Following the First Woman

To Many, 1981 Saw One Huge Step for Sandra Day O’Connor, One Giant Leap for Women Lawyers

IN 1981, PAC-MAN FEVER WAS SWEEPING THE COUNTRY, the disease that would come to be known as AIDS was recognized, and people were talking about an Arizona state appellate judge named Sandra Day O’Connor.

The woman who had been raised on an Arizona ranch before becoming a state legislator and then a judge was now the first woman ever nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court. “The media and the public wanted to know everything about her; they scrutinized everything she did,” says_ Ruth V. McGregor, now chief justice of the Arizona Supreme Court.

The Judiciary Committee hearings on O’Connor’s nomination were the first to be televised, and supporters were glued to their television sets. “It was so intense,” McGregor recalls. “There was just this kind of electricity in the air.” During his 1980 presidential campaign, Ronald Reagan said that he would nominate a woman to the U.S. Supreme Court, if the opportunity arose. It did; Justice Potter Stewart retired in July 1981.

Many women’s rights organizations wanted to make sure the president kept his promise. “There was a lot of pres sure” from groups like the National Association of Women Judges and the National Organization for Women, says Lynn Hecht Schafran, director of the National Judicial Education Program.

President Carter had already put some pieces in place. Appointing more women and people of color to the bench was a priority for him, Schafran