“I think the women hoped that she would be a voice for women’s rights, that she would be a voice against discrimination against women and other protected groups. I think women expected that she would be supportive of women’s groups and issues. And she was.” —Ruth Mc-Gregor, former Supreme Court clerk, speaking of Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, (PBS American Experience, September 2021) Perhaps because the notable women who have passed recently are my mother’s ages, my sensitivity radar to such moments is keen.
After writing about Rosalynn Carter last week, I feel it’s only “just” that Sandra Day O’Connor’s legacy be commemorated this week.
For one thing, the first woman ever to sit on the United States Supreme Court was someone we in these parts might find relatable. Born in Texas and raised on a ranch, she co-authored a book about her experiences living on the New Mexico–Arizona border until she returned to live with her grandmother in El Paso in order to get a more traditional education.
In “Lazy B: Growing Up on a Cattle Ranch in the American Southwest,” a book that Justice O’Connor co-authored with her brother, she recalles that her mother never had to get someone to watch her firstborn baby girl. Ranch cowboys took the reins.
“My babysitters were tobacco chewing, unshaven, unbathed, Levi-clad and tough as nails, but they would baby talk and try for hours to keep Sandra happy.”
She also included in the autobiographical writings about water well and pump repairs that demanded immediate attention and how she, not yet strong enough to manage the heavy work, would serve “as an operating room nurse” handing tools to her father.
On the court O’Connor was considered a pragmatist, probably influenced by her upbringing. Often a swing vote, she sided with the more liberal justices on some cases involving equal opportunities and women’s rights. In the historic case which ultimately decided the outcome of the 2000 presidential election, she voted with the conservative majority in the 5-4 decision that made George W. Bush the 43rd president of the United States.
So many women in their nineties whose obituaries are a daily read were our modern-day pioneers. They had to navigate traditional norms of marriage, motherhood, and career.
“It’s all right to be the first to do something, but I didn’t want to be the last woman on the Supreme Court. If I took the job and did a lousy job, it would take a long time to get another one,” O’Connor said at a Supreme Court Historical Society event in 2011.
Since Justice O’Connor’s appointment, five more women have served on the Supreme Court, including four current Justices.
I’d say this Texas-born Arizona cowgirl branded her mark clearly.
Snyder, Texas, native Sue Jane Sullivan is a retired schoolteacher whose thought-provoking commentary appears occasionally in several West Texas newspapers, including The Texas Spur and The Caprock Courier.
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