Ruth Bader Ginsburg
thank you so much

because of the good job, I now hold, invitations come in abundance.

To preserve energy and time for the courts heavy work, I must ordinarily just say no.

For tonight's celebration, however, I did not just say yes, I asked the women's bar if I might have the honor of presenting the torchbearer award to Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.

For all who know her agree: She fits the description to a tee.

She is indeed a trailblazer. A grind human, whose mind carrying an incredible energy have encouraged women everywhere, to be brave.

To appreciate their own worth, to aspire and to achieve.

Sandra has been celebrated in many ceremonies. She has been praised for her independence, self reliance, practicality, and self possession.

Of all the accolades one strikes me as describing Sandra best.

Growing up on the lazy b ranch in Arizona. Sandra could ride a horse brand cattle driver

tractor and fire a rifle with accuracy

before she reached her teens,

one of the hands on the ranch recalled his clear memory of Sandra Day.

She was in the rough and rugged type.

But she worked well with us in the canyons. She held her own.

Sandra did just that at every stage of her professional and family life.

The first woman

on the Supreme Court
brought to the conference table experiences others did not possess the experience of growing up female in the 1930s 40s and 50s. raising a family of doing all manner of legal work, government service, private practice

successes successful candidates for legislative and judicial office,

leadership of her state senate

state court to digital service

first on a trial court, then an appellate court,

hard worker and quick learner that she is she mastered mysteries of federal law and practice and held her own from the very start.

If I'm a speak personally, I would like to tell you how this great lady greeted me when I became the junior justice.

The court has customs and habits that don't appear in the rules or in stone and freshman.

Sandra knew what it was like to learn the ropes on one's own. So she told me what I needed to know when I came on board and not in an intimate

Dating goes, but just enough to enable me to navigate safely. My first days and weeks.

I eagerly awaited my first assignment in October 1993. Expecting as the rumor goes, that as the brand new Junior justice, I would get an easy case, and uncontroversial opinion for a unanimous court.

When the list came round, I was dismayed. I was assigned and intercut not at all easy Arista case

on which the court divided chocolate.

I came to Sandra for advice. It was simple. Just do it, she said. And if you can get your draft in circulation before the next set of assignments is made

Is her approach to all things. waste no time on regret or resentment just get the job done.

Sandra was a dissenter in that case.

When I read the summary of my decision from the bench she passed a note to me. This is your first opinion for the court. The note said, it is a fine one. I look forward to many more.

It is hard to keep up with Sandra. To this day, my mail is filled with requests that run this way.

Last year, for some years before Justice O'Connor visited our campus or country

spoke at our Bar Association, civic association did this or that.

Next words to this effect. Now it's your turn.

My secretaries once suspected Sandra had a secret twin sister to share

all the things she does. The reality is she has an extraordinary ability to manage her time.

Why does she go to Des Moines, Lithuania, Rwanda when she might rather fly fish ski, play tennis on calm in her own words.

For both men and women, the first step in getting power is to become visible to others.

And then to put on an impressive show.

As women achieve power, the barriers will fall.

As society sees what women can do as women see what women can do, there will be more women out there doing things and we'll all be better off for it.

There was a time in 1988 when Sandra's energy flag when she endured rigorous treatment for breast cancer.

So tired and in physical pain. She didn't miss a beat on the court, that most busy term.

She has told the story of that time her account, carried on public TV gave legions of women hope, the courage to continue to do what she did.

She went back to her exercise class long before it was predicted she could.

There was a lot I couldn't do, she said, but I did a little I did what I could.

What she could many years later became evident. The day the Olympic women's basketball team visited the court.

Sandra lead a tour for the team

ending on the highest court in the land, the basketball court on our top floor.

The team practiced a bit, then pass the ball to Sandra. She missed the first

but the second went straight through the hoop.

Sandra gives each case that comes to the court her very best effort, and she is never shy about stating her views. When she writes separately concurring or in dissent, she presents a disagreement plainly and professionally. She does not waste words, castigating colleagues for terminal silliness, or for their shocking, profoundly misguided or simply irresponsible views.

