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When Sandra Day O’Connor Broke Into the Men’s Club When Sandra Day O’Connor Broke Into the Men’s Club
(about 7 hours later)
Before there was the first female presidential nominee of a major political party, before there was a female speaker of the House or a female attorney general or a female secretary of state, there was the F.W.O.T.S.C. — the first woman on the Supreme Court, the wry signature that Sandra Day O’Connor has on occasion chosen for herself.Before there was the first female presidential nominee of a major political party, before there was a female speaker of the House or a female attorney general or a female secretary of state, there was the F.W.O.T.S.C. — the first woman on the Supreme Court, the wry signature that Sandra Day O’Connor has on occasion chosen for herself.
By this time in midsummer 35 years ago, the future Justice O’Connor, who sat on Arizona’s intermediate appeals court, had completed her courtesy calls to Senate offices and was awaiting her confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee. It was the first Supreme Court confirmation hearing to be televised. She was a hit. The Senate confirmed her on Sept. 21, 1981, by a vote of 99-0.By this time in midsummer 35 years ago, the future Justice O’Connor, who sat on Arizona’s intermediate appeals court, had completed her courtesy calls to Senate offices and was awaiting her confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee. It was the first Supreme Court confirmation hearing to be televised. She was a hit. The Senate confirmed her on Sept. 21, 1981, by a vote of 99-0.
I didn’t plan to write a column about Sandra Day O’Connor, now a frail 86 years old and more than 10 years into retirement, her days of traveling around the country to spur a revival of civics education seemingly behind her. The sudden and thrilling outburst of federal court decisions blocking Republican efforts to suppress the vote in states around the country seemed like a more timely and pertinent topic to write about.I didn’t plan to write a column about Sandra Day O’Connor, now a frail 86 years old and more than 10 years into retirement, her days of traveling around the country to spur a revival of civics education seemingly behind her. The sudden and thrilling outburst of federal court decisions blocking Republican efforts to suppress the vote in states around the country seemed like a more timely and pertinent topic to write about.
But watching the final night of the Democratic convention, I found myself obsessing over Sandra Day O’Connor. I occurred to me that young women and men who find unremarkable the nomination of a woman to be president of the United States have utterly no idea what it meant a generation ago to see her take her seat on the Supreme Court, a bench populated exclusively by men for the previous 192 years. But watching the final night of the Democratic convention, I found myself obsessing over Sandra Day O’Connor. It occurred to me that young women and men who find unremarkable the nomination of a woman to be president of the United States have utterly no idea what it meant a generation ago to see her take her seat on the Supreme Court, a bench populated exclusively by men for the previous 192 years.
And why should these young Americans have any idea, when there are three women on the court today and when the sight of a woman in judicial robes is completely ordinary? (Seventeen of the chief justices of the state high courts are women, as are about one-quarter of all sitting federal judges.)And why should these young Americans have any idea, when there are three women on the court today and when the sight of a woman in judicial robes is completely ordinary? (Seventeen of the chief justices of the state high courts are women, as are about one-quarter of all sitting federal judges.)
Today’s 20- and 30-somethings who take women’s progress for granted might be surprised to learn that barely three years before President Ronald Reagan used his first of four Supreme Court vacancies to fulfill a campaign promise to name a woman to the court, the very notion of a female Supreme Court justice was played for laughs in a Broadway comedy called “First Monday in October.” And they might be even more surprised to know that before the advent of President Jimmy Carter’s administration in 1977, only eight women had ever sat on a federal court — any federal court.Today’s 20- and 30-somethings who take women’s progress for granted might be surprised to learn that barely three years before President Ronald Reagan used his first of four Supreme Court vacancies to fulfill a campaign promise to name a woman to the court, the very notion of a female Supreme Court justice was played for laughs in a Broadway comedy called “First Monday in October.” And they might be even more surprised to know that before the advent of President Jimmy Carter’s administration in 1977, only eight women had ever sat on a federal court — any federal court.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt had named one, Florence Ellinwood Allen, followed 15 years later by President Harry Truman’s appointment of the second, Burnita Shelton Matthews. Thirteen more years passed before President John F. Kennedy named Sarah Tilghman Hughes to the Federal District Court bench in Dallas; the next year, on Nov. 22, 1963, Judge Hughes entered the history books when she administered the presidential oath of office to Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson. President Johnson named three women to federal courts. Presidents Richard M. Nixon and Gerald R. Ford named one apiece. President Carter took the revolutionary step of naming 40 — roughly one in six of his 259 judicial appointments, enabled by Congress’s expansion of the federal bench in 1978 by nearly one-third, adding 151 judgeships with the expectation that they would be filled promptly. (President Obama has managed to get 138 women confirmed to the federal courts; they make up 42 percent of his successful judicial nominations.)President Franklin D. Roosevelt had named one, Florence Ellinwood Allen, followed 15 years later by President Harry Truman’s appointment of the second, Burnita Shelton Matthews. Thirteen more years passed before President John F. Kennedy named Sarah Tilghman Hughes to the Federal District Court bench in Dallas; the next year, on Nov. 22, 1963, Judge Hughes entered the history books when she administered the presidential oath of office to Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson. President Johnson named three women to federal courts. Presidents Richard M. Nixon and Gerald R. Ford named one apiece. President Carter took the revolutionary step of naming 40 — roughly one in six of his 259 judicial appointments, enabled by Congress’s expansion of the federal bench in 1978 by nearly one-third, adding 151 judgeships with the expectation that they would be filled promptly. (President Obama has managed to get 138 women confirmed to the federal courts; they make up 42 percent of his successful judicial nominations.)
