Sandra Day O’Connor, the first woman Supreme Court Justice, died Friday, December 1. According to a Supreme Court announcement, O’Connordied from “complications related to advanced dementia, probably Alzheimer’s, and respiratory illness.”
After beginning her career as a lawyer, O’Connor was appointed to the Supreme Court in 1981 by President Ronald Regan. He had made a campaign promise to have a woman on the nation’s highest court, so he nominated O’Connor. The Senate unanimously confirmed her.
In the commencement speech O’Connor gave at Stanford in 2004, she talked about her appointment by President Reagan. She said, “His decision was as much a surprise to me as it was to the nation as a whole. But Ronald Regan knew that his decision wasn’t about Sandra Day O’Connor; it was about women everywhere. It was about a nation that was on its way to bridging a chasm between genders that had divided us for too long.” One of her most significant votes was in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, a 1992 opinion that reaffirmed a woman’s right to an abortion.
O’Connor served 24 years in the Supreme Court before she stepped down. She chose to step down because she wanted to take care of her husband who was battling Alzheimer’s disease. She retired in 2006 but still remained an advocate for judicial independence and Rule of Law. O’Connor founded the Sandra Day O’Connor Institute in 2009, which is meant to advance civil discourse, civic engagement, and civics education.
