The
Supreme
Court
stood
as
a
monolithic
institution
for
almost
its
first
two
centuries
with
its
all
male
(predominately
white
male)
composition.
Confirmed
in
1981
as
the
nation’s
104th
Supreme
Court
justice
and
its
first
woman,
Sandra
Day
O’Connor
truly
broke
through
the
glass
ceiling.
From
her
many
years
at
the
helm
as
the
Court’s
swing
justice
to
her
votes
and
opinions
in
major
cases,
O’Connor
was
notable
for
much
more
than
her
gender
—
she
was
quite
unique
in
nuanced
ways,
some
of
which
went
well
under
the
radar.
A
Trailblazer
Justice
O’Connor
cut
a
new
path
for
Supreme
Court
Justices
in
a
plethora
of
ways.
Here
are
just
a
few
(several
of
these
tidbits
come
from
the
Supreme
Court Justices
Database):
-
One
of
the
most
interesting
aspects
of
Justice
O’Connor’s
resume
was
her
work
in
state
government.
She
was
a
state
trial
judge
and
along
with
Justice
Souter
was
the
only
justice
with
this
type
of
background
experience
since
Justice
Brennan
was
confirmed
in
1957. -
She,
along
with
Justice
Brennan,
were
the
only
Justices
to
previously
sit
on
state
intermediate
appeals
courts
since
Justice
Bradford
in
the
mid-19th Century. -
O’Connor
was
also
one
of
only
a
few
justices
in
the
20th and
21st Centuries
who
sat
on
state
courts
immediately
preceding
their
nominations
to
the
Supreme
Court.
The
others
include
Justices
Brennan,
Cardozo,
Pitney,
and
Holmes. -
O’Connor,
Souter,
and
Thomas
were
the
only
justices
to
have
previously
served
as
assistant
state
attorneys
general
since
Justice
Harlan
II,
who
was
confirmed
in
1955. -
O’Connor
was
the
only
to
previously
serve
as
a
state
senator
since
Justice
Sutherland,
who
was
confirmed
in
1922. -
O’Connor
was
unanimously
confirmed
to
the
Supreme
Court
and
since
1980
was
one
of
only
three
justices
to
do
so
along
with
Justices
Scalia
and
Kennedy. -
O’Connor
was
the
only
justice
born
in
Texas
since
the
1950s.
The
last
being
Justice
Tom
Clark,
who
was
confirmed
in
1949. -
O’Connor
is
one
of
only
two
justices
to
have
attended
both
Stanford
University
and
Stanford
Law
School
—
the
other
being
Chief
Justice
Rehnquist.
She
and
Rehnquist
are
also
the
only
two
justices
who
called
Arizona
their
home
state
for
Supreme
Court
nominations
purposes. -
Aside
from
Justice
Souter
(who
retired
at
65),
O’Connor
was
the
youngest
justice
to
leave
the
Court
through
death
or
voluntary
retirement
at
75
since
Justice
Goldberg
retired
at
56
to
serve
as
the
U.S.
Ambassador
to
the
United
Nations
(in
1965). -
O’Connor,
who
was
93
when
she
passed
on
December
1st,
was
the
third-longest
surviving
justice
—
the
others
being
Justices
Reed
(95)
and
Stevens
(99). -
In
1981,
O’Connor’s
confirmation
hearing
was
the
first
to
be
televised
for
a
Supreme
Court
nominee.
Needless
to
say,
the
enormity
of
her
appointment
was
built
for
primetime.
Decisions
and
Data
Of
course,
along
with
her
unique
pedigree,
O’Connor
was
known
to
be
one
of
the
most
influential
justices
of
the
late=20th and
early-21st centuries.
She
was
often
considered
the
most
powerful
justice
on
the
Court
for
her
sometimes-unpredictable
votes
and
her
moderate
conservative
positions,
which
thrust
her
into
the
role
of
swing
justice
in
some
of
the
Court’s
most
well-known
decisions.
O’Connor,
for
instance,
was
one
of
the
authors
for
the
Court’s
decision
in Planned
Parenthood
v.
Casey.
Her undue
burden standard
stood
as
the
foundation
for
constitutional
questions
concerning
abortion
from
1994
until
2022.
