Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2026
Abstract
Soon after Justice O'Connor's passing in December 2023, commentators and court watchers across the ideological spectrum questioned whether anything in the legacy of the first woman to serve on the Supreme Court— once called “the most powerful woman in Washington, D.C.”—remained intact.
Drawing upon speeches and interviews she gave over her entire forty-year public career, I argue that O’Connor’s deepest and most enduring contribution was a subtle, compelling, interconnected, and yet today largely countercultural vision of the Constitution as a site of multiple conversations, a “Constitution of Conversations,” that took place variously within institutions, across institutions, and across time. More than any justice in Supreme Court history, O'Connor thought through the ways in which the tenor and tone, and not just the content, of our conversations undergirded the long-term viability of America's Constitution.
Within institutions, she highlighted the value of civility, bridge-building, and social capital. She laid great stress upon the idea of “civic friendship,” not just with likeminded members of one’s “tribe” or party, but across political and intellectual divides. Across institutions, she pointed out the importance of judicial restraint as a critical feature of the ongoing, nationwide conversation about the meaning of the Constitution. She emphasized in particular how aggressive constitutional decision making by judges could sometimes step on the lines of other participants in America’s dialogue and thereby foreclose richer political debate and compromise at both the federal and state levels. And across time, she focused on the ways in which America’s constitutional project depended upon the intergenerational effort to pass on to future generations a basic working knowledge of America’s constitutional system. It was that conversation across time, she repeatedly pointed out, that takes place out of the limelight and yet “at scale,” and shapes how millions of Americans understand the Constitution and see themselves.
Justice O’Connor’s reflections on each of these different kinds of conversations serve as a corrective to, and even a standing rebuke of, many of the longstanding trend lines in our own political/cultural moment—loneliness, anger, incivility, siloing, political polarization, “juristocracy,” wariness of compromise, lawfare, and declining knowledge of and trust in institutions—that continue to fray our social fabric and destabilize our politics. Her intuitive understanding of constitutional culture, the habits of mind and heart—both in judges and citizens alike—needed to “keep” a republic and pass it on intact to the next generation, to help us keep talking and working with each other across our many differences, represents perhaps her most enduring contribution and remains as prescient and timely as ever.
Recommended Citation
Derek A. Webb, The Constitution of Conversations: The Enduring Legacy of Sandra Day O'Connor, 28 U. Pa. J. Const L. 207 (2026).
