Sandra Day O'Connor [automatically transcribed, may contain inaccuracies]
I grew up on a remote Ranch, half in Arizona, half in New Mexico. We were 35 miles from the nearest town, which was just a little tiny town. And I kind of grew up on the back of a horse. They had me sitting on a horse before I could walk. And you may have a picture behind me of my favorite little horse, Chico, who was he was taken from a wild horse herd. And we called him Chico, which means small and Spanish because he was small for being a horse. And the reason I liked him is when I fell off, because everybody does when they're young and learning to ride a lot. He would wait for me to get back on and none of the other verses would do that. So Chico was by far my favorite. And he was a great little horse. And I love growing up on a ranch. But when it came time to go to school, there was no school. And so I had to go away. I had grandparents who lived in El Paso, Texas, it was over 200 miles away. I went to live with them during the school year and go to school. But I must say, although it was nice to meet other kids my age and do all of that. I missed the ranch and miss my family. And it was I looked forward to every holiday in the summer when I could be back on the ranch. And that was a great way to grow up, I guess. And when I was in high school, I thought well, I better go to college. And I just applied to one school. And thankfully they took me I don't know what I would have done if they turned me down. Once I went to Stanford. And while I was

while I was at Stanford, I took an undergraduate course from a law professor. And he was the most inspiring Professor I had ever had. He was wonderful. I didn't know lawyers, I knew cattle, people. And so because of that, Professor, I decided to apply to law school. And I applied right there at Stanford. And to my surprise, they took me in, and I went to law school, there were only three women and law school at that time. And I really enjoyed it, graduated and then tried to get a job. And there were all these placement notices on the bulletin board at Stanford Stanford Law graduates call us we want to talk to you about our job. I called every single one of them, and not one of them would even talk to me why I was a woman. And they didn't want to hire a woman in those days. Now, that was a long time ago. But think how different it was. It was just I was amazed. And I heard that the county attorney in a county in California had once had a woman lawyer on his staff. So I went to see him and told him, I would love to get a job. And he said, Well, I think you do fine. I did have a moment unlikely.

Unknown Speaker
But

Sandra Day O'Connor [automatically transcribed, may contain inaccuracies]
I'm not funding to hire another deputy right now. So I don't have the money to pay you anything. And he walked me through the offices. And he said, as you will see, I don't have an empty office to put you either. So I went back to the lazy the ranch. And I wrote him a long letter that letters now in their County Museum. I told him all the things I thought he could I could do for him if he'd hire me. And I said, I'll work for you for nothing. Until such time as you finally get a little money and can pay me something, it doesn't matter. And I said, I know you don't have an empty office that I met your secretary. And there's room in there to put a second desk if she wouldn't object. That was my first job as a lawyer. I worked for no pay, and put my desk in with the secretary. But I'll tell you what, I loved my job. I love the questions that I was privileged to research and try to answer. It was terrific. So I got a good start. But it wasn't the typical start, you'd expect. And I hope that I was eventually asked by President Ronald Reagan, to serve on the US Supreme Court isn't that amazing journey.

A big surprise to me. Certainly. And I'm very privileged, it was a wonderful place to be and very interesting work. And now I'm trying retired after 25 years. And I started a website. And I hope all of you will take time one of these days to plug it in. It's www dot i civics.org. And I use games to help teach you how our government works. Because I want every one of you to involve yourself somehow some way in making our government work better, whether it's at the city level, the county level, the state level, or the national level. I hope every one of you will get involved some way as I tried to do, it makes a difference. So I guess I have to be interviewed now. And I'll stop talking and we'll see what they want to talk about over here.

Unknown Speaker
I'll try not to interrogate you. Oh, good. I did do a little research about you, including this morning around the coffee and the muffins. And it turns out no disrespect to any of the other speakers here. But you are the person that these people most want to meet, especially young women. Yeah, some pressures on.

Sandra Day O'Connor [automatically transcribed, may contain inaccuracies]
So well, I'm happy to say that today. There are many more opportunities out there for women to work than there used to be. Thank heavens.

Unknown Speaker
Right. You didn't mention that you were the first women to serve on the Supreme Court?

