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Sandra Day O’Connor

The first woman to serve as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, Sandra Day O’Conner served from 1981 to 2006. Although she was considered a strict constructionist, her case-by-case approach to jurisprudence and her moderate political views made her the crucial swing vote of the Court for many of her final years on the bench. Growing up on a cattle ranch in southeastern Arizona, she wrote about her childhood in her book, The Lazy B: Growing up on a Cattle Ranch on the American Southwest. As a young woman, she attended Stanford University, where she received her B.A. in economics in 1950 and continued at the Stanford Law School, serving on the Stanford Law Review, and graduating toward the top of her class.

In spite of her accomplishments at law school, no law firm in California was willing to hire her as a lawyer, although one firm did offer her a position as a legal secretary. She therefore turned to public service, taking a position as Deputy County Attorney of San Mateo County, California and thus began a successful career in the Southwest legal system. In 1981, President Reagan, who had pledged during his 1980 presidential campaign to appoint the first woman to the Supreme Court, nominated her as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. On July 1, 2005, she announced her retirement. In 2006, Arizona State University named its law school the ‘Sandra Day O’Conner College of Law’. O’Conner is presently the chancellor of the College of William and Mary.

“Do the best you can in every task, no matter how unimportant it may seem at the time. No one learns more about a problem than the person at the bottom.”

“We don’t accomplish anything in this world alone…and whatever happens is the result of the whole tapestry of one's life and all the weavings of individual threads form one to another that creates something.”

“It matters enormously to a successful democratic society like ours that we have three branches of government, each with some independence and some control over the other two. That's set out in the Constitution.”

“The framers of the Constitution were so clear in the federalist papers and elsewhere that they felt an independent judiciary was critical to the success of the nation.”

                           

“It matters enormously to a successful democratic society like ours that we have three branches of government, each with some independence and some control over the other two. That's set out in the Constitution.”

“The framers of the Constitution were so clear in the federalist papers and elsewhere that they felt an independent judiciary was critical to the success of the nation.”

“We pay a price when we deprive children of the exposure to the values, principles, and education they need to make them good citizens.”

“Young women today often have very little appreciation for the real battles that took place to get women where they are today in this country. I don’t know how much history young women today know about those battles.”

“I was asked in my Senate confirmation hearing about how I’d like to be remembered. I called it the tombstone question. And I said, “I hope the tombstone might read ‘here lies a good judge.’”

“Yes, I will bring the understanding of a woman to the Court, but I doubt that alone will affect my decisions. I think the important thing about my appointment is not that I will decide cases as a woman, but that I am a woman who will get to decide cases.”

“The power I exert on the court depends on the power of my arguments, not on my gender.”

“A moment of silence is not inherently religious.”

“Despite the encouraging and wonderful gains and the changes for women which have occurred in my lifetime, there is still room to advance and to promote correction of the remaining deficiencies and imbalances.”

- Sandra Day O’Connor  (1930-)

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