Sandra Day O'Connor was born March 26, 1930, in El Paso, Texas to Harry and Ada Mae, who owned the Lazy-B-Cattle Ranch in southeastern Arizona, where she grew up. She experienced a challenging life on the ranch in her early childhood. Until she was seven, the ranch itself did not receive electricity or running water. The family spent their days in isolation mostly since their nearest neighbors lived 25 miles away.
Sandra was sent to live with her grandmother in El Paso because the isolated ranch made formal education tough. She attended the Radford School, a private school for girls only, from kindergarten through high school. She graduated with decent grades at the age of sixteen. She majored in economics after high school at attended Stanford University. A legal dispute over her family's ranch motivated her interest in law and she decided to enroll at Stanford Law School after receiving her baccalaureate degree magna cum laude in 1950. She also met her future husband, John Jay O'Connor there.
After leaving Stanford she had a hard time finding a job. No law firm in California wanted to hire her and only one offered her a position as a legal secretary. She turned to public service since she couldn’t find suitable work in private practice. She accepted a job as the deputy county attorney for San Mateo, California. The army immediately drafted her husband into the Judge Advocate General Corps after he graduated from Stanford a year later. He served in Frankfurt, Germany, for three years with her by his side. While in Germany, she served as a civilian lawyer in the Quartermaster's Corps.
Upon their return in 1957 they decided to settle down in Phoenix, Arizona. She again found it difficult to find a position with any law firm s...
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...nservative views. According to the Los Angeles Times, she said that the justices were not obligated to follow the politics of the president who appointed him or her. She has also campaigned to end judicial appointment through elections, believing that making judges’ campaign compromises the judicial process.
Since her retirement, she has received numerous awards for her accomplishments. President Obama honored her with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009. Arizona State University also named its law school after the notable justice.
Works Cited
"Sandra Day O'Connor Biography." Bio.com. A&E Networks Television, n.d. Web. 18 May 2013.
Sandra Day O'Connor. The Oyez Project at IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law. 20 May 2013. .
"World Biography." Sandra Day O'Connor Biography. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 May 2013.
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O’Connor was born on March 26th, 1930 in Texas. She graduated Stanford University in 1950, where she studied economics. She then received her Bachelors of Law from Stanford Law School. She finished third in her class. After graduating law school she was denied interviews by many law firms solely because she was a woman.
Sandra Day O'Connor was born March 26, 1930, in El Paso, Texas. Her parents, Harry and Ada Mae, owned the Lazy-B-Cattle Ranch in southeastern Arizona, where O'Connor grew up. O'Connor experienced a difficult life on the ranch in her early years. The ranch itself did not receive electricity or ru...
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To become the first to hold a position is a tremendous accomplishment; However, it is also something that may come with extra criticism and possibly scorn. Sandra Day O’Connor was the first woman to become a Supreme Court Justice. She was a remarkable person, born on March 26, 1930 in Texas. She began her education by attending Stanford and majoring in economics, then recognizing her interest in law, she returned to Stanford, and completed law school in two years as opposed to the standard three, finally graduating in 1952. After struggling to find work, O’Connor served as a civilian lawyer in the Quartermaster’s Corps in Germany, with her husband John Jay O’Connor. For six years following this, she worked as a stay at home mom raising her three sons, Scott, Brian and Jay. In 1969 she went back to work in politics, after being appointed to a vacant senate seat by Governor Jack Williams; Sandra was very successful, and was re-elected for this position twice. The year 1981, however, is when O’Connor earned what is likely to be considered her greatest achievement: she was appointed by Ronald Reagan to become the first ever woman Supreme Court Justice (biography.com 2012).
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Ward, S. F. (2010). Family ties: the private and public lives of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. ABA Journal, 36.
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