Biography

Sandra Day O'Connor was born on March 26, 1930 in El Paso, Texas. She was born into a Lazy B Ranch with her family that was located in southeastern Arizona. Sandra was once considered "child of the frontier" since her first home had no electricity or running water. Her house on the cattle ranch was built on former Apache land and this is where she learned the skills she would use in her everyday ranching childhood. When her parents realized she wasn't getting the education she deserved, Sandra was moved to live with her grandmother who lived in El Paso, Texas. There she attended a private school named Radford School for Girls and Austin High. After her short lived teen years, 16 year old Sandra enrolled in Standford University to study economics. Four years later, in 1950, she graduated magma cum laude and a year before receiving her Bachelor of Arts; she entered law school and proceeded to earn her LL.B. After college, Sandra tried to become a lawyer with the San Francisco and Los Angeles firms, but failed when they rejected her for being a woman. When she was declined the job, O'Connor took a job as a deputy county attorney in San Matteo, California. Soon, Sandra met John O'Connor, her future husband and father of their three kids Scott, Brian, and Jay. John and Sandra then went to Germany where John became an attorney in the Army and Sandra was a civilian quartermaster corps attorney. When they returned to the United States, they family settled in the Phoenix, Arizona area. O'Connor and another lawyer opened a law office in Maryville and during this time, Sandra performed many community service acts. When the Senator of Arizona resigned in 1969, O'Connor was soon appointed by Jack Williams to take his place. Sandra ran in the election and won in 1970 only to be reelected in 1972. She was the first woman to hold the position as a majority leader. In 1974, Snadra left the legislative branch and moved on to become a judge in the Maricopa County Superior Court. She stayed there for little time when Democratic Bruce Babbitt appointed her to the Arizona Court of Appeals. Once President Ronald Reagan nominated her, Sandra became the first woman to be a Supreme Court Justice. She was the first appointee in 24 years to have prior service on a state court and the first in 32 years with legislative experience. Sandra Day O'Connor has made a big impact on the Court and even though she retired on July 1, 2005, she still influences us with her children's books she writes.

First Influence

Sandra Day O'Connor's first influence is that she was the first woman justice in the Supreme Court. She was nominated by President Ronald Reagan in 1981 and retired on July 1, 2005. "In the 1990's, O'Connor was influential and determined the direction of a number of key freedom rulings by the Supreme Courts". "She swayed the court's decisions involving the discrimination and harassment because of gender, and strengthened womans' job opportunity rights." "She has served as an excellent role model to woman in general." O'Connor served on the Supreme Court for 24 years and assissted on many court decisions when it came down to the final vote.

Second Influence

Sandra’s second influence was that she made many decisions while on the bench. “O’Connor has played a major role in deciding cases dealing with controversial issues such as the death penalty, affirmation action, separation of church and state, and abortion.” Sandra approaches each case with individual treatment and seeks to arrive at a practical conclusion. A case she was involved in is Planned Parenthood v. Casey. The case was that the Pennsylvania legislature amended the abortion law in 1998 and 1989 and the provisions were challenged by many abortion clinics and physicians. The law required that informed consent and a 24 hour waiting period should be mandatory before the procedure. A minor seeking abortion needed consent from at least one parent and a married woman needed to show she told the husband about the procedure. O'Connor's view point was against the law. She was in the group of four that voted no for the protest but she made a strong impact to the decision. She “was increasingly viewed by court observers as the swing vote, the one who determined whether the liberal or the conservative view would decide the outcome of the case.”

Fun Facts

1. Founder of the Arizona Woman Lawyers Association and the National Association of Woman Judges.

2. Most famous early opinion was Mississippi University for Woman v. Hogan(1982).

3. Sandra and her brother, Alan Day, wrote a book together called Lazy B: Growing Up on a Cattle Ranch in the Amercian Southwest.

4. In 2002, O'Connor was inducted into the National Cowgirl Hall of Fame.

5. In 2004, she recieved the Elliot Richardson Public Service Prize from the Council for Excellence in Government.

6. Wrote a picture book called Finding Susie.

7. A suspected bomb was found on her doorstep in 1997. This became big in the news, but turned out to only be a pair of tennis shoes the justice had ordered.

Why did Sandra Day O'Connor get rejected when she tried for a job as a lawyer?

What was Sandra Day O'Connor once considered?

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