Sandra Day O’Connor - # 314

Sandra Day O’Connor, first woman on Supreme Court, dies at 93

 

She was number 314 on the list.

Sandra Day O’Connor, the first woman to serve as a justice on the U.S. Supreme Court, has died.

O’Connor was 93 years old.

She died in Phoenix, Arizona, on Friday “of complications related to advanced dementia, probably Alzheimer’s, and a respiratory illness,” the Supreme Court said in a statement.

O’Connor was appointed to the court in 1981 by President Ronald Reagan and served nearly a quarter-century, retiring in 2006.

She was replaced by Justice Samuel Alito, who in 2022 wrote the majority opinion overturning a federal right to abortion that had been protected for decades by the cases Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey.

O’Connor had co-authored the majority opinion in the latter case, which Alito blasted for having “enflamed debate and deepened division” in the United States.

She stepped back from public life in late 2018, after having problems with her short-term memory, her family said at the time.

Chief Justice John Roberts, in a statement released by the court, said, “A daughter of the American Southwest, Sandra Day O’Connor blazed an historic trail as our Nation’s first female Justice. She met that challenge with undaunted determination, indisputable ability, and engaging candor.”

“We at the Supreme Court mourn the loss of a beloved colleague, a fiercely independent defender of the rule of law, and an eloquent advocate for civics education,” Roberts said. “And we celebrate her enduring legacy as a true public servant and patriot.”

During her tenure, O’Connor was joined on the nine-member Supreme Court by the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who was appointed by President Bill Clinton in 1993. Before O’Connor died, Ginsburg was the most recent justice to have died, in September 2020.

Four other women have been appointed to the court since Ginsburg was, all of whom are currently serving: Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Amy Coney Barrett and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

O’Connor was serving as a judge on the Arizona Court of Appeals when Reagan, a Republican, tapped her to become the first female on the Supreme Court in its then 191-year history.

On September 21, O'Connor was confirmed by the U.S. Senate with a vote of 99-0. Only Senator Max Baucus of Montana was absent from the vote, and he sent O'Connor a copy of A River Runs Through It by way of apology. In her first year on the Court, she received over 60,000 letters from the public, more than any other justice in history.

The El Paso, Texas, native previously served as assistant attorney general of Arizona, as a member of the Arizona state Senate, where she was majority leader at one point, and as a judge of the Maricopa County Superior Court.

O’Connor’s husband, John, died in 2009, three years after she retired to care for him when he was suffering from Alzheimer’s.

She is survived by three sons, six grandchildren and her brother.

The Supreme Court’s press office said funeral arrangements for O’Connor will be released when available.

Nominated by President Ronald Reagan, she was considered a swing vote for the William Rehnquist Court and the first four months of the Roberts Court. Prior to O'Connor's tenure on the Court, she was a judge and an elected official in Arizona, serving as the first female majority leader of a state senate as the Republican leader in the Arizona Senate. Upon her nomination to the Court, O'Connor was confirmed unanimously by the Senate.

After retiring, she succeeded Henry Kissinger as the Chancellor of the College of William & Mary. On August 12, 2009, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama.

Sandra Day was born in El Paso, Texas, the daughter of Harry Alfred Day, a rancher, and Ada Mae (Wilkey). She grew up on a 198,000-acre family cattle ranch near Duncan, Arizona. The ranch was nine miles from the nearest paved road. The family home did not have running water or electricity until Sandra was seven years old. As a youth she owned a .22-caliber rifle and would shoot coyotes and jackrabbits. She began driving as soon as she could see over the dashboard and had to learn to change flat tires herself. Sandra had two younger siblings, a sister and a brother, respectively eight and ten years her junior. Her sister was Ann Day, who served in the Arizona Legislature. She later wrote a book with her brother, H. Alan Day, Lazy B: Growing up on a Cattle Ranch in the American West (2002), about her childhood experiences on the ranch. For most of her early schooling, Day lived in El Paso with her maternal grandmother, and attended school at the Radford School for Girls, a private school. The family cattle ranch was too far from any schools, although Day was able to return to the ranch for holidays and the summer. Day spent her eighth-grade year living at the ranch and riding a bus 32 miles to school. She graduated sixth in her class at Austin High School in El Paso in 1946.

When she was 16 years old, Day enrolled at Stanford University.  She graduated magna cum laude with a B.A. in economics in 1950. She continued at Stanford Law School for her law degree in 1952. There, she served on the Stanford Law Review with its presiding editor-in-chief, future Supreme Court chief justice William Rehnquist. Day and Rehnquist dated in 1950. Although the relationship ended before Rehnquist graduated early and moved to Washington, D.C., he wrote to her in 1951 and proposed marriage. Day did not accept the proposal from Rehnquist, one of four she received while a student at Stanford.  Day was Order of the Coif, indicating she was in the top 10 percent of her class.

While in her final year at Stanford Law School, Day began dating John Jay O'Connor III, who was one class year behind her.  Six months after her graduation, on December 20, 1952, O'Connor and Day married at her family's ranch.

Upon graduation from law school O'Connor had difficulty finding a paying job as an attorney in a law firm because of her gender. O'Connor found employment as a deputy county attorney in San Mateo, California, after she offered to work for no salary and without an office, sharing space with a secretary. After a few months, she began drawing a small salary as she performed legal research and wrote memos.  She worked with San Mateo County district attorney Louis Dematteis and deputy district attorney Keith Sorensen.

When her husband was drafted, O'Connor decided to go with him to work in Germany as a civilian attorney for the Army's Quartermaster Corps. They remained there for three years before returning to the states where they settled in Maricopa County, Arizona, to begin their family. They had three sons: Scott (born 1958), Brian (born 1960), and Jay (born 1962). Following Brian's birth, O'Connor took a five-year hiatus from the practice of law.

She volunteered in various political organizations, such as the Maricopa County Young Republicans, and served on Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater's presidential campaign in 1964.

O'Connor served as assistant Attorney General of Arizona from 1965 to 1969. In 1969, the governor of Arizona appointed O'Connor to fill a vacancy in the Arizona Senate. She ran for and won the election for the seat the following year. By 1973, she became the first woman to serve as Arizona's or any state's Majority Leader. She developed a reputation as a skilled negotiator and a moderate. After serving two full terms, O'Connor decided to leave the Senate.