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O’Connor retired earlier this year after a 24-year term on the nation’s highest court. In her address, titled “Building Bridges,” O’Connor told the audience of 2,500 in Koury Center that America’s history is filled with the example of service.

Listen to Justice O’Connor’s Convocation address

“Ours is a nation built on pride and sacrifice, on the willingness of our citizens to give of themselves for the whole,” O’Connor said. “We are the nation we are today because these bridge builders gave of themselves out of necessity.”

O’Connor drew on the history of the Supreme Court to illustrate her point, citing the 1954 court decision in Brown v. Board of Education which held that “separate but equal” schools were unconstitutional. O’Connor said the groundwork for that decision was laid years earlier by Justice John Harlan’s dissent in the 1896 case, Plessy v. Ferguson, which legalized separate facilities for black and white citizens.

“Harlan’s dissent inspired the highest calling among others who struggled for racial equality,” O’Connor said. Civil rights lawyers such as Thurgood Marshall, who would later serve on the Supreme Court, were energized by Harlan’s words. O’Connor likened Harlan’s dissent to the first stone in a bridge that would eventually lead the country to a more just racial policy. Later, Chief Justice Fred Vinson would lay more stones on the bridge, O’Connor said, writing decisions that gradually chipped away at the separate but equal doctrine.

O’Connor’s own career illustrates the changes that have taken place through the years. She recalled that she had only one job offer after graduating near the top of her law class at Stanford University in 1952.

“That was to serve as a legal secretary, and that wasn’t exactly what I had in mind,” O’Connor said. Eventually, she landed a job as a deputy county attorney in San Mateo, Calif. Though it was not the job she envisioned when she graduated from law school, O’Connor said she was determined to make the best of it.

“I soon learned that I had more fun at my job than my classmates did at theirs,” said O’Connor, who later served as a civilian lawyer in Germany, assistant attorney general in Arizona, a superior court judge and on the Arizona Court of Appeals. “Every step of the way, I felt the joy of doing something right for the public good.”

She encouraged ���ϲ����� law students and undergraduates in attendance to do the same in their chosen professions. “If we focus our energies on sharing ideas, on finding solutions, we can make a difference and improve this country,” O’Connor said. “All of you students, as you embark on your studies, I hope you will commit yourselves to being bridge builders.”