Despite the encouraging and wonderful gains and the changes for women which have occurred in my lifetime, there is still room to advance and to promote correction of the remaining deficiencies and imbalances.
SANDRA DAY O'CONNORI’m a judge. It seemed to me that it was critical to try to take action to stem the criticism and help people understand that in the constitutional framework, it’s terribly important not to have a system of retaliation against decisions people don’t like.
More Sandra Day O'Connor Quotes
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It matters enormously to a successful democratic society like ours that we have three branches of government, each with some independence and some control over the other two. Thats set out in the Constitution.
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I think it’s inevitable that some of the court’s decisions will be found by a segment of the public to be not the right decision or subject to criticism.
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If I stumbled badly in doing the job, I think it would have made life more difficult for women, and that was a great concern of mine and still is.
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I sort of thought the framers of the Constitution were talking about the rights of individuals, not corporate entities.
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The freedom to criticize judges and other public officials is necessary to a vibrant democracy.
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Society as a whole benefits immeasurably from a climate in which all persons, regardless of race or gender, may have the opportunity to earn respect, responsibility, advancement and remuneration based on ability.
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I think most people didn’t want to do court duty.
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If parents instill a sense of civic-mindedness – and there is no better way to do that than by example – their children will probably follow.
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The unhappy persistence of both the practice and the lingering effects of racial discrimination …is an unfortunate reality…and the government is not disqualified from acting in response to it.
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My hope is that 10 years from now, after I’ve been across the street at work for a while, they’ll all be glad they gave me that wonderful vote.
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We expect that 25 years from now, the use of racial preferences will no longer be necessary to further the interest approved today.
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I have always thought that while it’s wonderful to be the first to do something, you don’t want to be the last.
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I think people know very little, really, about the court, how it works and its history. And both of those things are important in our country, but they’re not things that most citizens know much about.
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In order to cultivate a set of leaders with legitimacy in the eyes of the citizenry, it is necessary that the path to leadership be visibly open to talented and qualified individuals of every race and ethnicity.
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I think I learned to appreciate and treasure each day, because you don’t know how many you’re going to be given.
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