Sandra Day O'Connor [automatically transcribed, may contain inaccuracies]
Well, I was yes, it took. It took nine years to get the second it was justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and I was so glad when she arrived. Recently, I was back at the Supreme Court and I sat in the courtroom to watch an oral argument from the point of view of someone in the audience, and I looked up at that Supreme Court bench, and there are now three women on that bitch. And that was great.

Do you miss being there, they miss the court. I don't, because I'm too busy, busy trying to get this website out for young people like these to us. And I've had a few speeches to make. And I've had a few travels to other countries to talk to people there about their system of government. I'm just back, for instance, from Turkey, where I had the privilege of meeting with a lot of officials in Turkey, they're getting ready to write a new constitution. And I'm worried about it. Why? I think our Constitution is special in many ways. But one is the because it's reasonably short and simple. I mean, every one of you can and have read the Constitution. And you know what, I think

Unknown Speaker
the justice is about to pull out the pocket constitution. That is awesome.

Sandra Day O'Connor [automatically transcribed, may contain inaccuracies]
Here's the Constitution. It's barely 30 of these little pages long. And I carry it with me always. But I think it has lasted all this time, because it's reasonably understandable in reasonably brief and, and efficient. And I'm afraid what we're going to see out of some of the countries that I visit is something terribly long, and it won't work. The European Union, you know, it's that marvelous conglomeration of countries in Europe, which I think it's been a blessing. But the participants from each of those countries wanted to write a big constitution for the European Union. And I kept saying, because I attended some of the meetings, keep it short, keep it simple. And you know, what they came up with about 350 pages was a huge book for their constitution. And you know, what happened? They had to get it approved by all the member nations, whose voters had to vote on it. And the voters said, No, was too hard to read. So I think that's a good lesson, we really need to keep these things simple enough that the people government can read it.

Unknown Speaker
I want to go back to your biography, and you talked about being in high school and having to leave home to go to high school. And I'm just curious, because we have a number of people here very motivated young people who are in the high school right now reaching the end of that education. What was high school like for you? And what were you like in high school?

Sandra Day O'Connor [automatically transcribed, may contain inaccuracies]
Goodness, I was probably scared, like most of us are at that age. Worried about what people thought, and it shouldn't matter at all, it's whether you gain a little self confidence out there. I didn't have much that age. And I did try to study hard and get good grades. But I didn't want any of my classmates to know that I had good grades, because that would mean I was a geek, is what we call them. And those days, I don't watch color mail. But I thought if people knew I had good grades, they would not want much to do with me. So I tried to keep that

Unknown Speaker
kind of hit a little bit. Right.

Sandra Day O'Connor [automatically transcribed, may contain inaccuracies]
Right. I hope it's better now.

Unknown Speaker
You

Unknown Speaker
and you talked about being inspired by a law professor. But I'm just curious. Yeah. What allowed you because I mean, I think many of us are context is our context. How were you able to kind of think outside your own box that you're in, you grew up on a cattle ranch, you didn't think you were going to go to college necessarily become a law professor, go on to be on the Supreme Court. So we certainly

Sandra Day O'Connor [automatically transcribed, may contain inaccuracies]
didn't

Unknown Speaker
what allowed you to sort of think beyond your own circumstances and think I can do that I can achieve maybe not because

Sandra Day O'Connor [automatically transcribed, may contain inaccuracies]
I had so little outside things to experience when I grew up that maybe I was more open minded. I don't know how that would be. I didn't have the privilege of having a lot of close friends my age, that might have been more of a distraction than a help. If I add, I don't really know the answer to that.

Unknown Speaker
So civics is your big of your big push right now. civics education of getting people in and I

Sandra Day O'Connor [automatically transcribed, may contain inaccuracies]
finally got out of law school and was able to talk myself into a job. It was hard to do. I had to work for no pay and put my desk in with the Secretary to get a job. But I love working in the legal profession. It was really interesting for me. And it led to all kinds of things eventually, but never for very much pay. And that was okay. I ended up in Arizona, in 1957, with my husband. And again, I went around to all the law firms to try to see if they would hire me. And in 1957, none of them would hire a woman. So I had to start my own little law office with a partner. And we took whatever we could get. And it wasn't the kind of problem that usually comes to the US Supreme Court, I can assure you, but we my basic. So where do you go was it would be landlord, tenant collections, child custody, divorce, something like that. And so we struggled along with the firm. And eventually, my babysitter moved to California. And that was bad, because I had three little kids and I needed a babysitter. So I had to stay home for about five years before I got somebody to take care of the kids again. But even

