Sandra Day O’Connor

I

Introduction

Sandra Day O’Connor, born in 1930, associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1981 to 2006 and the first woman to serve on the Court. She became one of the most influential justices, often holding the balance of power as a crucial swing vote on abortion, religion, affirmative action, and other issues that divided the nine-member Court. On July 1, 2005, O’Connor announced her resignation from the Court, effective upon the confirmation of a successor. She resigned in January 2006 when Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr., replaced her.

II

From Lazy B to Stanford

Sandra Day O’Connor was born to Harry A. and Ada Mae Wilkey Day on March 26, 1930, in El Paso, Texas. The oldest of three children, she spent her childhood in southeastern Arizona on her parents’ 63,000-hectare (155,000-acre) Lazy B Ranch, founded by her pioneer grandfather in the early 1880s. On this remote ranch, which lacked electricity, she learned to ride horseback, round up cattle, drive a truck and tractor, and fix fences and windmills. From the age of 5 her parents sent her to live during the school year with her maternal grandmother in El Paso. There she attended Radford School, a private school for girls, and then Austin High School, from which she graduated at the age of 16.

O’Connor majored in economics at Stanford University in California, obtaining a bachelor’s degree magna cum laude in 1950. Continuing at Stanford Law School, she earned a bachelor of laws degree in 1952, graduating third in a 102-student class that included William H. Rehnquist, who later became chief justice of the Supreme Court. She was one of 5 women in her graduating class. Soon after earning her law degree she married John O’Connor, whom she had met while working on the Stanford Law Review.

III

Years of Public Service

Despite her stellar academic record, O’Connor was offered only secretarial work at the law firms to which she applied. Instead, she turned to the public sector, working as a county deputy attorney in San Mateo, California, while her husband completed the requirements for his law degree. The O’Connors then moved to Frankfurt, Germany, where they both worked for the United States Army, Sandra as a civilian lawyer for the Quartermaster Corps. In 1957 they settled in Phoenix, Arizona, and Sandra gave birth to the first of three sons.

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In 1959 O’Connor opened her own law firm in Maryvale, a suburb of Phoenix. Her active involvement in civic affairs led her into politics. She served as a district chairperson of the Republican Party from 1962 to 1965. She returned to full-time employment in 1965 as assistant attorney general for Arizona, holding the post until 1969. That year Arizona governor Jack Williams appointed her to a vacant seat in the state senate. The following year she campaigned successfully on the Republican ticket for the same senate seat.

O’Connor was less socially conservative than some of her Republican colleagues, opposing aid to religious schools and staking out a moderate position on abortion. She gained the respect of her colleagues for her meticulous attention to detail. Following her reelection in 1972, she was elected majority leader of the state senate, becoming the first woman to hold that office in the country.

IV

Move to the Bench

Toward the end of her second full term in the Arizona Senate, O’Connor decided to move to the judiciary branch of government. In a hard-fought election in 1974, she won a seat on the Maricopa County Superior Court. Five years later Arizona governor Bruce Babbitt chose O’Connor as his first appointee to the Arizona Court of Appeals.

President Ronald Reagan, who had promised to appoint a woman to the Supreme Court, nominated O’Connor in July 1981 to replace retiring Associate Justice Potter Stewart. Conservatives of the Moral Majority political organization opposed the nomination, criticizing her moderate record on abortion. During U.S. Senate confirmation hearings, dominated by the issue of abortion, O’Connor repeatedly refused to criticize Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that gave women the constitutional right to obtain abortions. The Senate confirmed her unanimously in September, making her the first woman to serve on the Court.

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