In a just-published law review tribute to retired Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, Justice Stephen Breyer offered this summary of Justice O’Connor’s approach to important cases like Grutter and Hamdi:
As these and many other O’Connor opinions make clear, the institutional considerations she has in mind are constitutional in nature. They arise out of the Framers’ efforts to create a Constitution that will in practice secure its permanent values for generations to come. In my view, Sandra O’Connor has an often unerring sense of how our nation’s democracy works. And that means that, whatever the debates that arise out of our Court’s decisions in any particular case, her opinions, taken as a whole, are properly seen to embody a balance, common sense and sound judgment necessary for our Court — and for the Constitution — to function well.