Sandra Day O'Connor

Sandra Day O'Connor, the first woman appointed to the Supreme Court of the United States, died December 1, 2023, in Phoenix of complications from dementia at the age of 93.

O’Connor’s appointment to the Supreme Court was both historic and hotly contested. Feminists of all political stripes cheered at the news of her nomination, but a vocal minority fought bitterly to block her appointment because of her moderate views on abortion. After her supporters had prevailed, she became known as a swing voter, slightly conservative yet solidly in the ideological middle of the high court. Her judicial successes and trailblazing nature made her one of the world’s most powerful women.

That power didn’t come easy – it was earned, from her earliest days. Born March 26, 1930, in El Paso, Texas, O’Connor was raised on a cattle ranch. Her character was forged in a hardscrabble environment that she described to the Guardian: “We kept a rifle in the truck wherever we went and if we saw a coyote, I’d shoot out of the window. You were bouncing along so it was hard to do, but we needed to kill them to stop them eating our small calves.”

The leap from shooting at moving targets to nailing down the particulars of the law began when she left the family ranch to live with her grandmother and attend the Radford School for Girls and, later, Austin High School in El Paso. A friend from O’Connor’s teen years remembered her to the El Paso Times: “She was brilliant. She grasped ideas easily, and whatever she did, she did it perfectly, whether it was riding a horse or cooking. We played a lot of games, such as checkers and Monopoly, and she always won.”

That brilliance earned O’Connor a spot at Stanford University, where a professor convinced her to stay on for law school after earning her bachelor’s in economics. The rising star completed the three-year law program in two years, serving on the Stanford Law Review and graduating third in her class.

O’Connor’s path to greatness came to a screeching halt, though, when it came time for the new graduate to apply for a job. It was 1952, and women weren’t lawyers. Even though O’Connor was supremely qualified, she met roadblock after roadblock as she applied to firms that refused even to interview a woman. When she finally did receive a job offer, it was as a legal secretary.

But O’Connor was determined to seek more and find a job as a lawyer. The one that she ultimately found didn’t pay – at first. She offered to work for a county attorney for no pay until he could afford to give her a salary. Four months later, that salary took effect.

Within a few years, O’Connor had opened her own law office. She rose to become assistant attorney general of Arizona in 1965, serving until 1969, when she was appointed to a vacancy in the Arizona State Senate. She was elected to continue her service in 1973 and was named Senate majority leader, the first woman to hold the position in Arizona.

In 1975, O’Connor returned to the law, having been elected as a county judge. Four years later, she was appointed to the Arizona Court of Appeals. The heights her career attained in the late 1960s and ‘70s may have seemed impressive, but they would pale in comparison to what the 1980s had in store.

When Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) ran for president in the 1980 election, one of his campaign promises was to appoint a woman to the Supreme Court. He kept his promise, and he didn’t have to wait long to do it, either – less than half a year after Reagan’s inauguration, Potter Stewart (1915 – 1985) retired from the high court. When Reagan received word of the impending vacancy, he called O’Connor to tell her she was his pick. That evening, he wrote in his diary:

“Called Judge O’Connor and told her she was my nominee for supreme court. Already the flak is starting and from my own supporters. Right to Life people say she is pro abortion. She says abortion is personally repugnant to her. I think she’ll make a good justice.”

The flak that Reagan worried about became a vicious controversy, fueled by anti-abortion and religious groups who wanted to see the Supreme Court overturn Roe v. Wade. Her detractors included the Rev. Jerry Falwell (1933–2007), who called her nomination “a mistake.” Falwell went on to suggest that “the church people could desert (Reagan) in droves.” Some liberals, too, opposed the nomination, preferring that the first woman on the court be someone more supportive of feminist issues.

But even leading conservatives like Barry Goldwater (1909–1998) did support O’Connor’s nomination – the Arizona senator endorsed her, saying, “The president could find literally hundreds of qualified women, attorneys, and jurists in this country, but I doubt that he could ever find one more qualified to occupy a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court.” And in the end, he was joined by every single other senator – O’Connor was confirmed 99-0. The lone senator who missed the vote, Max Baucus of Montana, sent her a copy of the book “A River Runs Through It” to apologize for his absence.

O’Connor went on to serve on the Supreme Court until January 2006. Her tenure was notable for her case-by-case approach, in which she eschewed sweeping generalizations in favor of approaching each case with an open mind, looking at its unique facets. She often sided with the conservative wing of the court, but she was not locked into an ideology, with her votes sometimes tending toward the liberal end. She became known as a swing vote, one whose support could change a case’s outcome. Some of the pressure of being the only woman on the court was relieved when, in 1993, Ruth Bader Ginsberg (1933–2020) joined her as the second female justice.

Among the key cases that went before the court during O’Connor’s tenure was the 2000 Bush v. Gore case, the deciding factor in that year’s presidential election. O’Connor was among the five justices who voted to put an end to the vote recounts in Florida. She took criticism for her vote, with accusations that her stated desire to retire under a Republican president influenced her decision. Yet O’Connor stood by her vote, answering the Guardian’s question about criticism of her vote: “They were ill informed. You will always have ill-informed comments.”

Ultimately, O’Connor did step down from the court during a Republican administration, though her retirement came more than five years after those Bush v. Gore-fueled accusations. It was 2005 when she announced her decision to retire upon confirmation of her replacement. That confirmation came Jan. 31, 2006, with Samuel Alito replacing her.

After her retirement from the court, O’Connor served as chancellor of the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, from 2005 through 2012. She taught courses and gave lectures, remaining active in the legal world. She continued to comment on matters before the court, as when she weighed in on the 2016 deadlock following the unexpected death of Justice Antonin Scalia (1936–2016), saying that President Barack Obama should be the one to choose his successor: “(Y)ou just have to pick the best person you can under the circumstances, as the appointing authority must do. It’s an important position and one that we care about as a nation and as a people. And I wish the president well as he makes choices and goes down that line.”

The many honors and awards conferred upon O’Connor include the Presidential Medal of Freedom, honorary doctorates from Yale University and The Richard Stockton College of New Jersey, and the Franklin Award for her commitment to public service. Named in her honor are the law school of Arizona State University, the federal courthouse in Phoenix, and her alma mater high school. Among her more charming honors was her 2002 induction into the National Cowgirl Hall of Fame.

By Linnea Crowther

(Photo: Getty Images)