Sandra Day O'Connor
Sandra Day O'Connor, the first female U.S. Supreme Court Justice, passed away this month and I want to acknowledge that before we move to far away from this passing.
The media and even the US Government appears to have glossed over this lady, but We need to show her the respect she deserves for what she meant to the United States, the Supreme Court, and professional women:
This Is a Man's World, Part I: Born in 1930, to a cattle ranching family, the young woman then known as Sandra Day began doing work normally reserved for men at an early age. While living at the Lazy B, she became skilled at branding and castrating cattle, driving tractors and firing rifles, among other things.
Not Bad if You Can't Get into UCLA, Redux: In the case of Day, she went to Stanford because that's where her father wanted to go, but never got the chance. While an undergrad at the school, she took a class with law Professor Harry Rathbun. She said this class, and Rathbun's teaching of it, is what inspired her to pursue the law as a career.
Nice Ratio, Part I: Day's Stanford Law School class ('52) had just two women, as compared to several dozen men. When it came to dating, that certainly gave the women the pick of the litter. Day dated one of her classmates very seriously for a couple of years, to the point that the classmate proposed marriage. Day turned him down, but did end up crossing paths with him again later in life, as her would-be husband was... future chief justice William Rehnquist.
Nice Ratio, Part II: Eventually, Day fell in love with a different classmate, John O'Connor, and married him. When John traveled to the Lazy B Ranch to ask permission from Day's parents, Day's father tested the young man by serving him a plateful of freshly castrated bull testicles. Clearly this was a recurring theme of Sandra Day's life. John O'Connor wasn't nuts about the feast, but he was still a baller, so he managed to pass the test(es). Thus was the foundation laid for a marriage that lasted 57 years.
This Is a Man's World, Part II: That women lawyers were something of a novelty in the 1950s might have been good for Sandra Day O'Connor's social life in law school, but it wasn't good for her career prospects. The only clerkships she could find while in school were with seedy lawyers, including one in New Mexico whose biggest clients were a bookie and a brothel owner. After graduating, every law firm she applied to either rejected her outright or said they would only hire her as a legal secretary. She eventually found employment with the government, working as both a deputy DA and a lawyer for the U.S. Army. Later, she and her husband founded their own firm.
All The Way With Sandra Day?: Today, everyone pretends that judges are apolitical, even though we all know they are not. In past generations, it was entirely expected that judges would be political, such that most Supreme Court candidates came from the ranks of political officeholders, and not from law school faculties or long-serving private practice lawyers, or long-serving members of the federal judiciary. When Sandra Day O'Connor was tapped for SCOTUS, she had a little bit of judicial service on her record, but mostly in courts and on cases that did not reveal much about her leanings. She was chosen by Ronald Reagan because of her service in the Arizona state Senate; a tenure that included her becoming the first woman to serve as state Senate Majority Leader. To date, O'Connor is the last Supreme Court Justice to have previously served in elective office. Incidentally, she was approved 99-0, and the only senator who was not there to vote, Max Baucus (D-MT), sent her a copy of A River Runs Through It to apologize for his absence. Clearly, it was a different time.
The O'Connor Court: Eras in Supreme Court history are generally named for the sitting Chief Justice. By that standard, O'Connor served 5 years on the Burger Court, another 20 on the Rehnquist Court, and a few months on the Roberts Court. However, for much of her time in office, the term "O'Connor Court" was in wide use, as she was the swing vote on countless important cases. Those cases include Planned Parenthood v. Casey (affirmed Roe), Grutter v. Bollinger (race-based admissions are OK), McCreary County v. ACLU of Kentucky (can't display the Ten Commandments in government buildings), and Bush v. Gore (Bush elected president). She later lamented the Court's role in the 2000 election.
This Is a Man's World, Part III: Everyone knows that Ruth Bader Ginsburg (a.k.a. "The Notorious RBG") became something of a rockstar, but O'Connor actually preceded her in that. In her first year on the court, O'Connor got 60,000 letters, something never seen before. When RBG joined the Court, she and O'Connor became fast friends, and they often appeared at conferences and other events together, commonly to speak on subjects related to women and the law. O'Connor also made a habit of getting to know all female law clerks hired by her colleagues, and helping to mentor them. That said, despite all of this, O'Connor hoped that one day women lawyers and judges would be so unremarkable that her trailblazer status would be forgotten. "I look forward to the day when I am thought of as the 102nd Supreme Court Justice rather than the first female Supreme Court Justice," she said.
A Dish Best Served Cold: Another rockstar in 1980s Washington was John Riggins, who was then the star running back for the Washington football team. In 1985, Riggins encountered O'Connor at a party, after he'd had a few drinks. He yelled at her: "Come on, Sandy baby, loosen up. You're too tight!" O'Connor was classy enough not to tear into someone who was drunk. However, a couple of years later, she was giving a speech at an event where Riggins was in the audience. She explained to the crowd that there was something she'd been wanting to say for years: "Loosen up Johnny, baby!" Reportedly, the line brought down the house.
What Retirement?: O'Connor stepped down from the court to take care of her husband, who had been diagnosed with (and who eventually died from) Alzheimer's disease. However, she really wasn't the type to retire. Throughout her tenure on the Supreme Court, she was bothered by the state of Americans' civic education. In particular, she was bothered by billboards she saw in the 1970s that said "Impeach Earl Warren." She thought that such reckless talk spoke to ignorance of how American institutions work.
Anyhow, once O'Connor was done with her duties on the Court, she poured her energy into creating the website Our Courts, which is now known as iCivics. It is now used by nearly 10 million students every year.Clearly, it was a life well-lived. May Sandra Day O'Connor rest well, because she certainly earned it.
May God Bless You, Your Business, Israel, and the United States of America,
Tom Winslow
