Entrepreneurs/Experts: Sandra Day O'Connor

Sandra Day O'Connor was the first woman and the 102nd person to sit on the Supreme Court of the United States. She retired from her position on January 31, 2006.

O'Connor majored in economics at Stanford University and graduated with high honors. She continued her graduate work there. It was during her work as editor on the Stanford Law Review that she met John Jay O'Connor III, also attending law school at Stanford. In 1952 she graduated from law school, again with honors, and soon thereafter was married to John O'Connor. Despite her excellent scholastic record, it was difficult for women to find positions as lawyers. Her husband practiced law for a few years before they decided to build a home in north Phoenix. Their first child, Scott, was born in 1957. Two more sons joined the family in 1960 and 1962. In 1965, Sandra Day O'Connor went to work on a part-time basis for the Arizona attorney general's office. In 1969 she was appointed to the state Senate and was subsequently re-elected to that position. In 1973 Sandra Day O'Connor was the first woman to serve as the majority leader of a state Senate.

In 1974 Sandra Day O'Connor was elected to a position of trial judge for Maricopa County and 5 years later was appointed by then Governor Bruce Babbitt to the Court of Appeals. On July 7, 1981 President Reagan announced that Sandra Day O'Connor was his appointee to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court left by Associate Justice Potter Stewart's retirement. She was confirmed by a Judiciary Committee vote of 17 to 1 and won approval by the U.S. Senate by a vote of 99 to 0.

Justice O'Connor was regarded as a consummate compromiser; her goal on issues was simply to achieve a majority vote. She is considered to be tough and is a conservative, but not as tough or conservative when it comes to women's rights and children. O'Connor made it clear that she believes a court's role, including that of the Supreme Court, is to interpret and not to legislate. She has been referred to as the most influential women in America.

In July 2005 Sandra Day O'Connor announced that she would retire from her position as a Supreme Court Justice as soon as a replacement was appointed. Justice Samuel Alito succeeded her on January 31, 2006.

Justice O'Connor's comments are from the Milton R. Konvitz Lecture in American Ideals that she gave at Cornell University while she was the Law School's Distinguished Jurist in Residence. Her talk was titled "The Importance of an Independent Judiciary," but the justice instead gave a history of oral argument before the court and its role in helping justices focus on various legal issues.