law clerks who made the mistake so, you know, you knew who was who. i think they get so they are vows up there that anything can happen. >> there was a former policity general. there was a law professor. >> i think it -- it is a tense time for the advocates, i'm sure, and they get up there and are so concerned about anything that anything can slip out in terms of calling names. >> your comments about justices suitior and briere reminds me of a story justice suitior likes to tell. he was out to dinner win evening and someone came up to him and said justis briere, i think you're the greatest justice on the court. i really admire your work. can you tell me who is your favorite justice on the court. justice suitior said i think by far the greatest intellect on

the court is david suitior. >> you know the story about the national association of women judges had a reception. after my appointment, and they presented us with t-shirts. senators read i'm senator, not ruth and mine read i'm ruth, not senator. >> i once saw an argument where the lawyer confused two women, i'm not sure, i think it was actually when you were on the court, so i think it might have been justice ginsburg and justice sotomayor who were confused, and then 20 minutes later the same lawyer confused two men on the court. >> oh, gosh. >> and i think that the second was purposeful. >> mm-hmm. >> i think he realized he had done it once, an darned if he wasn't going to do it again with -- with gender neutrality. >> oh, that's funny. >> that's the difference the three makes because we haven't

been confused. the three of us have not been confused. >> i thought it had happened once, and i think it was you and i, but that is also understandable because we flank the two ends of the court, and i'm told that you can't always hear where the voices are coming from, so i'm giving them an excuse. >> what were your biggest challenges in joining the court, and all of you have probably had different kinds of challenges. justice o'connor, you being the trailblazer. >> well, trying to write opinions that not only deal with the issues but in a way that is useful and will be long lasting, and that's a challenge. it really is. many of these issues are issues are ones where the lower courts have been in total disagreement and sometimes for a long time and things that matter, that are important or the court wouldn't have had to take them, and when

you have to put down on paper permanently the tests that you're going to apply and see how it works, that's a challenge every single time, and you really want to do it well, and you won't know until many years have gone by how well you've succeeded. you can't tell instantly. >> for me opinion writing wasn't new because i had been on the d.c. circuit for 13 years, but what was new was the death penalty cases. >> mm-hmm. >> i had no idea that the supreme court would -- deals with so many 11th hour applications for stays. >> yes, yes. >> and it was a the whole new

level. >> mm-hmm. >> justice sotomayor? >> it was walking in to a continuously running conversation that you're a newcomer to. >> mm-hmm. >> i can't say how many conferences my first year. a justice would explain his, and sometimes her position, and i thought their explanation would be coming out of left field and it would take justice stevens or sometimes justice alito or prier who would see the note of incredity on my face to lean over saying this has to do with the picadillo that has to do with x, y, z, that hadn't been argued by the parties and i hadn't anticipated being part of the reasoning, and that went on frequently. and i remember the first time when justice kagan came in and leaned over and said what are they talking about?

and there was some sense of satisfaction that after a year i could actually explain something. but it is when you're working with the same nine people, with the same other eight people, the same nine people are working together, it is a long running conversation at times, and moments coming into the middle of it. >> very interesting observation. i remember justice brennan saying he had been on the court for a couple of decades at that point, and he said the thing about serving so long is that you've seen all these cases before. the issues are very similar that come up year after year so the ongoing conversation, that's a very astute observation. justice kagan, you're a veteran now after a term and a half. are you still -- are there still challenges for you adjusting, or

have you hit your stride? >> every day is a challenge. for me i've never been a judge before, and just figuring out mechanics of the job. have those four clerks, what do i do with them? what's the best process for drafting an opinion? when do i read the briefs? do i read them the day before, the week before, so all those things which i think most of my colleagues are just sort of figured out what processes worked for them, i was very much last year and continuing to sort of do trial and error and experiment a little bit and figure out what worked for me. >> right. serving as solicitor general, did you find that helpful and useful? >> hugely helpful because you're sort of looking at the court from a somewhat different vantage point but really spending all your time thinking about those nine people and what they are doing, so sometimes i think that the job doesn't really change at all. as solicitor general my job was trying to persuade nine people and now it's just trying to persuade eight people.

