Ooo, almost forgot

[terrie]

Last night, I got to hear Sandra Day O'Connor speak. She was the keynote speaker at the local U's alumni assciation meeting. The "meeting" itself was largely crap. They talked about how, hey! we got funding from the state to build a football stadium. Lots of people seemed happy, but I kept thinking about what that money could do in terms of academics. The school wants to be one of the top three research universities in the world. Well, football won't get you there.

Anyway, because it wasn't a speech for lawyers or such, the topic of the talk was mainly "Supreme Courts Firsts" -- since she was the first woman. First Chief Justice, first law clerk, first Justice of color, etc. There was one dig about the fact that there's now only one woman on the Court, despite the fact that incoming classes in law schools run as high as 60% female. She also had a few things to say about claims of "judical activism" -- mainly that, the judical system works exactly the way it's supposed, and trying to retaliate for "activism" is trying to toss the Constitution.

The thing that surprised me most was that she was really funny. You just never think about people on the Supreme Court cracking jokes.