O’Connor takes oath as Justice

Sandra D. O’Connor became an associate justice of the Supreme Court yesterday, the first woman in U.S. history to bear that title. Chief Justice Warren E. Burger administered the constitutional oath of office at 2:16 p.m. before about 400 dignitaries and friends of the O’Connor family who packed the mammoth Supreme Court chamber. “Justice O’Connor, welcome,” Burger said simply. Then, after peing helped into her black judge’s robe, O’Connor took the chair assigned to her by seniority, the one on the end of the bench to Burger’s extreme left. Sitting next to her was her Stanford law school classmate, Justice William H. Rehnquist. From the raised bench, where no woman has sat in the 191-year history of the Supreme Court, she smiled down on President Reagan just below her. O’Connor is the 102nd justice and the first appointment to the court by Reagan. At 51, O’Connor is the youngest member of the court, which has five justices over 70. Her first public appearance at the court came at noon yesterday. She and Burger, his snow-white hair glistening in the sun, descended the front steps to pose for pictures. Burger clutched her arm and commented to reporters that “You’ve never seen me with a better-looking justice.” O’Connor’s husband, three sons and mother and father joined them on the court plaza for the pictures. She shouted to a friend to take pictures of the photographers for her scrapbook. She then went inside to take her first oath of the day, the “judicial oath,” which calls