, of course, had access to the papers that are at the library and right now the papers are available with permission. And were working with the family. That is not unusual. When the person is still alive and there are different people in some of the papers who are also alive. So thats what were working on now but they are being very carefully maintained and stored. So when can i see them . [ laughter ] and linda wants to see them, too. I think i have something going here. Listen, were pushy broads. Its an arrangement you make with the family and with the person so were working on that now. This book i think gives you such an insight into what things are available and how they can be mined and what can happen when that legacy is left to an institution like the library of congress. And so were very honored to have the papers. Did evan and oc pay you for that . No. Getting that autograph. So, you know, Justice Oconnor at some point i would say maybe seven, eight years ago, she did begin to lament that her legacy was being dismantled, that a lot of the things she thought were good compromises and realistic compromises and were settled were getting unsettled. And i wonder, i saw you nod your head, ruth. Yes. She was less cautious than she had been about making that pretty clear. And i think it concerned her. But i dont know if it was what she was worried about in particular. I mean, i think when she started talking about it she said, you know, you know things might change. But i think what was troubling her, and im filling in a lot here. She didnt say this to me. I think what troubled her was the approach that we have all talked about, her incremental approach, her trying to look at things within the four corners, is being abandoned in many cases by the current court. And because she believes strongly that was the way to develop the law then if the way of developing the law changes i think she sees some danger in that. She was an incrementalist not because she was afraid to be something more but because she believed that was the best, most reliable, most fair way to develop the law. I think it isnt the fact her opinions are being overturned as i think it is that the approach has become very different. And i think that would trouble any of us who thought we had done things the best we could and found a way that worked and could see it being discarded. Anybody else . Its hard. I wish we could end this conversation by remembering that she has made a cultural contribution of such enormous moment. I ran into one of her law clerks for my book after the law clerk wouldnt talk to me while i was writing the book, who shall remain nameless, and she said to me, she could never walk down the block to go to lunch with Justice Oconnor in under 20 minutes because on every block they would get stopped five or ten times by people who wanted to shake her hand. Girls, by women who wanted to shake her hand. Its a good thing there werent selfies at the time. I think we should hang on to that positive legacy of what she meant to those girls, this was well into her tenure so well into the 21st century. And what she means to women now. Right. The fact an africanamerican career librarian could read this, get inspiration, get some tips how to do it, is a legacy that is amazing. That is universal and speaks to people at an entirely different level. Things change. Laws change. Whatever changes. But inspiration doesnt. I think thats all tied up with what she is doing with icivics, which for her is a statement of faith in the future and sort of doubling down and reinvesting in our democracy. And those are important parts of her legacy, too. You know, another thing weve heard referred to so often today that i think is unusual legacy perhaps for someone of her position is the true, deep affection that people have for her. People who knew her slightly and people who knew her well. That is a Lasting Legacy. That is something that goes beyond any other structure there is because that speaks to her as a person. And, surely, that is an important part, too. Meryl . The educational function just runs through this it seems throughout her career. And the educational function of the opinions, the educational function of what she did in icivics, the grueling schedule that she has kept up, up until recently, in her post court career where she just went every place and spoke to audience after audience because she felt it was so important to get out that message of compassion and the devotion to democracy and it shines through every time you see her appear in public. You see that. So her testament is not only what she says but the fact that she is willing to go out and say it herself to people. Even the way she closed out her public life was so such a she talked to the people of the country to let them know why she was disappearing from the public stage, which was an amazingly unselfish thing to do. And it always struck me that, yes, she could be bossy. But she was an incredibly unselfish human being. I dont know when she slept. I really dont know when she slept given all the many things she did and her incredible energy. And even in illness when she had breast cancer, and really looked just wan and gaunt and sallow and never missed a day on the bench and then advised Justice Ginsburg how to handle her chemo when she got sick. You schedule the chemo for friday. Then you have the weekend to recover and youre back at work on monday and youre still in your chair so nobody is going to say youre not there. Her performance in public life was an amazingly, profoundly, culturally effective and unselfish performance and with that were going to quit 36 seconds early. [ applause ] youre watching a special edition of American History tv. Next a look into the career of Sandra Day Oconnor the first woman to serve on the u. S. Supreme court. We first hear from Supreme Court justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg anSonia Sotomayor reflecting on the legacy of Sandra Day Oconnor. Then a look at what led to her appointment by president Ronald Reagan. Afterwards, six former law clerks recall working with Justice Oconnor. Youre watching American History tv on cspan 3. Supreme Court JusticesRuth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor talked about the impact Sandra Day Oconnor had on the judicial system as the first woman to serve on the u. S. Supreme court. They spoke at an event commemorating the 38th anniversary of Justice Oconnors senate confirmation. The Ronald Reagan president ial foundation and institute hosted the program. [ applause ] o