>> yeah. >> justice o'connor, justice ginsburg, you both served as the only female on the court during a period of time, and you both i recall expressed hope for another female appointee during those times. it may be obvious, and obviously it -- it should be obvious given this conversation, but why is it so important to our country and to the court to have -- >> maybe you haven't noticed, but i think about 51% or 52% of the population are female. [ applause ] and i think they notice when their public bodies are dominated entirely by one sex. i think women care about that, and they should so i really think that's part of the deal. >> it is indeed.

when you joined the court in 1981, the court heard 184 cases that term. it heard 82 cases last year. >> isn't that amazing? >> it just shows they are not working very hard. isn't that right? >> i was going to ask, as they would say in kentucky, did these young ones have it easy? >> they do. i mean, it was a devastating amount of work, i'll tell you, because you had to go through all the petitions for certiorari and that was new to me. i couldn't do it quickly. i could after many years, you've seen them before, but that was hard, and then to have so many opinions to deal with. it was very challenging. >> i would like everyone to know that i still work long into the night. i don't think the job is any easier. i do think one thing has been

reduced substantially and that is in the old days when they were hearing 150 cases, you would get these terribly fractured opinions where someone would announce the judgment of the court and an opinion in which justice so and so joined part 1d, and i think with fewer cases there's less of that kind of fracturing. >> yes, there would be, yes. >> i think that, yes, i -- from external observation, i would say that the opinions are crisper, cleaner and easier to understand these days. it's probably better for the court. there are several theories as to why the court is hearing fewer cases, everything from fewer conflicts among the circuits to differences -- i guess my question is are there mechanical

reasons internal to the court as to why this may be the case as well? >> i'd be interested to hear that, too. i'm not sure why the number of cases the court is granting are fewer. i think the numbers of petitions are still high. >> i think those have increased actually. one of the reasons why the justices are working just as hard because you review so many cert positions, over 8,000 a year, and i didn't mean to suggest that you weren't working. >> i have to say i'm not quite sure how you managed that number. >> i'm not sure either. >> in those years before because i know i'm at max where i am. >> right. >> i know because i've looked at many of the studies and the discussions about why the court is taking lesser numbers now, and i wasn't sure when i read

the studies that i really adhere to any reason as being the reason. i think even being a part of it now i don't think the court purposely -- >> there's no conscious effort. >> -- effort to suppress the number. i don't think we look at number and say we can't take more than "x" number this year so we're going to turn this case down because it adds too much to our workload. i know that for myself. i can only speak for myself but what i'm very conscious about is this a case with procedural vehicles or not, and a lot of those cases that i read from years before the court wasn't even reaching the issue that they granted cert on because there were vehicle approximate that they were addressing and resolving and never reaching the substantive questions. >> there is one contributor to it that it's not the whole part but it is a large part, is that until was it 1988 when you came

on, sandra, there were still many must-decide cases, many jurisdictional statements rather than cert petitions. >> yes. >> where the court was supposed to -- >> yes. >> the jurisdiction was mandatory. now, for advocates -- for civil rights advocates in those days it was a great thing. could you go to a three-judge court challenging the statute as unconstitutional and then you could go directly to the supreme court on appeal, skipping over the court of appeals, but so that i think the -- the end of the must-decides. i mean, nowadays we have some -- >> that must be part of the reason. there has to be some -- several reasons that the numbers have dropped. that could be. >> well, it's part of it. >> yeah. the current court appears to be more active in questioning from

the bench than some earlier courts. there have been statistics gathered in that regard is this just a different manner of judging? is it personality driven? are the courts conferences, and i know you don't disclose what goes on inside the court's conferences, but does that add to the initiative to ask more questions from the bench and communicate with each other through questions from the bench, or how would you explain the -- the increase in the number of questions from the bench during oral argument? >> maybe women ask more questions, i don't know. what do you think? >> i think it was on the rise even before there were three female justices. >> i think it was, too. >> there's women and also the law professors. >> law professors, that's got to be it. >> and that -- it is very much a

