Sandra Day O'Connor

Law

First woman appointed to the United States Supreme Court

Amy French

Image: Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, NARA

1930

El Paso, Texas, USA

Judge

Sandra Day O'Connor was the first female appointed to the highest court in the land, the US Supreme Court. She attended Stanford where she earned a B.A. in Economics; she then graduated from Stanford Law in 1952. O'Connor graduated from law school at a time when it was still legal to bar women from certain programs or severely limited the number of women admitted to a program (Title IX of 1972 changed this). After graduation, she faced sexual discrimination when trying to find a job. Although she had graduated with high honors from an Ivy-league school, her gender proved a deterrent in finding a paying job. She ended up working as a deputy county attorney in San Mateo, California after offering to work for no pay. O'Connor worked tirelessly up the legal ladder. After a stint in the Arizona State Senate, she was elected to the Maricopa County Superior Court in 1975. In 1979, she was appointed to the Arizona State Court of Appeals. In 1981 , Ronald Reagan appointed her to the US Supreme Court fulfilling a pledge that he had made during his 1980 presidential campaign to appoint the first woman to the Court.

PBS, Biography of the Robes: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/supremecourt/personality/robes_oconnor.html

Decisions and biographical data, Cornell University Law School: http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/justices/oconnor.bio.html