Date of this Version “Diversity is its strength, just as it is
the strength of America itself,” wrote Justice Sandra Day
O’Connor about the United States Supreme Court.1 The Court’s
strength of diversity is manifested in various ways. To its
thousands of visitors, the Supreme Court Building itself is
perhaps the first and foremost exhibition of that strength of
diversity. In the nation’s highest court, high above the bench,
are the figures of 18 historical lawgivers depicted in marble
friezes. These 18 lawgivers are of different races and
ethnicities, from Hammurabi to Moses to Confucius to John
Marshall. They stand parallel, representing diverse legal
traditions and heritages from around the world that have
directly or indirectly shaped the concepts of law and justice in
America. From this building, so embodied with the ideal of
diversity, the Court has issued a series of historical
decisions, including Brown vs. Board of Education, transforming
our nation in the last three quarters of a century into one tha