December 19th 2023.
President Joe Biden attended the funeral service for the late Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor at the Washington National Cathedral on Tuesday, where he celebrated her legacy as an “American pioneer.” Biden spoke of O’Connor’s courage and strength, and how she “empowered generations of women” by demonstrating “a woman can not only do anything a man can do, but many times do it a heck of a lot better.”
Biden recognized O’Connor’s devotion to the “sacred cause of democracy” that she dedicated her life to. He also spoke of her as “gracious and wise, civil and principled” and how she believed the Supreme Court should be a “vital line of defense for the values and the vision of our republic.”
O’Connor was appointed by President Ronald Reagan in 1981, making her the first woman to serve on the Supreme Court, and Biden was the ranking member on the Senate Judiciary Committee at the time. All nine current Supreme Court justices and several of their spouses, along with retired Justice Anthony Kennedy, attended the service, and many of O’Connor’s clerks served as pallbearers the day before.
During his address, Biden shared his understanding of the pain O’Connor’s family felt as they watched her and her husband, John, struggle with their respective illnesses. Biden himself had seen his son, Beau, battle brain cancer before his death in 2015. He told O’Connor’s family to remember the love they both had for them, and the courage she showed in speaking openly about their experiences.
In addition to Biden, O’Connor was eulogized by historian and biographer Evan Thomas, Chief Justice John Roberts, and one of her sons, Jay O’Connor. Roberts spoke of her strong and influential legacy as a jurist, and how the barriers she broke down in her career are “almost unthinkable today.” Vice President Kamala Harris and Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff paid their respects to O’Connor the day before during her lying in repose at the Supreme Court.
The Right Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde, the bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, also mentioned the erosion of some of the centrist jurisprudence O’Connor often championed when she was the preeminent swing vote on the Supreme Court. In June 2022, the Supreme Court overruled one of O’Connor’s opinions from 1992 in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, effectively ending the federal constitutional right to abortion. Budde spoke of the difficulty in accepting that some of our accomplishments may not endure, but that we must strive to make our contributions nonetheless.
Justice Sandra Day O’Connor was remembered as a courageous advocate for women’s rights and the cause of democracy. Her legacy will live on through the generations of women she inspired, the conversations she started, and the values she upheld throughout her life.
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