O’Connor, Sandra Day
Identification Associate justice of the United
States, 1981-2006
Born March 26, 1930; El Paso, Texas
The first female justice of the the United States, O’Connor
was often the swing vote on the Supreme Court.
Growing up on a cattle ranch on the New Mexico-
Arizona border, Sandra Day O’Connor learned early
the necessity of hard work and persistence. The
product of Austin High School and Stanford Univer-
sity, she learned about discrimination against women
when, after graduating one year early from Stanford
Law School, where she served on theStanford Law
Reviewand graduated third in a class of 102, she dis-
covered that no law firm would hire her, although
one did offer her a position as a legal secretary.
While at Stanford, she met her husband, John Jay
O’Connor III, with whom she had three children.
She served briefly as a deputy county attorney in Cal-
ifornia and a civilian attorney in Germany, and when
the couple moved to Phoenix, Arizona, she prac-
ticed law until her 1965 appointment as an Arizona
assistant attorney general. In 1969, she filled a va-
cancy in the state senate, subsequently ran success-
fully for two terms, and became the first woman to
serve as senate majority leader in any state. In 1974,
she ran successfully for trial judge and in 1979 was
appointed to the Arizona Court of Appeals.
On August 19, 1981, President Ronald Reagan
formally nominated O’Connor to the Supreme
Court, where she proved to be a less-than-reliable
Republican. Although in her early years she sided
with her conservative colleagues, by the mid-1980’s
she exhibited more autonomy, filing concurring de-
cisions to majority opinions and becoming known as
the “swing vote” on women’s issues and autonomy of
states cases. Her record on abortion cases was varied.
Impact As the first (and until 1993 the only)
woman Supreme Court justice, O’Connor served as
a role model and was closely watched. Her role as a
swing voter became increasingly important as the
Court became increasingly polarized, giving her a
disproportionate level of power on the Court and in-
creasing the importance of her decisions.
Further Reading
Biskupic, Joan.Sandra Day O’Connor: How the First
Woman on the Supreme Court Became Its Most Influen-
tial Justice.New York: HarperCollins, 2006.
O’Connor, Sandra Day, with H. Alan Day.Lazy B:
Growing Up on a Cattle Ranch in the American South-
west.New York: Random House, 2002.
O’Connor, Sandra Day, with Craig Joyce.The Majesty
of the Law: Reflections of a Supreme Court Justice.New
York: Random House, 2003.
Savage, David G.Eight Men and a Lady: Profiles of the
Justices of the Supreme Court.Bethesda, Md.: Na-
tional Press Books, 1990.
Tushnet, Mark.A Court Divided: The Rehnquist Court
and the Future of Constitutional Law.New York:
W. W. Norton, 2005.
Erika E. PilverSee also Abortion; Conservatism in U.S. politics;
Reagan, Ronald; Rehnquist, William H.; Supreme
Court decisions.The Eighties in America O’Connor, Sandra Day 721
Associate Justice Sandra Day O’Connor.(Library of Congress)