Susie Blackmun '71 Remembers Her Father, US Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun

July 12, 2004

July 12, 2004, Greencastle, Ind. - Susie M. Blackmun, a freelance writer and photographer and 1971 graduate of DePauw University, is featured in a story in Florida's Orlando Sentinelthat examines the relationship she and her two sisters had with their father, the late Supreme Court Justice Harry A. Blackmun. Jean Patteson writes that the three women each, "in her own way, grew to love, respect and admire" their father, who died in 1999, "though it wasn't always easy. The sisters, who grew up in Rochester, Minnesota, are very different -- as were their relationships with their high-profile father. But all have inherited his intelligence, integrity and empathy for the underdog." (photo: Dorothy and Harry Blackmun (top) marked the justice's 90th birthday in November 1998 with daughters (l-r) Susie, Nancy and Sally)

Of Susie Blackmun, Patteson writes, "When she graduated from DePauw University, a small liberal arts school in Indiana, in 1971, 'I was opposing the war in Vietnam, hating [President] Nixon,' she says, 'but I was supposed to go home and look and act like Julie and Tricia Nixon.' Not easy for a young woman whose graduation outfit included jeans, a crochet vest and love beads. Ironically, it was the despised Nixon who, a year earlier, had appointed her father to the Supreme Court. 'I was totally confused and conflicted when that happened,' she says."

The story continues, "After college, while working as a research psychologist at the Naval Medical Research Institute in Bethesda, Maryland, she and three female colleagues filed a class-action suit against the Navy, claiming sexual discrimination. The case dragged through the courts for four years. Two of the women settled out of court, another went to trial and lost. Susie, angry and disillusioned, gave up the fight and ran away to sea. It was a daring move that stunned her father. 'But in the end, I think he was proud of me,' she says. 'He admired my spunk, and maybe was even a little envious of my adventures.' She now realizes she didn't understand the pressures her father was under. While she was sailing away from her troubles, he was researching and writing Roe v. Wade, the landmark decision that legalized abortion -- and made him the target of protests and death threats for the rest of his life. After crisscrossing 80,000 miles of ocean, Susie finally returned home. 'Dad and I reconciled over the years. We slowly came to accept each other,' she says. 'Now I see Dad was a great champion of free speech and privacy and individual rights, especially for minorities and women. He's the person I most admire and respect.'"

Justice Harry Blackmun spoke on the DePauw campus on the eve of Susie's graduation (the two are seen in the photo above).

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