Sandra Day O'Connor

Sandra Day O'Connor (March 26, 1930 – December 1, 2023) was an American attorney, politician, and jurist who sat as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1981 to 2006. Appointed by President Ronald Reagan, she became the first woman to hold that position. A moderate conservative, she often cast the deciding vote. Before joining the high court, she served as a judge in Arizona and, earlier, as a state legislator, where she became the first woman to lead a state senate as the Republican majority leader in the Arizona Senate. The U.S. Senate confirmed her nomination unanimously.

O'Connor typically voted with the conservative wing but sometimes sided with liberal justices. She frequently wrote concurring opinions that narrowed the scope of the majority's ruling. Her majority opinions include *Grutter v. Bollinger* and *Hamdi v. Rumsfeld*. In 2000, she helped write the per curiam opinion in *Bush v. Gore*, and in 1992 she was one of three authors of the lead opinion in *Planned Parenthood v. Casey*, which preserved abortion access nationwide. She announced her retirement on July 1, 2005, effective once her successor was confirmed. At her death, she was the last surviving member of the Burger Court. Samuel Alito was nominated to replace her in October 2005 and took the bench on January 31, 2006.

During her time on the Court, O'Connor was considered one of the most powerful women globally. After retiring, she succeeded Henry Kissinger as chancellor of the College of William & Mary. In 2009, President Barack Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

**Early life and education**

Sandra Day was born on March 26, 1930, in El Paso, Texas, to Harry Alfred Day, a rancher, and Ada Mae (Wilkey). She grew up on a 198,000-acre family cattle ranch near Duncan, Arizona, and in El Paso, where she attended school. Her home was nine miles from the nearest paved road and lacked running water or electricity until she was seven. As a cowgirl, she owned a .22-caliber rifle and shot coyotes and jackrabbits. She started driving as soon as she could see over the dashboard and learned to change flat tires herself. She had two younger siblings: a sister, Ann Day, who served in the Arizona Legislature from 1990 to 2000, and a brother, H. Alan Day, a lifelong rancher with whom she wrote *Lazy B: Growing up on a Cattle Ranch in the American Southwest* (2002) about their childhood. For most of her early schooling, she lived in El Paso with her maternal grandmother and attended the private Radford School for Girls, as the ranch was far from schools. She returned to the ranch for holidays and summers. In eighth grade, she lived on the ranch and rode a bus 32 miles to school. She graduated sixth in her class at Austin High School in El Paso in 1946.

Accepted into Stanford University at 16, O'Connor earned a B.A. in economics in 1950, graduating magna cum laude. Inspired by Professor Harry Rathbun, she pursued a law degree at Stanford Law School, graduating near the top of her class in 1952. While there, she served on the *Stanford Law Review*, whose then presiding editor-in-chief was future chief justice William Rehnquist. She achieved Order of the Coif, placing her in the top 10 percent of her class.

**Early career and marriage**

During her final year at Stanford Law, Day began dating John Jay O'Connor III, a year behind her. They married at her family’s ranch on December 20, 1952, six months after her graduation.

After law school in 1952, O'Connor struggled to find paid legal work due to her gender. She took a job as a deputy county attorney in San Mateo, California, working for no salary and sharing a secretary’s office. After a few months, she began earning a small salary doing legal research and writing memos. She worked with District Attorney Louis Dematteis and deputy district attorney Keith Sorensen.

When her husband was drafted, she joined him in Germany as a civilian attorney for the Army’s Quartermaster Corps. They stayed three years before returning to the United States, settling in Maricopa County, Arizona, where she started a law firm. They had three sons: Scott (born 1958), Brian (born 1960), and Jay (born 1962). After Brian’s birth, O'Connor took a five-year break from practicing law.

She volunteered with political groups like the Maricopa County Young Republicans and worked on Senator Barry Goldwater’s 1964 presidential campaign. O'Connor served as assistant Attorney General of Arizona from 1965 to 1969. In 1969, the governor appointed her to fill a vacancy in the Arizona Senate. She won election to the seat the following year. By 1973, she became the first woman to serve as majority leader of any state senate. She gained a reputation as a skilled negotiator and a moderate. After two full terms, she left the Senate.

In 1974, she was appointed to the Maricopa County Superior Court, serving from 1975 to 1979, when she was elevated to the Arizona Court of Appeals. In late 1977 and early 1978, she presided over the aggravated assault case of Clarence Dixon, a 22-year-old Arizona State University student who attacked a 15-year-old girl with a metal pipe. She found Dixon not guilty by reason of insanity and had him remanded to a state hospital.