O'CONNOR, SANDRA DAY

born March 26, 1930, El Paso, Texas, U.S. ne Sandra Day first woman to become a U.S. Supreme Court justice. She was known as a moderate conservative. Sandra Day grew up on a 160,000-acre (65,000-hectare) family ranch near Duncan, Arizona. She graduated from Stanford University in 1950 and Stanford Law School in 1952, marrying a classmate, John Jay O'Connor III, upon graduation. After pursuing private practice in Maryville, Arizona, she became an assistant attorney general for the state (196569) and then a Republican member of the Arizona Senate (196974), in which role she became the first woman in the United States to hold the position of majority leader. Her election as a Superior Court judge in Maricopa county (197479) was followed by her appointment to the Arizona Court of Appeals in Phoenix (197981). In July 1981 President Ronald Reagan chose her as his first appointee to the U.S. Supreme Court, and, after her confirmation by the Senate, she was sworn in as an associate justice on September 25, 1981. O'Connor proved to be a moderate and pragmatic conservative who sometimes sided with the court's liberal minority on social issues. She became known for her dispassionate and meticulously researched opinions on the bench.