Sandra Day O'Connor showed us the way. What a remarkable woman
Opinion: Sandra Day O'Connor showed the women of my generation and those that came after that there are no limits. For that, there is only one thing to say.
Laurie RobertsWhen Sandra Day O’Connor graduated from law school in 1952 — Stanford, third in her class of 102 — she was offered a job at a prestigious law firm.
As a legal secretary. Provided she was handy with a typewriter.
The rest, as they say, is history as O’Connor showed the world that she was so much more than the sum of her typing skills.
Sandra Day O'Connor has a robust resume
Cowgirl, lawyer, state legislator. The nation’s first female state Senate majority leader, in fact.
Judge on the Arizona Court of Appeals, the first female ever to serve in what, at the time, was a 192-year history of the United States Supreme Court.
Daughter, wife, mother, grandmother.
Mentor to generations of girls who have grown up, knowing that a dress should never get in the way of your dreams.
O'Connor showed us the way.
Growing up on a cattle ranch in eastern Arizona, she could rope a calf, shoot a coyote and fix a truck.
As a state legislator, she could bring people together, back before words like “compromise” and “common ground” were considered an abomination.
O'Connor showed us how to compromise
As a U.S. Supreme Court justice, she was that key fifth vote that set the direction of the court on hot-button issues, beholden not to any political party or ideology but to the law.
As Justice Elena Kagan said in her 2017 tribute, the world was in good hands when O’Connor was driving the bus.
“If it were Justice O’Connor,” she said, “it would turn all turn out all right.”
Our mom, Sandra Day O'Connor:Knew what America forgot
O’Connor grew up in a man’s world and let nothing stand in her way. Not even breast cancer.
When she was diagnosed in 1988, she announced she would have a mastectomy
“The prognosis is for total recovery,” she said. “I do not anticipate missing any oral arguments.”
She worried about our nation's direction
No less important than her work on the bench was what came afterward, in her retirement.
O’Connor was concerned about the direction of the country — the political polarization, the discord, the disengagement. She launched iCivics in 2006, dedicated to encouraging America’s youth to learn about this country and to engage.
To excel — not by scoring political points but by embracing a search for the common good.
Seventeen years later, iCivics is teaching millions of middle and high school students to become engaged citizens, boys and girls who today are learning the value of working in and for their communities, and tomorrow?
Well, who knows?
Years later, we'll tip our hat to O'Connor
Somewhere out there is a young girl who dreams of following the trail that O’Connor blazed to the court or perhaps just down the street to a big white house.
When that happens — and it will happen — I imagine Madam President will tip her hat to Arizona’s favorite daughter.
Throughout her long life, O’Connor served.
“It's fine to be the first,” she once said, “but you don’t want to be the last.”
She wasn’t. And won’t be.
As I think today about her passing, I think also of my own granddaughters, ages 5 and just 7 months old, and really, there is just one thing I can say.
Thank you, ma’am. RIP.
Reach Roberts at laurie.roberts@arizonarepublic.com. Follow her on X, formerly Twitter, at @LaurieRoberts or on Threads at @laurierobertsaz.
Support local journalism: Subscribe to azcentral.com today.