First: Sandra Day O’Connor — A Book Review
“O’Connor was the most powerful Supreme Court justice of her time. For most of her twenty-four-plus years on the Court, from October 1981 to January 2006, she was the controlling vote on many of the great societal issues, including abortion, affirmative action, and religious freedom, so much so that the press came to call it the O’Connor Court. She was a global ambassador for the rule of law, and a role model for a generation of young women who saw her break the glass ceiling and were inspired to believe they could do the same.” — Evan Thomas, First: Sandra Day O’Connor (pg. xv)
In this deeply researched biography of Sandra Day O’Connor, America’s first woman appointed to the United States Supreme Court bench, author Evan Thomas deftly presents the reader with an understanding of a vastly multi-faceted figure. O’Connor was a woman of contrasts, raised on an Arizona ranch, but educated at Stanford. She was rebuffed by every law firm she applied to out of law school, offered instead a job as a legal secretary, but rose to prominence in the Arizona Senate, Arizona Court of Appeals, and finally, the United States Supreme Court.
Drawing heavily on her husband John O’Connor’s diaries and interviews with colleagues and former law clerks, in First we get a true sense of a life lived as a trailblazer. As a Maricopa County Superior Court judge O’Connor was not well received by attorneys who practiced in her courtroom. She expected attorneys, who had previously been used to getting away with shoddy work, to be prepared and concise. Her years as Arizona senate majority leader had prepared her for such toughness, where she described “how her ‘heart pounded’ and her ‘legs trembled’ at the thought of just standing up before her colleagues.” (pg. 87)
Thomas finds that throughout her life O’Connor tended to be wracked by self-doubt and lack of self-awareness, but maintained great confidence nonetheless. Despite her professional successes before landing on President Ronald Reagan’s list of prospective Supreme Court nominees in 1981, O’Connor has publicly said she doubted her prospects of being named to the Court. While, privately, she agreed with John that she likely clinched the nomination. When it came to women’s issues, she was so staunchly pro-gender equality that she denied that her gender influenced her decision making on the high court. Her law clerks largely dismissed this out of hand given her inclination to consider social context in reaching legal conclusions.
In First, Thomas provides the lay reader as well as the legal professional with all of the details one would want to know about the first woman Supreme Court justice. From her requirement that her law clerks attend morning aerobics sessions, to intimate details of chambers deliberations, to her warm and rocky relationships with her fellow justices, we get a sense of what her life was like on the court. John O’Connor’s reflections give insight into her social and family life as well.
The court cases that were key to her becoming the centrist of the court take center stage for much of First. We get a glimpse into O’Connor’s thought processes while deliberating in some of the most important cases of her years on the Court. She was the deciding vote in the first sex discrimination case that came before her, Mississippi University for Women v. Hogan, deciding with the Court liberals and disappointing her fellow conservative justices. Thomas describes that when O’Connor concurred in the school prayer case Wallace v. Jaffree, arguing the purpose of a “moment of silence” was to push prayer in schools, Justice John Stevens walked to her chambers, concurring opinion in hand, for the first time since her arrival on the court and praised her opinion saying, “You should be very proud of it in years ahead. It has a very good analysis which will be helpful — probably better than my own.” (pg. 214). An entire chapter is dedicated to Bush v. Gore and we get a sense of O’Connor’s regrets about the case. This in-depth coverage reveals O’Connor’s legal thinking and influence and is the icing on the cake to this vital addition to historical U.S. Supreme Court literature.
October 11th is the International Day of the Girl Child. Established by resolution of the United Nations General Assembly in 2011, the observance is aimed at raising “awareness of the situation of girls around the world.” The UN has recognized gender equality as one of the global issues it strives to address. To commemorate such an important observance the Washington State Law Library wants to acknowledge the accomplishments made by women in the legal profession. You can find First: Sandra Day O’Connor in our collection and it is available for checkout. For a great read on O’Connor and the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, check out another book in our collection, Sisters in Law: How Sandra Day O’Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg Went to the Supreme Court and Changed the World. (SC)