Unknown Speaker
when you get to the heights of law, the US Supreme Court, it is the People's Court, right? I mean, this is where we go to settle grievances. They may be much

Sandra Day O'Connor [automatically transcribed, may contain inaccuracies]
highest court in the land for both cases coming from the state court system and the federal court system. We have one US Supreme Court where the court can take cases it doesn't have to but it can and resolve issues of national federal law, usually constitutional issues, but also issues interpreting federal law.

Unknown Speaker
So you're known for being a pragmatist in your decisions in the way you understand law, not

Sandra Day O'Connor [automatically transcribed, may contain inaccuracies]
necessarily driven by ideology. Well, I don't know that's probably because growing up on a ranch, if you were out and something happened, you had to take care of it. I'll tell you an example. One time when I was probably about a senior in high school would be my guess I was home at the ranch in November, probably for Thanksgiving, and there was a roundup going on. And on the roundups, the men working had to gather the cattle in a certain area of the ranch and meet where they brand the calves and separate out the cattle to be sold and take care of everything. It's hard work, I'll tell you in one day, they were having around up in the most remote part of the lazy ranch. And the roundup cook was not around. So my mother and I cooked the food ahead of time. And I said I'd bring it out to the roundup crew and try to be there by 1030 in the morning, because they start at 330, we would set our alarm for 330. And we'd have to be on our horses ready to go. By the time the sun came up. By the time you could see you had to be on a horse. And so by 11 o'clock, their star they're ready to eat. So I had to get there early. So I could gather up some wood and build a fire and make coffee. Everybody wanted coffee for some reason, of course, it was horrible. You just dumped the grounds and and boil it and it's terrible stuff. But they would drink it. And I had the lunch. And I had all of this in a pickup truck. And I was about halfway up and it was the most remote place on the ranch. I had a flat tire. Well, you know, that was a big problem because there was no one there to help me. And I had to get a jack and lift up that part of the pickup truck that had the tire on it so I could get it off. And I could not get the lug boat to turn at all. I you know you have that long range kind of thing. And I couldn't get and I stood on the ranch and I jump on it to try to get it already dirt. It was terrible. It took me a couple of hours before I ever thought that stupid tire off the truck, I don't think ever been off. And I finally got the tire changed and got up to the place. I was to meet them. And I was late. So my father, he could see me coming. He wouldn't even talk to me. He was so mad. And he finally got close enough. And he said, Well, I see you're here. And I said, Well, I'm so sorry, I had a flat tire and I had to change it. Well, you should have started earlier is only comment. So growing up on the ranch, you just had to get the job done. No excuses.

Unknown Speaker
No. And that's use preparation for the Supreme Court, I want to ask you because civic civic education, you can assume that if young people are going to engage that it's because they want to be involved in civic life in politics. And you've observed

Sandra Day O'Connor [automatically transcribed, may contain inaccuracies]
it than that. But suppose you see something wrong that you think got to be changed. Suppose it's at the city level, suppose you think the park needs a place where you can go roller, for example, and there isn't one and you want to do it. But so you want to persuade the city to do that. You have to know how you can get that done, who you talk to, and what you can do, even as a teenager to get that to happen. And as possible, you can manage to get changes you want to see even at your age. And that's why I started the iCivics website to try to get young people to understand how they can solve problems and do it

Unknown Speaker
right using digital media and learning inside or out of the classroom. But what do you say to young people who are looking at a political system that really is divisive? Right now there's a lot of mudslinging and yelling and fighting to encourage them that this is a place where they can go and make a web is

Sandra Day O'Connor [automatically transcribed, may contain inaccuracies]
I don't like what I see in here today either. But what I want each of you to learn as you're in school, is even if you disagree with something, someone about something, learn to disagree agreeably. Okay. It's all right, but do it nicely. makes a big difference.

Unknown Speaker
Well, I want to thank you so much for your time. former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.