Law review article

Following the First Woman

Law review article / By

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

Newspaper article, The Kauffman-Henry Collection

First Woman Justice Named to Supreme Court of U.S.

Newspaper article, The Kauffman-Henry Collection / By

WASHINGTON – President Reagan nominated Judge Sandra D. O’Connor of the Arizona Court of Appeals on Tuesday to become the first woman justice on the U.S. Supreme Court. Upon confirmation by the Senate – considered certain – the 51- year-old jurist would succeed Justice Potter Stewart. Mr. Reagan told a nationwide television audience that naming a Supreme Court justice is the most awesome appointment a president can make because the high court leaves “footprints on the sands of time.” The president recalled that during his campaign he made a commitment to appoint the most qualified woman he could find. “That is not to say I would appoint a woman merely to do so,” he added. “That would not be fair to women, nor to future generations of all Americans.” He said Judge O’Connor possesses the qualities of temperament, fairness, intellectual capacity and devotion to the public good that have characterized the 101 “brethren” who have served at the Supreme Court . Active in Republican politics in Arizona, she was co-chairman of Richard M. Nixon’s state campaign committee in 1968. She was majority leader in Arizona’s state senate in 1973 and is the only woman ever to hold that job. Her Legislative Record There was quick opposition to her nomination from the National Right to Life Committee, the largest U .S. anti-abortion group. Mr . Reagan, however, said he is completely satisfied with her record on such issues. Although she is considered a conservative, her legislative record shows a

Newspaper article, The Kauffman-Henry Collection

Equal opportunity finally goes to court

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O’Connor: A Supreme case of equal opportunity

I F SANDRA D. O’CONNOR’S nomination to the United States Supreme Court is confirmed, she will join an organization that is secretive by necessity and clubby by choice. When Justice Potter Stewart resigned recently, he was asked if he was close to the other men of the court. “It’s something like being in the Navy,” he said. “You don’t choose your shipmates, but, nonethele.ss, you develop a real kind of affection for each other. And that’s what happens here.” Will this camaraderie be extended to the first woman justice? And will she respond by becoming “one of the boys?” The magnitude of President Reagan’s nomtnation of a woman Supreme Court justice cannot be compared to any other breakthroughs women have made. It is not like being a so-called token woman in politics, business, or academia. What soon is likely to be the new position for Judge O’Connor. now a judge the Arizona Court’of AppealH, is not to be compared to the accomplishment of becoming mayor of Chicago. Mayor Byrne was elected, is boss, and runs the show. Artd there are other women who are mayors of large cities. Jane Cahill Pfeiffer, formerly head of the National Broadcasting Co., was the first woman to reach that level in private industry. But she was fired. Supreme Court justices have the job for life. The American judiciary as a whole isn’t used to having women judges around. Of the 678 federal judges in the United States, 44 are women. Of these, 32 sit on district

Newspaper mention, The Kauffman-Henry Collection

Dinner to honor O’Connor

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PHOENIX (AP) – About 850 persons are expected to attend a $50-~- plate dinner being held m Phoenix tonight in honor of Sandra O’Connor, the first woman justice on the C.S Supreme Court. The black-tie dinner at the Arizona Biltmore is to be televised by KAET TV in the Phoenix area . During the morning ceremony, Babbitt planned to present a proclamation to the justice naming today Sandra O’Connor Day. Phoenix [Mayor] Margaret Hance is hosting the Iuncneon and Babbitt has the same role for the dinner .

Interview

Diane McCarthy oral history

Interview / By

O’Connor House Tell us about the first time you met Sandra Day O’Connor. Diane McCarthy It was, I was thinking about this the other day and I believe the first time that I ever met the justice was when I, probably was running for election in 1972. I was running for the State House of Representatives and had won the primary. That was one of those interesting primaries in those days where it was six people running for two seats, and I was the only woman running and came in second, which is all I had to do to win. And then got together with the people who were presumed to be winning, you know, between the primary and the, and the general, and then of course after the general.

So that was my very first opportunity to meet her. At that point, of course, she was the Senate majority leader, and I was an incoming freshmen woman legislator. The first session, however, my freshman year, was really quite interesting from, from a personal standpoint, because I really had an opportunity to work very, very closely with her. The, this is, of course, going back to the fact that this was during the ERA, the Equal Rights Amendment, “Everybody has to come on board,” you know, “We need equal rights across the country, we need to change the Constitution,” all of that stuff.

Well, of course, as you know, in Arizona, we have a big issue about states’ rights and we know how to do things better than everybody else. And, we were looking for, was there kind of an edge that that we could have? And

Newspaper article, The Kauffman-Henry Collection

Court’s historic day: Now it’s Mrs. Justice O’Connor

Newspaper article, The Kauffman-Henry Collection / By

…

Then followed the special session of the high court, which began with the traditional rap of the gavel by Court Marshal Alfred Wong and the entrance of the eight black-robed justices. Mrs. O’Connor sat in the “well” of the courtroom at the start of the ceremony, in a chair used by Chief Justice John Marshall more than 150 years ago. Reagan sat on the other …

