Here is a look at the life of the first female Justice on the United States Supreme Court, Sandra Day O'Connor.
Personal: Birth date: March 26, 1930
Birth place: El Paso, Texas
Father: Harry A. Day, rancher
Mother: Ada Mae (Wilkey), rancher
Marriage: John Jay O'Connor III (1952 - 2009, his death)
Children: Scott; Brian; Jay
Education: Stanford University, BA Economics (magna cum laude), 1950; Stanford Law School, LL.D, 1952
Other Facts: In law school, was on the Stanford Law Review and third in her class.
She completed law school in 2 years.
She was a proponent of judicial restraint. At her confirmation hearings, she comments, "Judges are not only not authorized to engage in executive or legislative functions, they are also ill-equipped to do so."
In retirement, O'Connor has campaigned around the U.S. to abolish elections for judges, believing that a merit system leads to a more qualified and untainted judiciary.
Timeline: 1952 - 1953 - County deputy attorney in San Mateo, California
1955 - 1957- Works as a civilian lawyer for the Quartermaster Corps in Frankfurt, West Germany, while her husband serves with the Army's Judge Advocate General Corps.
1959 - Opens a law firm in Maryvale, Arizona.
1965 - 1969 - Assistant Attorney General of Arizona.
1969 - Appointed to fill a vacant seat in the Arizona Senate.
1970 - Elected to the Arizona Senate as a Republican.
1972 - Re-elected to the Arizona Senate and elected Majority Leader. She is the first woman to hold that office in any state.
1975 -1979 - Superior Court judge of Maricopa County.
1979 -1981 - Judge of the Arizona Court of Appeals.
July 7, 1981 - Nominated to the Supreme Court by President Ronald Reagan, to fill seat of retiring Justice Potter Stewart.
September 22, 1981 - Confirmed by the US Senate.
September 25, 1981 - Sworn in as the first female Supreme Court Justice of the United States.
1982 - O'Connor writes an opinion invalidating a women-only enrollment policy at a Mississippi State nursing school because it "tends to perpetuate the stereotyped view of nursing as an exclusively women's job." Mississippi University for Women, et al., v. Hogan
