Students and faculty were privileged to hear from one of the most important people in our nation’s federal government when U.S. Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett keynoted the University of Minnesota Law School’s 2023 Stein Lecture on Monday, October 16, in a sold-out event at Northrop Auditorium.

The event featured a question-and-answer format moderated by Law School Professor Robert A. Stein.

Through Stein’s collection of wide-ranging questions, audience members were given insights into the inner workings of the Supreme Court, into the working relationships among the ideologically and demographically diverse members of the Court, and into who Justice Barrett is as an individual.

Of the 115 justices who have served on the court, six have been women, and only two of those women have been nominated by Republican presidents. Having graduated from Notre Dame Law School, Justice Barrett is the only current justice hailing from a law school other than Harvard or Yale.

In one of the more poignant moments of the event, Stein asked Barrett her groundbreaking simultaneous role of mother of minor children and Supreme Court justice.

Here is a transcription of the exchange.

Professor Stein: I wanted to ask you about one difference between you and the other women justices on the court: [It] is that you might be the first mother with minor children to serve on the court. Indeed, you’re a justice and a mother with several children in school. So, how do you manage your work as a justice and the challenges of parenting school-aged children?

Justice Barrett: I think that my days and the struggle of balancing being a mom and having children in school and sports and school activities are probably no different than most working moms. It’s the same struggle of balancing it all and fitting it in all the hours of the day that I had when I was a law professor and when I was on the Court of Appeals. So, I think in that respect, my challenges are no different than the challenges of all working moms.

I think the juxtaposition can be funny.

I have four children who are still in high school or grade school. So, in the mornings, we’re getting them out the door to school, and our youngest son [Benjamin] is 11, and he has Down Syndrome, and his bus picks him up last. The other kids are already gone. And he really enjoys music. So, we’re packing his backpack, and I’ll be packing my briefcase, and he chooses the songs.

There was one day last term when Benjamin had been choosing some music including—it’s not so much the opera classic—“Who Let the Dogs Out?” And, I get to the Court, and in the Court, as you’re walking in the hallways, in the basement area, [there are] portraits of all the justices who’ve served before. And they’re very dignified looking. And all along in my brain—don’t listen to that song if you don’t want it to be in your mind all day long—I’m walking down looking at these dignified men, and “Who Let the Dogs Out” is on my mind.

So, I think there’s a juxtaposition.

I leave work, and then I’ll wind up at a volleyball game with a bunch of the other moms. Or, one day last week, I was serving hot lunch at my kids’ school as a parent volunteer.

I think of those things are things that in my current position, in particular, I really appreciate because they’re very grounding. And they keep me very much rooted in real life with regular people—the kinds of moms that I’ve been sitting on the sidelines of soccer games with my whole mothering career.

The complete event can be viewed online at https://youtu.be/XCv6jwIw4Q4?si=nE9iX5oYuqBubFfQ.