Harry Day, left his wheelchair and walked with the aid of a cane. Wearing the black, knee-length robe from her days as an Arizona appeals court judge, Mrs. O’Connor smiled at well-wishers on her historic day. Under her judicial robes she wore a pink, long-sleeved dress and a gold choker. Asked about the robe, Mrs. O’Connor replied : “I’ ll buy a new one eventually, when this one gets frayed. They do, you know.” The 52-year-old Arizona jurist carved her place in American history in the dramatic setting of the solemn, velvet-draped, marble-columned courtroom where sit the nine justices who ma~e up the Supreme Court of the United States. Viewing the historic moment were more than 300 dignitaries – led by Ronald Reagan, the man who broke the male-only tradition with his nomination of Mrs. O’Connor to the highest tribunal. She became the 102nd member of the 191-year-old court, replacing Potter Stewart, 67, who resigned from the bench in July and gave Reagan the opportwiity to fuliill his campaign promise to appoint a woman. In addition to Reagan and his wife Nancy, others invited included Vice President George Bush; Stewart

Newspaper article, The Kauffman-Henry Collection

Court Issues

Newspaper article, The Kauffman-Henry Collection / By

WASHINGTO N – When the Supreme Court begins its 1981-82 term Oct. 5, it will ag, n find itself poised on the cuttmg edge between the status quo and a new political order. As the Reagan administration moves to reduce the sweep of much of the landmark legislation enacted in the 1960s and 1970s, the court will review many of those same laws in the 102 cases already set for argument in the new term. The justices also are likely to address a number of perennially touchy issues, including school busing, church-state separation, the death penalty and the obligation of a state to educate children of illegal aliens. President Reagan’s policies are not directly at issue in most of the cases, but the way in which the justices resolve the issues could accelerate or brake the administration’s momentum in certain areas. Historically, the court has served as a balance wheel within the federal system . It has moved to the “conservative ” side when Congress or the president shifted sharply to the left, as in the early New Deal days. And the rulings in the last term indicate the court may be taking a more liberal stance on certain issues as the Reagan administration and the 97th Congress move to the right. For example, in the last term, the justices ruled repeatedly in favor of broad federal regulatory power – directly countering a major administration thrust . The Reagan regime already has sharply reversed the government ‘s position on two key issues before the court , school busing and the education

Law review article

Constitutional Sunsetting? Justice O’Connor’s Closing Comments in Grutter

Law review article / By

Constitutional Sunsetting?: Justice O’Connor’s Closing Comments in Grutter

by VIKRAM DAVID AMAR* AND Ev AN CAMINKER **

Most Supreme Court watchers were unsurprised that Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s vote proved pivotal in resolving the University of Michi gan affirmative action cases; indeed, Justice O’Connor has been in the ma jority in almost every case involving race over the past decade, and was in the majority in each and every one of the 5-4 decisions the Court handed down across a broad range of difficult issues last Term. Some smaller number of observers were unsurprised that Justice O’Connor decided (along with the four Justices who in the past have voted to allow latitude with regard to race-based affirmative action programs) to uphold the kind of flexible and individualistic use of race to promote a diverse student body embodied in the University of Michigan Law School’s admissions policy. Justice O’Connor had often cited Justice Powell’s opinion in Bakke1 fa vorably,2 and just two terms ago she had voted with the more “liberal” Jus tices in a 5-4 decision that permitted race consciousness in a voting redis

tricting setting. 3 But perhaps most were surprised by a comment Justice

O’Connor made for the Court at the end of the Grutter opinion: “We expect that 25 years from now, the use of racial preferences will no longer be nec essary to further the interest approved today.’,4 In this short essay, we ex plore that provocative sentence, and tease out some of the doctrinal

Magazine article

Center Court

Magazine article / By

Justice Sandra Day O’Connor got her job through affirmative action. It was obvious to officials in the Reagan Justice Department, as they searched for a Supreme Court justice in the summer of 1981, that she lacked the usual qualifications for the high court. “No way,” Emma Jordan, an assistant to the then Attorney General William French Smith, recalls thinking. “There were gaps in her background where she had clearly been at home having babies. She had never had a national position. Under awards, she had something like Phoenix Ad Woman of the Year.” No matter. President Reagan wanted to appoint the first woman justice, so he named O’Connor.

Last week O’Connor in a sense returned the favor by playing the critical role in the most important affirmative-action case in decades. She cast the fifth and deciding vote and wrote the court’s opinion in upholding the right of the University of Michigan Law School to use race as a factor in admissions. As a practical matter, her ruling in Grutter v. Bollinger gives a powerful judicial boost to affirmative action in education, a source of legal confusion and bitter debate in recent years. O’Connor, a moderate Republican, was hailed as a somewhat unlikely hero by liberal groups. She is seen as living proof that affirmative action works. There are now two female Supreme Court justices (the other is Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who did have the usual qualifications), and half the seats in America’s law schools are filled by women. And one of the Bush

Newspaper mention, The Kauffman-Henry Collection

But can Sandra O’Connor type?

Newspaper mention, The Kauffman-Henry Collection / By

One more Sandra O’Connor story …. The woman who is the president’s pick to serve as the first female Supreme Court justice didn’t always find her legal skills in demand. After she graduated from Stanford Law School with high marks and impeccable credentials, private law firms in California still closed their doors to her. “They had never hired a woman,” she said in a 1978 interview with Today’s Living. “They weren’t prepared to change. I was offered a job as a secretary provided I could type well.” So instead, she went to work as a deputy county attorney in San Mateo. Now for a chorus of Who’s sorry now?