Prior
to
Casey’s
upholding
the
constitutional
right
to
an
abortion
though,
O’Connor
dissented
in
the
Court’s
1983
decision
in Akron
v.
Akron
Center
for
Reproductive
Health,
which
struck
down
several
provisions
of
an
Ohio
law
that
would
have
put
potential
impediments
in
the
way
of
women
seeking
abortions.
Before
these
abortion
decisions,
however,
O’Connor
was
remembered
for
her
majority
opinion
in Mississippi
University
for
Women
v.
Hogan,
which
she
authored
at
the
end
of
her
first
term
on
the
Court.
In
this
5-4
decision,
O’Connor
wrote
that
an
all-female
public
institution
must
open
its
doors
to
men
under
the
14th Amendment’s
Equal
Protection
Clause.
O’Connor
also
authored
the
5-4
decision
in Maryland
v. Craig,
allowing
one-way
closed-circuit
television
to
present
testimony
by
an
alleged
child
sex
abuse
victim
under
the
6th Amendment’s
Confrontation
Clause.
One
of
O’Connor’s
last
5-4
decisions
was
in Grutter
v.
Bollinger which
set
the
standard
for
affirmative
action
from
2003
until
it
was
overturned
at
the
end
of
the
last
term.
Perhaps
most
consequentially,
along
with
Justice
Kennedy,
O’Connor
played
a
pivotal
role
in
shaping
the
presidency
at
the
turn
of
the
21st Century
by
siding
with
George
W.
Bush
in
the
case
of Bush
v.
Gore.
O’Connor
voted
in
471
signed
and
argued
(5-4)
decisions
between
1981
and
2006
(as
shown
below).
She
was
in
the
majority
in
311
of
those
instances
or
nearly
66%
of
the
time.
Of
those
311
majority
votes
she
authored
the
second
most
majority
opinions
at
54
(11%
of
the
total
471)
and
was
just
over
ten
shy
of
Chief
Justice
Rehnquist’s
66.
Only
four
justices
were
on
the
Court
who
voted
in
more
than
350
(5-4)
decisions
during
this
time.
O’Connor
had
a
significantly
higher
percentage
of
majority
votes
in
these
decisions
than
two
of
them
–
Stevens
and
Scalia
–
and
had
nearly
5%
more
majority
votes
than
the
fourth
Justice,
Justice
Rehnquist.
For
justices
with
over
300
majority
votes
only
Justice
Kennedy
eclipsed
Justice
O’Connor
percentage
with
over
70%
of
his
votes
in
the
majority.
According
to Martin
and
Quinn’s
scoring of
justices’
ideological
leanings,
O’Connor
was
the
Court’s
median
justice
from
the
mid-1980’s
through
her
retirement
during
the
2005
Supreme
Court
Term.
This
also
alludes
to
the
power
of
her
vote
in
shaping
the
Court’s
majority
decisions.
Building
from
this
point,
O’Connor
was
in
the
majority
more
than
any
other
justice
during
her
tenure
on
the
Court
(2,113
times).
While
one
might
suspect
that
this
was
due
to
only
tracking
the
years
where
O’Connor
was
on
the
Court,
this
does
not
seem
to
overly
bias
the
outcome
as
Justices
Rehnquist
(2,027
majority
votes)
and
Stevens
(1,841
majority
votes)
were
also
there
for
the
same
years
and
had
fewer
majority
votes
than
O’Connor.
When
we
normalize
the
votes
into
frequencies
in
the
majority,
we
see
the
following:
Similar
to
the
(5-4)
frequencies
in
the
majority
O’Connor
was
in
all
majorities
more
frequently
than
others
in
the
same
vote
ballpark
as
her.
If
we
remove
Roberts
because
of
significantly
fewer
votes,
as
well
as
the
Justices
only
on
the
Court
for
the
first
part
of
O’Connor’s
tenure
on
the
Court
(Powell
and
White
in
particular),
then
only
Justice
Kennedy
has
a
higher
frequency
in
the
majority
at
over
90%.
As
Justice
O’Connor
was
frequently
in
the
majority,
she
did
not
author
an
overwhelming
number
of
dissents.
