March 17, 2003 – The first woman elected to the Supreme Court discussed racial diversity and how the highest court in the nation is dealing with that issue when she visited Ohio State on Friday.
“In this country, the worst years were the years of the Civil War, and that was really a growth of the horrible condition of slavery that existed in this country for so long,” said Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. “We are still working on the remnants of that civil war in this country.
O’Connor, who participated in a panel discussion with the students, faculty and alumni of the Moritz College of Law, brought up the decision the Supreme Court soon make concerning the race-conscious admissions policy at the University of Michigan.
“Our court is struggling with a big issue in the area of university-level admissions this very term, and how race is to be used in that task of deciding on university-level admissions,” she said. “These are issues that are coming towards us as a nation and as a people.”
Diversity also came to light when O’Connor spoke with a much larger audience in a lecture at the Weigel Auditorium later that day.
“We have a racially diverse population in this country, and it has to be recognized and effective at every level of our country,” O’Connor said. “We have to make it work everywhere, and we have to do it fairly and effectively. That is a job that is not yet complete.”
At the Weigel lecture, O’Connor fielded questions from a panel formed by the John Glenn Institute. One question concerned about a statement the justice had made earlier in her career about the equality of educated men and women in the workplace.
O’Connor cited some evidence showing that the gap between men’s and women’s salaries had narrowed considerably, but the biological difference between the sexes may create an insurmountable barrier to equality in pay.
“It is still my observation that it is the women who have the babies,” she said to an amused audience. “Women are going to have concerns about care for children in the home that are going to interfere to some extent with that woman’s capacity to be out in the workplace.”
Former senator and astronaut John Glenn introduced O’Connor at the Weigel lecture. Glenn was a member of the Senate when it unanimously approved her appointment to the Supreme Court.
“I was glad to offer my advice and consent as the constitution requires,” he said. “I recall back at that time that there wasn’t much controversy about her appointment. It was something that went through and, if I recall correctly, the vote was 99 to nothing.”
The only senator who did not vote was Max Baucus, D-Montana, who was in his home state at the time.
