“Born in El Paso, Texas, on March 26, 1930, Sandra Day O’Connor was elected to two terms in the Arizona state senate. In 1981, Ronald Reagan nominated her to the U. S. Supreme Court. She received unanimous Senate approval, and made history as the first woman justice to serve on the nation’s highest court. O’Connor was a key swing vote in many important cases, including the upholding of Roe v. Wade. She retired in 2006 after serving for 24 years”. O’Connor was the first woman United States Supreme Court Justice, serving from 1981 to 2006. In the year 2009, she was given the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
O’Connor graduated from Stanford University in 1950 with her bachelor’s degree in economics, O’Connor went to the university’s law school and received her degree in 1952, and O’Connor graduated third in her class. O’Connor couldn’t find a law firm that would hire a woman at the time, but she did find a job as a secretary for a firm The openings and job opportunities for female lawyers were very limited at the time, she had a hard time trying to find a job and decided to work without pay for the county attorney of California’s San Mateo region just to get her foot in the door.
Soon after she became deputy county attorney In the year 1969, O’Connor received a state senate appointment by Governor Jack Williams in order to fill an available job. Being a conservative Republican, O’Connor gained reelection two times. Following in 1974, she decided to take on a different challenge and ran for the spot of judge in the Maricopa County Superior Court, and won. While being a judge Sandra Day O’Connor established a concrete reputation for being firm but just. When she was not in the courtroom, she continued her involvement in Republican politics.
A few years later in 1979, O’Connor was nominated to serve on the state’s court of appeals. In the next two years President Ronald Reagan would nominate her for associate justice of the U. S. Supreme Court. O’Connor received undisputed support from the U. S. Senate and paved new grounds for women when she was sworn in as the first female justice on the Supreme Court. Being a member of the country’s highest court, O’Connor was well thought-out to be a moderate conservative, who be apt to to vote in line with the Republican platform, although at times she steered away from its ideology. O’Connor often focused on the letter of law, and voted for what she believed best fit the intentions of the U. S. Constitution. In 1982, she wrote the majority opinion in Mississippi University for Women v. Hogan, in which the court ruled 5-4 that a state nursing school had to admit men after traditionally having been a women’s-only institution. In opposition to the Republican call to reverse the Roe v. Wade decision on abortion rights, O’Connor provided the vote needed in Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992) to uphold the court’s earlier decision.
In a majority opinion coauthored with Anthony Kennedy and David Souter, O’Connor broke away from the dissents penned by William Rehnquist and Antonin Scalia. In 1999, O’Connor sided with the majority opinion in the sexual harassment case Davis v. Monroe County Board of Education that ruled the school board in question was indeed responsible for protecting a fifth-grade student from unwanted advances from another student”. O’Connor retired in 2006, but that didn’t slow down her down. In 2006, she launched iCivics, an online civics education venture aimed at middle school students.
As she explained to Parade magazine, “We have a complex system of government. You have to teach it to every generation. ” Which I think is great because if I know one thing is that education is essential, and opens a lot of doors for individuals no matter the age. Also, O’Connor has received several tributes. The law school at Arizona State University was named after the notable justice in 2006 and President Obama honored her with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009. I believe O’Connor paved the way for women to be part of the Supreme Court.
I think that her story and hardships shows that it is worth it, and that we should not give up when things might seem out of reach. Her story also gave me a visual and timeline. It helped me realize that I should be patient and keep aiming towards my goal and dreams. I think that when I start thinking about my future, and what I want to do which is work in the court system, it seems very distant, yet this helped me realize that I need to be patient because it took her decades, and many different experiences in the field and networking with people for her to end up where she did.
I did like the fact that although she was considered a moderate conservative, in certain cases which I have mentioned above she did make the choice which she thought was fair and just. Sonia Sotomayor, was the first Latina Supreme Court Justice in the United States history. “Sonia Sotomayor was born on June 25, 1954, in the Bronx borough of New York City. Her desire to be a judge was first inspired by the TV show Perry Mason. She graduated from Yale Law School and passed the bar in 1980.
She became a U. S. District Court Judge in 1992 and was elevated to the U. S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals in 1998. In 2009, she became the first Latina Supreme Court Justice in U. S. history”. Sotomayor made history once again in June 2015, when she was among the majority in two groundbreaking Supreme Court rulings. Sotomayor was one of the six justices to support a critical element of the 2010 Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) in King v. Burwell. This verdict permits the federal government to carry on providing aids to Americans who obtained health care through “exchanges,” regardless of whether they are state or federally operated.
Sotomayor is given credit for being a crucial force in the ruling, by presenting cautionary arguments against the possible undoing of the law. “The majority ruling, written by Chief Justice John Roberts, thus further cemented the Affordable Care Act. Conservative justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Antonin Scalia were in dissent, with Scalia presenting a scathing dissenting opinion to the Court”. On June 26, the Supreme Court passed down another historic verdict in as many days, with a five to four majority ruling in Obergefell v.
Hodges that made same sex marriage legal in all 50 states. Sotomayor united with Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Anthony Kennedy, Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan in the majority, with Roberts, Alito, Scalia and Thomas dissenting. Sonia Sotomayor is recognized on the court for her trust in the judicial process, and her straight forward attitude towards unprepared attorneys. Sotomayor is also well-known for her kindness towards jurors and the attorneys who make great effort in advocating for their clients.
Sotomayor’s “fiery attitude and down-to-earth perspectives” will aid the court well for years to come. Sonia Sotomayor through her hard work and dedication has become a role model to follow for all Latinas like myself that are trying to achieve an education and in the long run have a great career. As we can see for Sotomayor, it did not come easy, but she made success a necessity not an option. I believe Sotomayor is living proof of what one can do once you set your mind to it, and what it means to stay true to your beliefs, which can result to history in the making.
