In 1970, the state Legislature was very male and very rough. Four years later, she made state headlines when she was appointed to the Arizona Senate. But she kept her nose to the grindstone and became the assistant attorney general for Arizona in 1965. She completed law school in just two years, graduating third in her class.Īttitudes toward women in law proved a barrier, and the imminently qualified Sandra Day O’Connor struggled to find a job.
During that period, O'Connor's interest in the law was sparked from a family legal dispute over the ranch.Īt 16, she was admitted to Stanford University and later was admitted to Stanford Law in 1950. Later, she attended the Radford School for Girls in El Paso and graduated high school two years early. She learned to read by the time she was 4.
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A typical ranch kid, she branded calves with cowboys, rode horses everywhere, drove a pickup and was a crack shot with a. O'Connor, now 91, grew up on a remote ranch near Duncan, Arizona. Three women now serve on the supreme court, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.Sandra Day O’Connor as a child. “I think we need somebody there, now, to do the job, and let’s get on with it,” she said, a recommendation Republicans did not heed, holding the seat open until Donald Trump could choose Scalia’s successor, Neil Gorsuch. Kennedy’s replacement by the ultra-conservative Kavanaugh is expected to shift the court right again.Īfter the court’s 2010 Citizens United ruling allowing corporations to spend freely on elections for Congress and president, she told an audience: “Gosh, I step away for a couple of years and there’s no telling what’s going to happen.”Īfter Justice Antonin Scalia died in 2016 and Republicans blocked Barack Obama’s nominee to replace him, O’Connor protested. O’Connor’s retirement and replacement by Justice Samuel Alito shifted the court right, making Kennedy’s swing vote the often-pivotal one. On the supreme court, her votes were key in cases about abortion, affirmative action and campaign finance as well as the Bush v Gore decision that effectively settled the disputed 2000 election in George W Bush’s favor. She had graduated third in her class from Stanford law school and was the first woman to lead the Arizona state senate. O’Connor was a state court judge before being unanimously confirmed to the supreme court at 51. His mother is no longer doing interviews. “When she hit about 86 years old she decided that it was time to slow things down, that she’d accomplished most of what she set out to do in her post-retirement years, that she was getting older physically and her memory was starting to be more challenging, so the time came to dial back her public life,” said Jay O’Connor.
And she now stays close to her home in Phoenix, Arizona, he said. Hip issues have meant she now primarily uses a wheelchair. That made some public events more difficult. O’Connor’s son Jay O’Connor said in a recent telephone interview with the Associated Press that his mother, like many who reach their upper 80s, began to have challenges with her short-term memory. This summer she turned over an office she had kept at the supreme court in Washington to the court’s most recently retired justice, Anthony Kennedy, who was replaced earlier this month by Brett Kavanaugh. She was 75 when she announced her retirement from the court in 2005.įor more than a decade after leaving the court in 2006, O’Connor kept up an active schedule, serving as a visiting federal appeals court judge, speaking on issues she cared about and founding her own education organization. O’Connor was nominated by Ronald Reagan and took her seat on the court in 1981. She made her last public appearance about two years ago. As a young cowgirl from the Arizona desert, I never could have imagined that one day I would become the first woman justice on the US supreme court.” Her letter, released on Tuesday by the supreme court, continued: “How fortunate I feel to be an American and to have been presented with the remarkable opportunities available to the citizens of our country. The 88-year-old said her diagnosis was made some time ago and that as her condition has progressed she is “no longer able to participate in public life”. It had been announced on Monday that she was withdrawing from public life, where she had been an active public speaker and education advocate after retiring from the supreme court just over a decade ago. “While the final chapter of my life with dementia may be trying, nothing has diminished my gratitude and deep appreciation for the countless blessings of my life.” “I will continue living in Phoenix, Arizona, surrounded by dear friends and family,” she wrote.
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