In an interview with C-SPAN last year, Justice Anthony Kennedy extolled the U.S. Supreme Court’s main entrance, with the words “Equal Justice Under Law” inscribed on the pediment above the 44 broad marble steps.
“The steps are wonderful,” Kennedy added, and he recalled running into two World War II veterans on the Court’s plaza a few years earlier. Kennedy engaged them in conversation and thanked them for their service. The two had been in the Pacific together, and now they were in Washington to take in the sights. “Now come on, Charlie,” Kennedy quoted one saying to the other. “That’s the Supreme Court. We can make it up the steps.” It was important, Kennedy said, to “make sure that people always want to come up those steps because we’re doing the job the right way.”
