Ruth Bader Ginsburg thank you so much because of the good job, I now hold, invitations come in abundance. To preserve energy and time for the courts heavy work, I must ordinarily just say no. For tonight’s celebration, however, I did not just say yes, I asked the women’s bar if I might have the honor of presenting the torchbearer award to Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. For all who know her agree: She fits the description to a tee. She is indeed a trailblazer. A grind human, whose mind carrying an incredible energy have encouraged women everywhere, to be brave. To appreciate their own worth, to aspire and to achieve. Sandra has been celebrated in many ceremonies. She has been praised for her independence, self reliance, practicality, and self possession. Of all the accolades one strikes me as describing Sandra best. Growing up on the lazy b ranch in Arizona. Sandra could ride a horse brand cattle driver tractor and fire a rifle with accuracy before she reached her teens, one of the hands on the ranch recalled his clear memory of Sandra Day. She was in the rough and rugged type. But she worked well with us in the canyons. She held her own. Sandra did just that at every stage of her professional and family life. The first woman on the Supreme Court brought to the conference table experiences others did not possess the experience of growing up female in the 1930s 40s and 50s. raising a family of doing all manner of legal work, government service, private practice successes successful

Sandra Day O’Connor Well, I’m all weighted down now with this fantastic medal. And my husband and I are so happy to be at this beautiful campus today and what a day you will produce for us. It’s incredible. We don’t have days like this in Washington DC. We can even see the snow capped mountain Mount Baldy. MM, this gorgeous campus. And we’re thrilled to be here and I’m so honored by the presentation to me today of the LM browning scripts award. You know Ellen browning scripts was a very special moment. When we look back and try to identify those women who’ve made a significant difference for the lives of all women who follow. We would include Ellen scripts on our short list. She lived a simple, brutal life, obtained an education largely by our own efforts eventually helped her brothers found a newspaper Empire and Layton life founded this very college Scripps College for Women. She had no money to go to college, and worked for two years to pay the cost of going to Knox College back in 1856. She graduated and became a teacher. She saved money has a teacher and moved to Detroit and help her brothers establish a newspaper. She even wrote a newspaper column as you’ve already heard. For many years, it was called Miss Ellen’s miscellany. She moved to California in 1890, where she remained until her death at age 96. All of her resources, which were considerable and time, she gave to charitable causes which interested her. She’s been described as a person who was a principal architect

Host Herself a cancer survivor, Mrs. O’Connor has made advocating unified team treatments for cancer patients for special cause. From her vantage point on the world’s most noticed, and most influential judicial panel, she can not only see what the public’s needs are, but with one word can greatly influence outcomes. Her advocacy of early detection and treatment weighs greatly with the American public. And we salute her efforts with this award today, for she i think is probably the best example in the world, that having breast cancer is not a death sentence, but that you can go on and be anything you want to be if you just address the problem. We honor you today. And please join me ask everyone here to join me in giving her our award today. Thank Sandra Day O’Connor Thank you. Thank you. I must say, Debbie, it was lovely to hear those words. But when I hear about the others you’ve honored today and hear the work that Dr. Klausner and people like Dr. Klausner are doing, I feel that my contribution to this discussion has been very small indeed. What this organization is about is building bridges, building bridges, from your communities and the wide sphere of brands and influence that each of you have to the centers of knowledge and skill and understanding about cancer and prostate cancer and what can be done to alleviate them? So your bridge builders and the other honorees or bridge builders, my bridge is very small. But my honor is very great. And being here today and being with

Sandra Day O’Connor Attorney General Reno, President Cooper, and distinguished guests and members of the American Bar Association. My feelings at this moment are of gratitude for this signal honor you’ve bestowed on me. And of amazement over the unlikelihood of at all, that a cowgirl from Arizona would have found her way not only through law school, but through 45 years of experience in the legal profession all the way to our nation’s highest court and to This wonderful honor tonight in the city of San Francisco. It was here in this city in 1952, that I was sworn in to the State Bar of California. And that lovely courthouse now restored for the Court of Appeals. It was just south of here in Redwood City that I persuaded the county attorney to give me my first job as a lawyer. Follow the road to this podium has in fact been a long one. It seems very short to me. It feels like only a few years ago, that law school opened my eyes to the world of the rule of law, to the intrigue of legal analysis, and the satisfaction of solving people’s disputes through negotiation. And when all else fails, litigation, the American Bar Association was in existence long before I entered the legal profession. It’s been working throughout my years as a lawyer to study and analyze different subject areas of the law and to propose and help achieve improvements. It has been a strong supporter of a qualified, competent and independent judiciary. It has worked hard to support adequate compensation for