Sandra Day O'Connor

Sandra Day O'Connor: Background and Jurisprudence

This paper will discuss the life and jurisprudence of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. The first part of the paper will briefly describe her background and career up to the time when she was appointed to the Supreme Court. The second part of the paper will discuss her jurisprudence, focusing upon her decisions in discrimination, abortion, religious freedom, federalism, and freedom of speech.

Sandra Day was born on March 26, 1930, to Harry and Ada Mae Day, cattle ranchers on the Arizona-New Mexico border. She grew up as an introverted bookworm who rode horses and roped steers. When she reached school age, she went to live with her grandmother in El Paso, Texas, so that she could attend the private Radford School. Gradually, her spare time became increasingly occupied with reading. She finished high school at the age of 16 and enrolled at Stanford University in California. She continued her accelerated studies there, finishing both undergraduate and law school in five years. At Stanford Law School, she achieved a spot on the Law Review, where she met her future husband, John O'Connor. She graduated third in her class from the law school in 1952, two places behind William Rehnquist.

However, she soon discovered that her Stanford law degree could not overcome her gender. She received no job offers as an attorney from the major law firms in either San Francisco or Los Angeles, although one offered her a pos

Related Essays

Justice Sandra Day O'Connor Sandra Day O'Connor: Background and Jurisprudence This paper will discuss the life and jurisprudence of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. .... (5478 22 )

AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES and UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT .... President Reagan (Republican) appointed Justices Sandra Day O'Connor, Antonin Scalia, and Anthony Kennedy to the Court. President .... (2238 9 )

ACLU TODAY .... President Reagan (Republican) appointed Justices Sandra Day O'Connor, Antonin Scalia, and Anthony Kennedy to the Court. President .... (4391 18 )

Analysis of Bush v Gore .... Justices voting in the majority were Chief Justice William Rehnquist, Clarence Thomas, Sandra Day O'Connor, Antonin Scalia, and Anthony Kennedy. .... (697 3 )

Seven Short Essays .... Clarence Thomas to adhere to his approach to statutory and constitutional interpretation, a group that Anthony Kennedy and Sandra Day O'Connor sometimes join. .... (2532 10 )

or fraudulent claims. In Mansell v. Mansell, O'Connor dissented from a majority opinion holding that a federal statute denied state courts the power in divorce actions to order divisions of military retirement pay that has been waived by a retiree in order to receive veteran's disability benefits. O'Connor said that the legislative history underlying the statute in question showed that Congress intended to protect the access of military wives to their ex-husbands' military retirement pay. This criticism may not just apply to O'Connor, however. More recently, she has agreed with most other members of the Court that certain forms of gender classification should be subjected to heightened scrutiny. In United States v. Virginia, the Court struck down Virginia's practice of excluding women from the Virginia Military Institute (VMI). Writing for the Court, Justice Ginsburg reiterated the holding that classifications based upon gender must serve important governmental objectives and be substantially related to the achievement of those objectives. However, Ginsburg then added that the state must demonstrate an exceedingly persuasive justification to support the classification. Chief Justice Rehnquist argued in his concurring o

Category: People - S