The
following
graph
tracks
O’Connor’s
opinion
authorship
over
her
years
on
the
Court:
The
most
majority
opinions
O’Connor
authored
in
a
term
was
17.
She
did
this
three
times
–
in
1983,
1985,
and
1986.
She
authored
the
fewest
majority
opinions
with
three
in
2005
when
she
retired
early
in
that
term.
She
also
was
in
the
majority
100%
of
the
time
that
term.
O’Connor’s
most
unusual
term
was
in
1995
where
she
authored
eight
majority
opinions,
two
dissents,
and
zero
regular
concurrences.
The
greatest
number
of
dissents
she
authored
in
a
term
was
11.
She
did
this
three
times.
Outside
of
the
1995
and
2005
terms,
O’Connor
had
the
greatest
percentage
majority
opinions
as
a
fraction
of
her
total
opinion
output
in
1990
with
69.57%.
She
had
the
greatest
frequency
of
written
concurrences
in
the
1994
Term
with
40.74%.
She
authored
her
greatest
frequency
of
dissents
during
the
2001
Term
at
38.89%.
Concluding
Thoughts
A
story
that
has surfaced
again
recently
concerns
Justice
O’Connor’s
first
job
after
law
school
when
she
was
not
offered
a
position
in
a
law
firm
and
instead
took
an
unpaid
position
as
a
deputy
county
attorney
in
California.
This
was
after
she
graduated
third
in
her
class
at
the
prestigious
Stanford
Law
School.
From
these
humble
beginnings
in
the
1950s
she
later
revolutionized
the
Supreme
Court
as
its
first
female
justice.
In
his remarks publicly
announcing
his
intention
to
nominate
Justice
O’Connor
in
1981,
President
Reagan
stated:
“Needless
to
say,
most
of
the
speculation
has
centered
on
the
question
of
whether
I
would
consider
a
woman
to
fill
this
first
vacancy.
As
the
press
has
accurately
pointed
out,
during
my
campaign
for
the
Presidency
I
made
a
commitment
that
one
of
my
first
appointments
to
the
Supreme
Court
vacancy
would
be
the
most
qualified
woman
that
I
could
possibly
find.Now,
this
is
not
to
say
that
I
would
appoint
a
woman
merely
to
do
so.
That
would
not
be
fair
to
women
nor
to
future
generations
of
all
Americans
whose
lives
are
so
deeply
affected
by
decisions
of
the
Court.
Rather,
I
pledged
to
appoint
a
woman
who
meets
the
very
high
standards
that
I
demand
of
all
court
appointees.
I
have
identified
such
a
person.So
today,
I’m
pleased
to
announce
that
upon
completion
of
all
the
necessary
checks
by
the
Federal
Bureau
of
Investigation,
I
will
send
to
the
Senate
the
nomination
of
Judge
Sandra
Day
O’Connor
of
Arizona
Court
of
Appeals
for
confirmation
as
an
Associate
Justice
of
the
United
States
Supreme
Court.”
Linda
Greenhouse described for
the
New
York
Times
in
September
1981:
“…the
woman
who
29
years
ago
was
refused
a
job
at
every
law
firm
to
which
she
applied,
after
graduating
near
the
top
of
her
law
school
class,
took
her
place
on
the
bench,
the
seat
at
the
far
end
reserved
for
the
most
junior
Justice.”
Justice
O’Connor
often
dictated
the
direction
of
the
Supreme
Court
across
her
25+
years
on
the
Court.
During
this
time,
she
was
arguably
the
most
important
justice
on
the
Court.
Although
some
might
have
been
skeptical
about
President
Reagan’s
decision
to
nominate
a
woman
to
the
Court
in
the
first
place,
Justice
O’Connor
not
only
proved
them
wrong
but
changed
the
institution
in
perpetuity.
Adam
Feldman
runs
the
litigation
consulting
company
Optimized
Legal
Solutions
LLC.
For
more
information
write
Adam
at adam@feldmannet.com. Find
him
on
Twitter @AdamSFeldman and
on LinkedIn
here.
Jake
S.
Truscott
is
a
post-doctoral
researcher
at
the
C-SPAN
Center
for
Scholarship
and
Engagement
(Purdue
University).