The Life, Death, and Legacy of Sandra Day O’Connor
On December 1st, 2023, at 93 years old, Sandra Day O’Connor passed away in her home in Phoenix, Arizona. Her legacy as the first female member of the Court has been widely inspirational and many of the decisions she aided in passing have been extremely influential.
O’Connor was born in El Paso, Texas on March 26, 1930. Due to the lack of educational opportunities in her area, she moved in with her grandmother and graduated from the Radford School for Girls two years early. She was accepted to Stanford University at sixteen, where she graduated with a bachelor's degree in economics, and she graduated from Stanford Law in 1953. Justice O’Connor was appointed to the Court by President Reagan in 1981 and retired in 2006, after serving more than 24 years on the Court. She was the first female member of the Court.
Through her leadership on the Supreme Court, O’Connor helped to codify many landmark cases. Early in her career, she drafted the majority opinion in Mississippi University for Women v. Hogan. This case argued that a publicly funded women's university violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment by its refusal to admit a male applicant based only on his gender. It significantly impacted the future of equal rights for women, as the Supreme Court relied on it in subsequent gender-related admissions cases, notably including United States v. Virginia (1996), in which it found that the Virginia Military Institute’s refusal to admit women violated the equal protection clause.
However, O’Connor’s biggest and most controversial legacy surrounds her rulings and opinions on abortion. In 1992, O’Connor served as the swing vote that reaffirmed the Roe v. Wade decision in the abortion rights case Planned Parenthood v. Casey, despite the Republican push to overturn Roe. Through her confirmation hearings, Justice O’Connor remained largely ambiguous on the issue of abortion and was heavily opposed by the Christian right, as they feared her toleration of abortion. As a Reagan-appointed justice, O’Conner’s reaffirming of Roe was strongly controversial.
O’Connor continued to be fairly unpredictable in her voting decisions throughout her career, and as the court became more conservative in her later career, she was often the swing vote on many decisions. Although characterized by a stubborn spirit, O’Connor also recognized the importance of fellowship within the court and sought to bring justices together. As a biographer told NPR, “While on the court, O’Connor encouraged collegiality by trying to get more justices to show up for weekly lunches. At first, only four justices were attending. O’Connor would show up in missing justices’ chambers and sit there until they came with her.”
While O’Connor was certainly not a perfect justice and made her fair share of controversial rulings, her legacy as a builder within the court is important to recognize. While a few justices from O’Connor’s court remain, her court is drastically different from our court today. What made O’Connor such a strong yet controversial justice was her willingness to shift from conservative alignment when she felt necessary. Her swing vote in Planned Parenthood v. Casey makes this apparent. Furthermore, her ability to connect a divided court and create a culture of camaraderie between the justices shows Justice O’Connor strong spirit on and off the bench.
The stark differences between the current Supreme Court and the Supreme Court of forty years ago are something to be recognized. While the Supreme Court is the upholder of many important decisions, these should manifest as disagreement and discussion, not malice. It is, by design, supposed to be less polarized and divided than other branches of government, something that has not held true within our current court. The leak of the Supreme Court opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization overturning Roe v. Wade certainly exacerbated this polarization and increased public distrust, as has former President Trump's appointment of three justices in just one term. Justice O’Connor left behind her a legacy of connection within the court, something which some may hope to see revived in current years.