Sandra Day Oconnor

6 Pages 1376 Words

Who ever said women can’t do the job right? Well ever since 1981 when Sandra Day O’Connor became the first women to serve as a Supreme Court justice, a lot of citizen’s views have changed. Since then, as the years progressed more and more women were involved in the Supreme Court Justice system. The history of Sandra Day O’Connor has helped the United States develop into a culturally diverse society.
Perhaps no other jurist could have come to the Supreme Court under greater expectations and disdain. “Then president Ronald Regan nominated Sandra Day O’Connor in 1981 to be the first women justice to sit on the Supreme Court, he did it so out of an obligation to keep a campaign promise” (Huber 1990) O’Connor’s nomination was quick to draw criticism from the political left and right. “ Conservatives decided her lack of federal judicial experience and claimed she was lacking in constitutional knowledge.” (Huber 1990). Not only citizens but also politicians considered Sandra a waste of a nomination, and suspected her position she occupied on abortions. On the other hand, Liberals, on the other hand could not deny their satisfaction at seeing a women at the High Court, but they were dismayed at O’Connor’s apparent lack of strong support for feminist issues”(Huber 1990) “As a Supreme Court associate justice, O’Connor has generally sided with conservative court members. But she has been sympathetic to liberal views on a small number of issues.”(Fiss 2001)
In time, O’Connor has come to answer all these criticisms. “O’Connor has emerged from the shadow chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and the Court’s conservative bloc with her own brand of pragmatic and centrist-orientated conservatism.” (Holland 1997) Sandra believed in compromising on abortion rights in her early years. Even though most of the liberals called her a traitor now, for agreeing and appreciating “pro-choice”. Sandra Day O’Connor...