Retired Associate Justice
United States Supreme Court
SANDRA DAY O’CONNOR joined the Rockefeller Foundation board of trustees in 2006.
Justice O’Connor is a retired Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. She was born in El Paso, Texas and spent her early childhood on the Day family's 198,000-acre cattle ranch. When she reached school age, her parents sent her back to El Paso to live with her grandmother.
Justice O’Connor attended Stanford University, where she received her B.A. in economics. She continued at Stanford for her law degree, graduating in two years rather than the customary three, and graduating third out of a class of 102. It was during her work as editor on the Stanford Law Review that she met John Jay O’Connor III, also attending law school at Stanford. Soon after graduation they were married. After three years in Frankfurt, Germany, the O’Connors settled in Phoenix, Arizona.
Justice O’Connor opened a law office because no law firm would hire a woman at that time. She then served as an Arizona assistant attorney general from 1965 until 1969, when she was appointed to a vacancy in the Arizona Senate, where she rose to the rank of Senate Majority Leader. In 1974, she ran successfully for trial judge, a position she held until she was appointed to the Arizona Court of Appeals in 1979. Eighteen months later, on July 7, 1981, President Ronald Reagan nominated her to the Supreme Court. In September, 1981, Sandra Day O’Connor became the Court’s 102nd justice and its first female member.
During her time on the court, Justice O’Connor made it clear that the high court's role in American society was to interpret the law, not to legislate. Her votes were generally conservative, but she sometimes surprised observers with her political independence. On July 1, 2005, Associate Justice O’Connor announced her retirement from the Supreme Court, though her tenure continued into the following year. She left after 25 years of service on the bench.
Justice O’Connor currently also serves as Chancellor of the College of William and Mary and on the board of the National Constitution Center. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society. Between March and December of 2006, Justice O’Connor served her country as a member of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group of the United States Institute of Peace. She authored The Majesty of the Law, Lazy B, Chico, and Finding Susie. In 2009, she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom.