Law review article

Of Hobgoblins and Justice O’Connor’s Jurisprudence of Equality

Law review article / By

Of Hobgoblins and Justice O’Connor’s Jurisprudence of Equalityt

Vikram David Amar•

INTRODUCTION

Justice Sandra Day O’Connor is, I’m sure, tired of being identified as the jurist who holds the fate of constitutional law in her hands. At a recent judicial conference, she responded to a seemingly innocuous observation by United States District Court Judge Terry Hatter that she is the pivotal high court vote in so many disputed areas by chiding him with the line: “You’ve been reading too many newspapers. I get a little impatient with that description.”‘

But the newspapers and Judge Hatter are right: Justice O’Connor’s vote and voice are, at this point in time, constitutionally crucial. And I’m not sure that recognition of this reality is really what bothers her. Instead, I think what must get tiresome for her is not the observation that her stance determines outcomes, but the separate (though often accompanying) comment that her voice is idiosyncratic, ad hoc and not terribly consiste nt.2 Being reminded you have the power is one thing; being accused of exercising the power in an erratic and unprincipled way is quite another.

In this short essay, I’d like to unpack a few of the supposed idiosyncracies and inconsistencies in Justice O’Connor’s jurisprudence of equality. Equal protection law is, of course, a huge topic, so I am going to narrow my focus to the most contentious area of equal protection, and the one where Justice O’Connor has made her most visible mark on legal doctrine-t

Interview, TV appearance

Interview on “The Daily Show” discussing her book, “Out of Order”

Interview, TV appearance / By

Jon Stewart
Nice to see you again. The book is called–

Sandra Day O’Connor
*Out of Order*.

Jon Stewart
*Out of Order*. What was your purpose in in this book and putting this particular book together?

Sandra Day O’Connor
Oh, just telling some of the stories about how the Court works and giving people a glimpse into some of the things.

Jon Stewart
It’s hard to imagine the pressure that a justice might feel when you’re dealing with, as we talked about earlier, some of the biggest issues of our day—

Sandra Day O’Connor
Yes.

Jon Stewart
Of racism and discrimination and—

Sandra Day O’Connor
Yes.

Jon Stewart
The franchise—

Sandra Day O’Connor
Right.

Jon Stewart
Does that weight, do you feel that when you’re deciding those cases?

Sandra Day O’Connor
You certainly do, because you really want to make the correct decision and bring some order out of our various statutes and constitutional provisions and the precedents of the Court itself. It’s hard sometimes.

Jon Stewart
You wrote, *Brown v. Board of Education* may be the most important decision.

Sandra Day O’Connor
It was very important to us as a nation.

Jon Stewart
When they made that decision, was it a difficult one, did people feel that they had overreached at that time?

Sandra Day O’Connor
You know, I don’t know the feeling of the justices who joined it. But that was a major decision. And many of them are. They affect us for years to come. And you really want to get it properly decided.

Interview

Arizona Historymakers Interview

Interview / By

Arizona Historymakers ™
Oral History Transcript Historical League, Inc. © 2018
Historymakers is a registered trademark of Historical League, Inc.

SANDRA DAY O’CONNOR
1930

Honored as a Historymaker 1992
First Woman Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court

The following is an oral history interview with Sandra Day O’Connor (SO) conducted by Harriett Haskell (HH) for Historical League, Inc. on January 31, 1980 in the Capitol Building of the Court of Appeals, Phoenix, Arizona.

Transcripts for website edited by members of Historical League, Inc.
Original tapes are in the collection of the Arizona Heritage Center Archives, an Historical Society Museum, Tempe, Arizona.

HH: Judge O’Connor, where were you born?

SO: I was born in El Paso, Texas, but that wasn’t really home. I…my parents lived and still live on a ranch in Eastern Arizona. But it’s in a very remote part of the state…it’s in Greenlee County, and there was no hospital nearby and my mother’s mother lived in El Paso, so when it came time for me to born, she made the trip to El Paso a few days ahead and I was born in El Paso in Hotel Dieu.

HH: Your father’s a rancher, then? Or was?

SO: Yes, yes, still is and the ranch is actually in…half in Arizona and half in New Mexico. The house is in Arizona, but to reach the house you have to drive a good many mile through New Mexico. But we are legally Arizona residents, and of course, after my birth, we immediately returned back to the ranch where I grew up. The ranch is the Lazy B Cattle Company

Speech

Speech for the “Harry’s Last Lecture” series at Stanford University

Speech / By

Sandra Day O’Connor Thank you so much. Thank you, Richard. Now, this is a surprising and daunting effort for me I’m just an unemployed cowgirl at present. And so there’s little chance that I’ll be able to state for you, oh, the meaning of life. 58 years ago, I graduated from this wonderful university. There were good many times during my years here, and that I attended services at this magnificent Stanford chapel. But I never expected to speak from this podium. And we’re gathered here this evening to remember and honor a Stanford professor who played a pivotal role in my life. And I think that of many others. The late Harry Rathbun. As you heard, I grew up on a family cattle ranch in an arid and remote part of southern Arizona and New Mexico. It was about 35 miles from the nearest town. My early companions were my parents, and five or six cowboys. My parents like to read so books also became my companions at the ranch. We were ranchers, we didn’t know lawyers and judges. My father had wanted to attend Stanford. But when he graduated from high school, his parents died soon after. And he was sent out to the Lazy B ranch to keep things going until his parents estate could be settled. That took close to 20 years. And he never left the Lazy B ranch. He never attended Stanford. I probably thought about Stanford because of my father’s admiration for it. I was sent away to El Paso, Texas to go to grade school and high school. I lived with my maternal grandmother. The only university

Law review article, Speech

Remarks at funeral of Justice Lewis Powell

Law review article, Speech / By

We are gathered here today to remember and to celebrate the life of Lewis F. Powell, Jr. Last week Lewis left us and went home to God and to rejoin his beloved wife, Jo. I was at the Supreme Court in January 1972 to witness the investiture of Lewis Powell and William Rehnquist. I met the Powells at the reception following, but little did I dream then that I would know Lewis Powell as a colleague on the Supreme Court nine years later.

Justice Powell was the ninety-ninth Justice to serve on the Supreme Court and perhaps the most reluctant. It is reported that, on the day in January 1972 when Lewis was sworn in, Nan Rehnquist asked Justice Powell’s wife, Jo, if it wasn’t the most exciting day of her life. Jo reportedly said, “No, it is the worst day of my life. I am about to cry.” Lewis Powell had turned down an appointment to the Court in 1969 and was prepared to do so again in 1972. Luckily for the Court and the Nation, he finally agreed to accept the nomination when President Nixon convinced him it was his duty to his country to do so.

His family dates back to Thomas Powell who came to the James River area of Virginia from England in 1635. Lewis was born in Suffolk, Virginia, but lived most of his life in Richmond. He was an able student and a good athlete – playing basketball and baseball. He learned how to shoot and enjoyed hunting. He also learned as a youngster the demanding nature of life on a farm – his father bought a milk cow named Mollie. Lewis was directed to feed

Interview

Interview with Senator John McCain

Interview / By

Sandra Day O’Connor (video clip) Welcome to O’Connor House. I spent 25 years in Washington, D.C. But my heart has always been here in Arizona. And right here in this house, this adobe house, where we reared our three children and lived for more than 25 years. And it’s a great setting for the O’Connor House Centennial Series. Because it’s the place where a good many spirited debates took place through the years. And as Arizona moves into its second century, I’m going to sit down with some of Arizona’s most prominent elected officials to tell some of our personal stories about some of the events that shaped Arizona’s political landscape. So join me here at O’Connor House for a look into Arizona’s past and a glimpse into what might be her future. Sandra Day O’Connor It is such a delight to be here today with you, Senator McCain. John McCain Thank you very much. Sandra Day O’Connor You’ve had links in your political career with all of Arizona’s big leaders. I mean, Barry Goldwater, john Rhodes, Mo Udall, everybody. John McCain Succeeded John Rhodes, as you mentioned. I had the pleasure of knowing Paul Fannin. Sandra Day O’Connor Yes. John McCain And yeah, it’s a really it’s been a great honor to, to know those people. Sandra Day O’Connor Do you have any special comments you’d like to make about any of them before we get started? John McCain They were special people. You know, if I might say, and you’re the epitome of this, Arizona was once a much smaller state. But the

Speech

Convocation speech at Eureka College

Speech / By

Sandra Day O’Connor Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. President. And I look forward to finding out just what those rights and apartments are. We’ll see. You can all help me find out. And thanks very much for the warm welcome and the kind introduction. It really is an honor to be here today at the alma mater of one of my heroes, former President Ronald Reagan, to receive an honorary degree and an honorary fellowship given in his name. The Reagan fellowship here at Eureka was created to encourage young people to lead lives of leadership and public service and this is an aim fitting to its namesake. President Reagan was one of our great contemporary leaders. And he was a public servant in the true sense of that word. I want to talk to you today a little bit about the meaning of public service, and about the ways both large and small that you can contribute to the public spirit of our great nation. And I want to talk to you as well, about President Reagan’s legacy, about the right to dream heroic dreams that he identified in his first inaugural address, and the quiet but the patriotism that he saw in our everyday lives. First, though, a story. When Ronald Reagan was campaigning for the presidency, he would he use, he didn’t think that he was doing quite well enough with the women’s vote. And he started saying that he would nominate a woman to fill the first vacancy on the Supreme Court during his tenure. Maybe he thought at that time, that it would help his poll numbers with women.

Magazine article

The Remarkable Legacy of Justice Sandra Day O’Connor

Magazine article / By

The First Female Justice, But Also So Much More Than That
Every woman in the country owes a debt of gratitude to Justice O’Connor for the way she has carried the mantle of being the first female United States Supreme Court Justice. This was the highest position a woman had yet achieved in American government, and, as the Justice herself is fond of saying, she was honored to be the first, but she sure did not want to be the last female Justice. She does not need to worry.

Justice O’Connor’s appointment in 1981 by President Ronald Reagan led some to claim that she would be the “women’s” Justice. Her gender was her early defining characteristic – but she made sure it would not be her primary defining characteristic on the Court.
Indeed, I do not think it ever occurred to her to be a Justice for only one-half of the population. Rather, she was at the Court to render her absolutely best judgment case-by-case on the hard issues facing the Court. And that is what she has done.

Never a knee-jerk vote for women litigants, she has doubtless been influenced by her own experiences, including the experience of being a woman in what was, at least when she graduated from law school, a man’s world. Famously, stellar grades at Stanford Law School did not save the future Justice from being offered not legal, but legal secretary positions – the ones deemed “fit” for a woman.

Thanks to Justice O’Connor, American women know that there is no one mold that the successful female must fit; there is no

Interview, TV appearance

C-Span interview on The Majesty of the Law

Interview, TV appearance / By

Section on the current court system you say, it has been said that a nation’s laws are an expression of its people’s highest ideals. Regrettably the conduct of lawyers in the united states has sometimes been an expression of the lowest. >> yes. Yes. I have had a concern that has increased through my years as a lawyer with a decline in professionalism in the legal profession. and perhaps in others as well. But that’s the one with which I’m most familiar. and I graduated from law school in 1952, from Stanford law school. And we met in a reunion, perhaps our 40th reunion, I don’t remember exactly when this poll was taken. The questionnaire was sent out to all of us by class members asking a series of questions, including the question, if you had to do it all over again and become a lawyer, would you? Would you do it all over again? A majority of my classmates said no. And that shocked me. But I thought it was indeed a reflection of how the legal profession has changed since I entered it. And it’s more of a business today than it should be. And less of a profession. I really think that lawyers — people who study law, should expect to provide a lifetime of service to other people who need their help. Whether they can get paid for it or not. And that lawyers should be seeking more to serve than to make as much money as possible. With all of the resultant problems. When my husband, for example, first started to practice law, in those days law firms thought it was quite acceptable

Speech

Advancing the Rights of Humanity

Speech / By

Sandra Day O’Connor Just sit down because this is law. You’re gonna need your rest, I think. I thought this was supposed to be a very serious event. So no Comedy Central tonight, you’re gonna have to concentrate. But we’ll have a question and answer time. At the end, maybe that’ll be a little lively. My topic is advancing the rights of humanity. And it is a privilege to take part in this Omnibus lecture series. It’s a wonderful program that’s gone on for more than a decade, and it has cultivated the exploration of a good many issues and a great many ideas. you’ve attracted that impressive list of speakers over the years, and you’ve gained the participation of not only the academic community but the larger community. In which you make your homes. And these are good achievements, and I’m very pleased to be part of it. This year is particularly special. In conjunction with this lecture series, you’re hosting a collection of documents on loan from the remnant trust, as you’ve heard, and that includes original and first edition works, dealing with the topics of liberty and dignity. Some of the items in the collection date as early as 1250 ad, and it does include some of the most celebrated works on these themes by many of distinguished thinkers in the past. It includes a copy of the Magna Carta kato’s letters a copy of the Declaration of Independence, Mary Rolling Stone crabs, Vindication of the Rights of Women, a copy of the Gettysburg Address and many more. So it’s a challenge