matter of individual style. i know when i was a new justice, justice blackmun came to see me, and he said, ruth, i want to give you some advice. it was given to me by justice black when i was a new justice, and he said don't ask many questions because if you don't ask many questions, you won't ask many foolish ones. >> oh. >> that's good advice. >> what did you say? >> i was not intimidated by, that and i think he was disappointed that i didn't take his advice. >> we hear a phrase now that washington is broken and the observation is usually made about the legislative process which appears to be at an impasse on many difficult issues, budget. even the budget is difficult to

pass. compromise appears more difficult, but that's a phrase really that has never been used, to my knowledge, to apply to the judiciary. why do you think the judiciary works relatively well by comparison to the other branches? is it because you make decisions and not avoid them and kick them down the road? how would you explain the differences? >> well, one thing is we don't set our own agenda, and we don't have an initiating role. we get -- we are a totally reactive institution. we can't say oh, this is the year that we're going to take care of the fourth amendment. we react to -- >> right. >> -- to the petitions for review. that's part of it. we don't have a platform, that we don't have an agenda to put

forward. we are reacting to the petitions that people bring to the court. >> that's. >> i think we have to explain our reasons and not just in a cursory fashion, and i think justice o'connor you wrote something about this a while back where you said that almost every judge has an internal need or drive for consistency of some sort. >> mm-hmm. >> you don't want to be arbitrary yourself. >> right. >> and i think that that makes us in some ways less reactive to sort of what's happening outside of our courtroom and to the legal issues that we're watching develop and participating in considering. >> what would you say the attributes are of a good judge, good justice? what advice would you give the

young women and young men in the audience who might aspire to be a judge or justice some day? >> well, you have to think cl r clearly, be reasonable and rational, write well and just have a sense of fairness, i thi think. all of those qualities come in and others as well, but it's a challenging job to be an appellate court judge and to try to explain well your reasons for everything you do. that is very challenging. >> i asked justice o'connor if she had a role model and she rightly pointed out, i think in her own way, that she was a

trailblazer and probably didn't follow the path of many, but i'll ask each of the other justices who was your role model and couple that with the question about how important it is to young women today to see you on the bench of the supreme court. >> well, sandra and i come from the era when women were simply not judgments and very few of them were lawyers. >> that's right. >> i think when we went to law school, 2%, 3% of the law students were women. >> if that. >> and we never saw a woman teacher. we -- there was no title vii so employers were up front in sa g saying that they really were not interested in hiring a woman. >> that's right. >> and for us the change has been enormous. >> yes, total. >> in our lifetime. >> a total change. >> i couldn't get a job when i got out of law school. >> mm-hmm. well, we're all the better that

you're now serving, and i mentioned this to you before, justice ginsburg. one of my best friends had you for a course in law school at columbia and said you were the best professor he ever had. >> good. >> well, he was not in any of justice kagan's class es. >> that's right. >> i didn't know anybody that went to harvard. i don't have friends there. it's so important that i think we'd all agree to see you on the bench, and you're annics operation to -- not just to my daughter but to my sons, i think the way you all go about your work is wonderful for the country. i'll conclude with a couple of other questions. justice o'connor, you have said your work with civic education, which you're now dedicated your

years to is the most important work of your life. i tried to debate you on that point. >> i know. >> at some point. >> but there's been so much discussion in public venues about the judicial branch of government and activist judges. i used to think it was a judge who would get up and go to work in the morning, but people have other ideas about activist judges. much criticism and it seemed to me that it was primarily a lack of understanding about many people about the role of the judicial branch. of course, they have to decide questions we don't like and wish weren't there, but it's not the judges who are bringing these things, and it's -- and i really thought that we needed to enhance the education of young people about how our government

works, and the reason we got public schools initially in this country was with the argument that we had to teach young people how our government worked about the system the framers developed and how it all worked and how people can interact within that system, and we were finding that barely one-third of americans, including young people, could name the three branches of government, much less say what they do. the percentages of people who understand how the system works are so small, and so there's a real job to do, and we had a conference at georgetown law school and had wonderful people participate and talk about the problem, and it really did boil down, i think, to lack of education, so i -- i got some people together, and we warted a