I am not making those up.

And in that respect to I am trying to follow her lead.

Has the place turned around now that two women are there

are roaming rooms since the 1993 term has a women's bathroom equal in size to the men's.

But the tubes are not yet fully adjusted to the change. twice this term distinguished lawyers arguing before the court, a Harvard Law School professor and the acting Solicitor General began their responses to my questions. Well, Justice so color

last time that happened. Sandra smiled, and crisply said she's Justice Ginsburg. I'm Justice O'Connor.

Of course, there have been notable changes

JOHN O'CONNOR tells a familiar story from Sandra's first year on the court. The scene, black tie dinner at the State Department's Benjamin Franklin Room. As the O'Connor's approach the table to which they were assigned. JOHN greeted one of the men already seated. Hello, I'm JOHN O'CONNOR. The prompt reply.

Oh, Justice O'Connor. I'm so happy to meet you. I've heard so many wonderful things about you.

Flash forward 12 years. Marty Ginsburg, often mistaken for judge Ginsberg. In my early days on the DC circuit, has yet to be called Justice Ginsburg.

Sandra's appointment was momentous in the history of our country.

Justice a judge

Kimball would wrote that in a tribute to Sandra last year,

but would continue Sandra's greatest achievement, one from which I have benefited, and now have the good fortune to further advance is to help make what was momentous,

common place.

Last year when I read the summary of the court's opinion in United States, be Virginia the BMI case, I looked across the bench to Sandra,

as I referred to her pack marking decision in Mississippi University for women, that decision

issued in 1982. At the end of Sandra's first term on the court, the judgment striking down a classically stereotypical gender line was a close five to four

The judgment 14 years later and BMI was seven to one.

What occurred in the intervening years

in the court and elsewhere in society.

Sandra said it best when she appeared one night as Isabel, Queen of France.

In the Shakespeare theater's production of Henry the fifth.

Happily, a woman's voice may do some good

in appreciation, admiration and affection

for a woman whose voice has done enormous good,

please join me in a rousing Bravo. Bravo Sandra.

Sandra Day O'Connor [automatically transcribed, may contain inaccuracies]
Thank you,

thank

you. Thank you.

What a marvelous introduction. I don't have to say anything now. I think I'll just breathe a big sigh of relief and go home happy.

I'm so honored by the presentation tonight of the torch bearer award by the women's Bar Association and the women's Bar Association.

foundation

and to share

that award under the name of Attorney General Reno, who so richly deserves that. And Justice Ginsburg, thank you.

And Justice Ginsburg is no less of a torch bearer than MI.

Her own experiences in law school, her entry into the legal profession and and academia are closely parallel to my own. She and her lawyer husband, Marty, and our children, like John O'Connor over here and our children all experimented with ways to allow the women lawyers and our respective families

To enjoy careers that were unusual for women at the time, Justice Ginsburg and I have lived through period, a period of enormous change for women in the legal profession. And we each benefited from the effort and the progress made possible so slowly at first, by the courageous and determined women of the past.

century here, your captive audience.

I'm going to share with you tonight.

No great legal wisdom, but a small story from my own youth. A story about hopes and dreams and opportunities.

As you probably know, I grew up on a cattle ranch on the Arizona New Mexico border. The ranch was started in 1880 when Arizona and New Mexico were a single town

story. We were 35 miles from any town. A trip to town was a significant event and occurred only about once a week to buy groceries and pick up the mail.

My favorite author Wallace Stegner described the West best, he wrote.

There is something special about living in big empty space, where people are few and distant, under a great sky that is alternately serene and furious, exposed to sun from four in the morning till nine at night, and to a wind that never seems to rest. There is something about exposure to that big country that not only tells an individual how small he is, but steadily tells him who he is.

As a child, I remember driving around the ranch with my father hour after hour.

bumping slowly along over rocky terrain, to check on a windmill or a water pipe or a tank to see if there was a salt block at a certain place. Or if a cow with a store I was doing all right or needed more treatment, we would watch the skies constantly hoping for rain. Rain was our life's blood. It produced the grass and vegetation the cattle had to have to survive. Like all the Arab Southwest, rain was the essential element. The most treasured event, prayed for, hoped for anticipated, savored, treasured, celebrated and enjoyed every drop.

