An event attendee tweeted: Justice O’Connor leaving the stage. Quick, cue rocking guitar riff!
She couldn’t have been more on point. In her second time on the stage at the Women & Leadership event Justice Sandra Day O’Connor captivated the audience like a rockstar sharing her feisty, pointed commentary and passion.
And giving interviewer Dr David Adler of the Andrus Center a run for his money.
During her speech, Justice O’Connor briefly touched on her time both witnessing history and being a part of it on the bench.
But the bulk of her address focused on her current passion – a commitment to improving the access to and awareness of civic education in our country.
Calling it the most challenging work and most rewarding of her lifetime in public service – Justice O’Connor helped launch http://www.icivics.org in 2009, to prepare young Americans to become knowledgeable, engaged 21st century citizens by creating free and innovative educational materials
(Profiles of Next Generation Learning: iCivics from NextGenLC (NGLC) on Vimeo.)
As she so aptly noted, the skills and knowledge of citizenship are not handed down through the gene pool – civid education must be perpetual. And if we believe what Eleanor Roosevelt said, that ‘the true purpose of education is good citizenship,’ then civics can no longer be an afterthought in our public schools.
Justice O’Connor eloquently stated,
Not everyone is going to grow up to be Bill Gates or Sheryl Sandberg or Bonnie McElveen-Hunter, but everyone is going to grow up to be a citizen.
For our democracy to endure, we have to ensure are citizens are well informed.
Democracy is a sustained and perpetual conversation about how best to govern.
It is not a spectator sport. We don’t have a government by the majority, we have a government by those who get involved and participate.
We have an moral imperative to lead. To continue our history of trailblazing. And to help secure the vibrancy of our democracy by ensuring strong civic education and an informed engaged citizenry.
Because as she so aptly noted, there is no charge or cost to be a leader, just hard work.