website called icivics.org, and geared it to young people, to middle schoolers primarily and did it with games because young people that age spend about 40 hours a week in front of a screen, whether it's television and/or computer. and i only needed about an hour a week. that would be fine with me, so we developed some games with the help of some wonderful teachers who knew what principles needed to be included in something for that age group on the subject, and we've succeeded in producing a fabulous website, and i've spent a lot of time trying to get it used and we have chair people in all 50 states now, and we've get begun 5 million hits a day. that's not nearly enough, but it's a good start. and it's taken effect, and it is very effective.

>> that's wonderful. we're going to devote a lot of time here at the museum to civic education and outreach programs. >> good. >> and would love to work with you on that. >> good. >> i have to ask a first amendment question. you walk in this building, and the tablet on the front of the building is the first amendment of our constitution. we had a visitor visiting with a friend of mine. he was from russia, and he walked through the building and observed some of the exhibits here, and he said, you know, we have free speech and free press in russia, too, but the difference is here you're free after you speak. [ laughter ] >> yeah. >> and it was a rather profound and humorous observation. >> indeed. >> but there was a very substantial reason for that, and -- and it's an independent judiciary that protects us. >> that's right.

>> our first amendment rights and our bill of rights and distinguishes us from others. do any of you have any observations about the importance of that in our system of government? >> it's tremendously important, and it's very fragile. it was from the very beginning. a cartoon after the revolutionary war which shows some tories being hauled off, and the caption is freedom of speech. or liberty of speech for those who speak the speech of liberty, and it really is rather recent times. it wasn't until the last century that the first amendment became a major item on the supreme court's docket. >> that's right. >> and in the beginning the performance was nothing to rave about. it was the first world war i cases when people were being

charged with offenses that related to what they were saying about the draft, about the country's political situation, so i think it's -- it's in part due to some pretty great justices, like home many and brandeis starting out as dissenters. all those old dissents today, the law of the land. >> well, i think we would all agree that the country is far better off that all of you have served and are serving on the supreme court of the united states. we're very grateful and honored that you'd be with us here this evening in celebration of justice o'connor's 30th anniversary for appointment to the supreme court. thank you for being here, and, greg, would you like to -- >> thanks, jim. >> -- make the closing remarks.

>> join me in thanks justices o'connor, ginsburg, sotomayor and kagan. >> thank you so much. >> that's lovely. >> we also want to thank frank did you have and the freedom forum for making this wonderful event and look forward to partnering again. i also want to thank those who are supporters of the supreme court historical society to put on programs like that,and if you're not, there's plenty of time. there is a reception in the atrium, wand that we are adjourned.

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singing ♪ >> harriet may be widely forgotten today but in the years before the civil war she was almost as famous as her uncle, the president of the united states. because james buchanan was a bachelor, harriet served as his white house hostess. it was harriet who welcomed the prince of wales at 1859, harriet to whom the song "listen to the mocking bird" was dedicated. and harriet who left funds in her will to erect this monument in washington's meridian hill park. even then, there was no rush to memorialize a deeply unpopular president. another dozen years went by until this eight-foot tall bronze likeness of buchanan was unveiled in 1930. ironically, few presidents have entered office with more impressive credentials. as illustrated by the granite figures sharing space with the somber looking executive. buchanan's early career was

recognized in the courtroom. diplomacy pays tribute to his service as james k. poke secretary of state and the u.s. administrator to the court of st. james and czarist russia. ironically buchanan's gift of conciliations seemed to desert him in the white house. by encouraging pro-slavery forces in kansas, he inadvertently split his own party right down the middle. following the election of abraham lincoln, buchanan looked on helplessly as several southern states left the union. although he opposed secession, his narrow reading of the constitution persuaded buchanan that the federal government had no right to prevent it by force. all of which helped to explain why there was no statue of our 15th president in the nation's capital until a devoted niece will it had almost a century after his presidency. ♪ listen to the