Opinion: Strange opposition to Sandra Day O’Connor statue

Editor’s note: Jill Filipovic is a journalist andOkay, Boomer, let’s talk: How my generation was left behind.” Follow her twitter. The opinions expressed in this comment are solely her own.view more opinions On CNN.

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Before Sandra Day O’Connor was appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court by President Ronald Reagan and became the first female justice, she lived and worked in Arizona and served in state government.

Some Republicans in the state have opposed building a statue honoring O’Connor, a strong conservative, instead of honoring the late justice’s service on the court from 1981 to 2006. “We cannot allow a prominent member of this organization to be forced to go through the pain of walking alongside such an unknown jurist as he enters here in the morning,” Arizona Representative Alexander Kolodin said on the 19th. ” he said. (As one columnist pointed out, it is doubtful that Mr. Kolodin even read the text of the bill—because it would have placed the statue in Statuary Hall in Washington, not in Arizona.) Arizona State Representative Neil Carter argued on the floor of the state House of Representatives: He believes that “people, things, and organizations should be respected based on their merits, not just because they come from this state.”

Today’s MAGA-dominated Republican Party appears intent on proving itself to be thoroughly misogynistic. It is hostile not only to women’s rights but also to elevating women to positions of power or recognizing their achievements unless they fit into a very narrow mold.

For her clearly inadequate and reactionary politics, some Arizona Republicans belittle and despise her and her accomplishments, and it is essential that they have to walk in her shoes. They claim that they are technically inferior to them.

Mr. O’Connor has never been a liberal supporter. But her claims that she is “unremarkable” or lacks “merit” are both lies and abuses of the English language. O’Connor entered Stanford University in the 1940s, at a time when few women were attending college. Although she was only 16 years old at the time of her matriculation, she still graduated with honors. At her Stanford Law School, she served on the prestigious Stanford Law Review, and she graduated at the top of her class.

Despite these accomplishments, and despite the fact that she outperformed most of her male classmates, Ms. O’Connor struggled to find work. This is because many legal employers were unwilling to hire women. She defiantly rose through the professional ranks to become an assistant attorney general, Arizona state senator, and the nation’s first female state senate majority leader. From there, she rose through the judicial ranks from a seat on the county Superior Court to the Arizona Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court, where she served for a quarter of a century.

O’Connor wrote hundreds of opinions while on the court, including some of the most influential opinions in American history and taught in many law school courses. I personally disagree with much, if not most, of O’Connor’s jurisprudence. But to describe it as unworthy or that her time on the court was undistinguished is either ignorance of what those terms mean, or a shock to the first female Supreme Court justice. It shows hostility.

It seems that the latter is the case.

Many of the Arizona Republicans who oppose Mr. O’Connor’s honor are simply Trump followers, willing to level meritless allegations if it helps them or their core figures. . For example, Rep. Kolodin is an election denier who filed a lawsuit without evidence to try to invalidate the votes of millions of Arizonans. His conduct was so egregious that he was sanctioned by the Arizona State Bar Association, and the Arizona Supreme Court’s disciplinary panel said he “violated his duty to the legal profession, the legal system, and the public.”

I think Kolodin distinguished himself, but not as an honest or ethical actor. Mr. Carter said that while Mr. O’Connor was a moderate supporter of abortion rights, Mr. O’Connor almost universally wanted to ban abortions, and Mr. Carter was also a MAGA Republican. He seems to be against giving honor.

These small, ordinary men have the courage to call O’Connor “inconspicuous” and lacking in “achievements.” They would be lucky if they could walk in the mere shadow of her statue.

These two are not the only Arizona legislators to vote against the O’Connor statue. Several Democratic members of Congress have taken similar action, saying they are not trying to disparage Ms. O’Connor’s accomplishments or accomplishments, but instead support a separate effort by her family to build a statue in her honor at the Capitol. Because I said it. And Republican Rep. Matt Gress, who sponsored the bill, said O’Connor was a “trailblazer and trailblazer,” and even without the statue project, “she will be remembered and honored for her service to our nation.” He rightly said, In other words, the extreme MAGA Republicans who oppose O’Connor’s honor are not the whole of their party, or at least not yet.

This incident, and the comments by some Arizona Republicans, mark yet another alarming departure from the political norms of basic decency. It is not necessary to agree with or support everything that a righteous person, politician, or influential person has done in life to recognize their importance, influence, and valuable contribution. Conservatives, after the debate is over, understand this concept when, for example, they erect statues of long-dead white men who not only enslaved people, but also contributed immeasurably to the founding of our country. It seems there is. But when it comes to people who are hesitant to even ride the Trump train, different rules seem to apply — such as the treatment of the late Sen. John McCain, also from Arizona, who was on Trump’s train. etc. Trump’s vitriolic rhetoric flowed, while many members of the party he served so loyally deserted him and threw away their support for his attackers. MAGA’s refusal to honor the first female Supreme Court Justice, who retired 10 years before President Trump took office, takes this despicable act to the next level. Mr. O’Connor was not publicly anti-Trump. She was exactly the kind of conscientious, non-extremist Republican Trump supporters imagine.

Who knows what’s going on in the minds of the men who not only oppose celebrating O’Connor, but seek to undermine her life’s work? But this means that the same men who supported a former president found responsible for sexual abuse and who want to prohibit women from exercising all their reproductive rights are the It seems to say that they think it’s acceptable to denigrate one of our female pioneers. He resists recognizing her and heaps unwarranted insults on her.

This is a story more than just a statue. This is another example of the blatant contempt that so many pro-Trump Republicans have for American women.