Why Did Sandra Day O'Connor Agree to Be Celebrated in the One-Sided "Hall of Great Westerners"?

Eric L. Muller, George R. Ward Professor of Law at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, in his blog, isthatlegal.org (March 14, 2004):

[In an email to HNN Mr. Muller wrote: "I thought you might be interested in the below blog post about the 'Hall of Great Westerners' run by the National Cowboy and Western History Museum. (By the way, living people can't be inducted into this Hall without their consent, so there's no question Justice O'Connor agreed to this. I would have advised her not to affiliate herself with so one-sided a depiction of a complex and often tragic chapter in American history."]

Suppose you were the National Southern Heritage Museum, and you maintained a Hall of Great Southerners. Suppose further that it's today--2004--and not, say, 1930.

Would you induct more than a couple of African Americans into your Hall of Great Southerners? If not (indeed, even if so) would you induct Bull Connor?

This morning I happened upon the Hall of Great Westerners, membership in which is controlled by the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum.

The criteria for induction into the Hall are:

1. Exceptional contribution to the advancement of western heritage and traditions over a lifetime.

2. Individuals who promote America's rich western heritage through their leadership and patronage of art, business industry, environmental, education, humanitarian, government or philanthropic organizations.

3. Achievement of national significance and historic relevance.

4. Exemplification of the traditional western ideals of honesty, integrity and self-sufficiency over a lifetime.

Of the 259 symbols of Western heritage and tradition who have thus far been inducted, fewer than a half dozen are Indian.

And two of the Indians--Chief Washakie and Sacagewea--achieved their fame primarily for cooperating with white people.

In the meantime, some of those in the Hall--for example, Kit Carson, Isaac Ingalls Stevens, and Charles Goodnight--achieved a good measure (though not all) of their fame by killing Indians.

What, one wonders, possessed Justice Sandra Day O'Connor to wish to present herself as an emblem of this skewed and racist understanding of the history of the West?