Retired Justice Sandra Day O’Connor joined the U.S. Supreme Court in 1981. In her career, she also has been a private practitioner, an Arizona assistant attorney general, an Arizona state senator, and a county and state court judge. She retired from the Supreme Court on January 31, 2006.

Justice Sandra Day O’Connor

Since your retirement, you have dedicated much of your time to improving civic education. What prompted your concern about the state of civic education?

Two observations prompted my concern. First, I was concerned about the large number of verbal attacks on courts and judges. The freedom to criticize judges and other public officials is necessary to a vibrant democracy, but recent attacks have been broader and more vitriolic than any I have seen in my lifetime. My second observation was that many of these attacks stemmed from a fundamental misunderstanding of the role of the judicial branch of government. In fact, surveys show that approximately 75 percent of the public cannot distinguish the role of a judge from the role of a legislator. Without basic civic education, we cannot expect to preserve or advance our system of government.

How are you helping to improve civic education? Who are you trying to reach with your initiative? Please describe your initiative.

I founded Our Courts (www.ourcourts.org) with the help of a team of experts from Georgetown Law and Arizona State University. Our Courts is a free, interactive, on-line civics curriculum designed for middle school students.

As any parent can attest, middle school is a time when young people are particularly interested in fairness and in challenging adult rules. We felt that this was a critical time to introduce the concepts of individual rights and civic responsibility. Our goal is to create civic learning resources that allow students to apply civics concepts to issues that affect their lives. These resources include on-line games, social networking tools, and pathways to civic participation.

A goal of civic education is to provide citizens with the knowledge and skills so they can effectively participate in their government. Why is this important?

We are fortunate in the United States to have a stable and durable democracy. But we cannot be complacent in assuming this good fortune will continue. We must not forget that it is the citizens of our nation who must preserve and advance our system of government.

Isn’t it possible that the more people learn about their government and the various institutions and people running it, the less trust and confidence in its operation they will have?

I think the opposite is true. Lack of knowledge leads to misunderstanding and mistrust. Knowing the processes and reasoning behind government actions can help people relate to those actions, even if they disagree with them. For example, education is necessary for people to understand that unpopular opinions by the Judiciary are an unavoidable part of upholding the law. Studies illuminate this phenomenon: the more people know about the role of judges in government, the higher their opinion of individual judges’ performances.