In summer when the big cumulus clouds would start to form around noon, on the days when there was moisture moving in from

Gulf of Mexico, we would watch those clouds. When they produced rain it was often in the late afternoon, the clouds would grow dark, almost black. Then there would be a strong wind blowing dust, leaves small bits of everything lying around. Then a sudden stillness, the earth, absolutely silent and waiting for the momentous event. Then the crack of lightning touching something on earth with all the electric fury of the universe. seconds later the incredible sound of the thunder, the sound produced by that lightning bolt rolling through the clouds above and then wonder of wonders. The first few big wet drops of rain, forming muddy places on the dusty windshield. Then more and more, until we would just stop the pickup truck and sit inside it.

Unable to see even the closest objects outside because the rain would come in waves and sheets and torrents joy, Wonder incredible gift from above our salvation rain.

After a few minutes it would slow again we could distinguish our surroundings more lightning more thunder. Now just a shower, a sprinkle and we would watch the eye of the storm move off a few miles and another direction. The dark clouds meeting the earth in a different spot. The thunder the lightning now more distant.

Then we would watch the changed world about us. That dry arid, dusty soil was wet, muddy, brown rivulets of water running down every slope and Dolly the grass and the plants sparkling with drops of water, singing to the

The grease would Bush's normally so Ray green and doe releasing their incredible perfume produced by the rain on their dense oily leaves. The birds chirping frantically, the rabbits picking out from their burrows. Everything's stirring and exciting from the rain. And no one more excited than my father. We were saved again, saved from the ever present threat of Breath of starving cattle of anxious creditors, we would survive a while longer. And as proof we would look them wonder at the rainbow that had formed in the sky with the end of the rain. And there would be with the sun shining through it and all the colors so vivid. That arch going high up in the sky, and the end is touching down where we can see them right on

From the next hill down by the soap waits near the goalie.

You know what the old timers say? My father asked. Know what? They say there's a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. No, really? That's what they say. Do you believe them?

Well, of course, why not? Well, have you seen it yourself? No, not really. Well, let's go daddy. Let's go find it. It's right there. Don't you see the end of the rainbow is right there by the hill.

Come on. Let's go find that pot of gold.

All right, Sandra. Let's go. And off we would go sliding along the wet slippery mud. JOHN singer, cross country rocks, cactus and all tough going hanging on tight as we slid along up and down the scary places. But a strange thing happened as we approach the

Where the rainbow and the rainbow had moved off to the right, a more distant Hill. Oh, let's keep going. Let's get there and find it.

After a while, as we moved and the rainbow move to my father would say, you know, I think we better turn back and go home. Your mother will be worried about us. And that rain may mean the canyon will run with water so we can't cross that and get home. Oh, Donna, we were so close. We could have found it.

Oh, well next time. I promise Next time, we'll find it.

And so it is the little girl who chased the rainbows grew up to be a big girl. Sometimes she still chases a few rainbows have a different kind. A beautiful idea out there with a pocketful of solutions at the end. But the Chase is

always worth it. Indeed, the search is what it's all about. It's the joy of life.

Now, not all little girls have that chance, the fun of chasing rainbows of learning who they are under that great western sky.

Indeed, a great number of children worldwide grow up in circumstances of shocking brutality and abuse, no rainbows in their lives, just threats to their very existence. And that's why it's important that we as women, stand together to take notice of those who've helped other women in their own search, and to work together to help mobilize attention to the needs of other women and then the children around us today. There is a big rainbow out there. It's worldwide.

It has all the different colors of our skins, black, brown, white, red, yellow, and every hue in between the pot of gold at the end of that rainbow has the formula for peaceful coexistence with all peoples, for respect for women at every age, and for the chance of every little girl to grow up secure and happy and able to chase her own rainbows in her own lifetime. So let's all go search for that pot of gold. Thank all of you and for this award, and Godspeed.