'A true leader': President Joe Biden to speak as nation honors Sandra Day O'Connor

President Biden and other officials will honor the contributions of former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor at the Washington National Cathedral.

WASHINGTON − Sandra Day O’Connor, the gritty ranch girl who became the first female Supreme Court justice, will receive one final honor in Washington in the setting where presidents, senators and other luminaries have been remembered for their contributions to the nation.

President Joe Biden was scheduled to speak at O'Connor's funeral Tuesday at Washington National Cathedral, underscoring her place in history as a justice who wrestled with some of the nation's most challenging legal issues.

The private service, which begins at 11 a.m. EST, brings O’Connor back to the church she attended for years as a Supreme Court justice and to the same place where the nation also held services for former President George H.W. Bush, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, and the late Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., after his death in 2018.

Biden:Sandra Day O'Connor was the first woman justice. Biden wanted her to own it

O'Connor's service will be streamed on the National Cathedral's website.

When did Sandra Day O'Connor die?

O'Connor died at 93 on Dec. 1 in Arizona of complications related to dementia and a respiratory illness. Nominated by President Ronald Reagan, she served on the Supreme Court from 1981 until 2006.Hundreds paid their respects to O'Connor on Monday as she lay in repose at the Supreme Court with dozens of her former staffers, clerks and current justices on hand.

Biden’s words likely will reverberate, but others have deeply personal connections to the woman they called a friend and mentor.

Barbara Barrett, an Arizona resident who headed the Air Force and was ambassador to Finland, met O’Connor as an intern at the Arizona Senate, where O’Connor served as majority leader for the Republicans in 1972 in another historic breakthrough for women.

“The biggest privilege was watching her in action. It wasn’t the pay. It wasn’t the credit hours. It wasn’t learning the civics of the Legislature,” Barrett said.

“It was watching a true leader get the work done, and as she said, work worth doing. I got to see a woman do these things that women just weren’t doing and weren’t expected to do.”

'Role model for women'

Caroline Brown, a Washington lawyer who clerked for O’Connor during the 1991-92 term, was similarly awestruck. She said it’s easy today to forget what a role model O’Connor was.

“It’s hard to describe as a young woman in the ’80s how limited women seemed to be in public life and how Justice O’Connor was not limited,” Brown said. “She was fully herself in that position and such a role model for women of my generation. She was not just doing her job, she was very publicly a mother, very publicly a wife, very publicly a social person, an athlete.

“When she had breast cancer, she said the word breast in public. That was all very fresh and quite remarkable and hard to describe how new that was at that time.”

Brown’s year with the court included O’Connor’s landmark ruling that affirmed federal abortion rights. It was a splintered decision that remained secret until near the end, she said.

The current court erased that ruling last year and effectively unwound another pillar of O'Connor's judicial legacy in a case involving affirmative action earlier this year

I’m not sure that her legacy is as fully appreciated as it should be,” Brown said. “It’s hard.” In her later years, O’Connor ensured the children of her former clerks received “grandclerk” shirts.

Brown said the twin columns of her clerks stretching from the top of the court’s marble stairs to the plaza near the street on Monday was an impressive and emotional reminder of the power and durability of her bond with her staff.