So what did it mean when Sandra Day O’Connor joined the exclusive men’s club where “Mr. Justice” had been the required appellation until just months before her nomination, when the justices, perhaps sensing that change was inevitable or maybe just wishing to sound a little less stuffy, voted in conference in a superb accident of timing to drop the “Mr.” and to refer to each other simply as “Justice?”So what did it mean when Sandra Day O’Connor joined the exclusive men’s club where “Mr. Justice” had been the required appellation until just months before her nomination, when the justices, perhaps sensing that change was inevitable or maybe just wishing to sound a little less stuffy, voted in conference in a superb accident of timing to drop the “Mr.” and to refer to each other simply as “Justice?”
Then 51, she had cracked glass ceilings in her time: a politician in Arizona before she became a judge, she was the first woman in the country to be majority leader of a State Senate. The Supreme Court’s glass ceiling was plenty thick, but she shattered it during a 24-year-long tenure. This isn’t the place to assess Justice O’Connor’s Supreme Court career. Suffice it to say that the subtitle of Joan Biskupic’s 2005 biography of the justice, “Sandra Day O’Connor” — “How the First Woman on the Supreme Court Became Its Most Influential Justice” — is accurate.Then 51, she had cracked glass ceilings in her time: a politician in Arizona before she became a judge, she was the first woman in the country to be majority leader of a State Senate. The Supreme Court’s glass ceiling was plenty thick, but she shattered it during a 24-year-long tenure. This isn’t the place to assess Justice O’Connor’s Supreme Court career. Suffice it to say that the subtitle of Joan Biskupic’s 2005 biography of the justice, “Sandra Day O’Connor” — “How the First Woman on the Supreme Court Became Its Most Influential Justice” — is accurate.
Putting jurisprudence and influence to the side, every day Justice O’Connor took her seat on the Supreme Court bench signified to the courtroom audience and to the world beyond that the presence of a woman on the Supreme Court of the United States was possible — and before something is seen as normal, it has to be seen as possible.Putting jurisprudence and influence to the side, every day Justice O’Connor took her seat on the Supreme Court bench signified to the courtroom audience and to the world beyond that the presence of a woman on the Supreme Court of the United States was possible — and before something is seen as normal, it has to be seen as possible.
Now that there have been four women on the Supreme Court and hundreds on the other federal courts, the question is often posed whether their presence has made a substantive difference in the way law is interpreted and applied. The evidence is anecdotal and there’s really no proof one way or another. Female judges come in all ideological stripes (Donald Trump’s list of 11 potential Supreme Court nominees includes three women, vetted like the men on the list for their conservative inclinations. Now that there have been four women on the Supreme Court and hundreds on the other federal courts, the question is often posed whether their presence has made a substantive difference in the way law is interpreted and applied. The evidence is anecdotal and there’s really no proof one way or another. Female judges come in all ideological stripes (Donald Trump’s list of 11 potential Supreme Court nominees includes three women, vetted like the men on the list for their conservative inclinations.)
Anecdotally, the presence of a woman on the bench does make some degree of difference some of the time. During oral argument in a 2009 case on whether school officials violated a 13-year-old girl’s rights by ordering her to strip to her underwear in a search for unauthorized possession of generic Advil, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who was then the only woman on the court following Justice O’Connor’s retirement, was openly annoyed at her colleagues’ obvious failure to take seriously the student’s distress. In an interview with Joan Biskupic, then at USA Today, while the case was still pending, Justice Ginsburg explained her reaction. “They have never been a 13-year-old girl,” she said. “It’s a very sensitive age for a girl. I didn’t think that my colleagues, some of them, quite understood.” They understood soon enough; in an opinion by Justice David H. Souter, eight justices (all but Clarence Thomas) found that the search was unreasonable, in violation of the Fourth Amendment.Anecdotally, the presence of a woman on the bench does make some degree of difference some of the time. During oral argument in a 2009 case on whether school officials violated a 13-year-old girl’s rights by ordering her to strip to her underwear in a search for unauthorized possession of generic Advil, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who was then the only woman on the court following Justice O’Connor’s retirement, was openly annoyed at her colleagues’ obvious failure to take seriously the student’s distress. In an interview with Joan Biskupic, then at USA Today, while the case was still pending, Justice Ginsburg explained her reaction. “They have never been a 13-year-old girl,” she said. “It’s a very sensitive age for a girl. I didn’t think that my colleagues, some of them, quite understood.” They understood soon enough; in an opinion by Justice David H. Souter, eight justices (all but Clarence Thomas) found that the search was unreasonable, in violation of the Fourth Amendment.
The authors of a 2010 political science article titled “Untangling the Causal Effects of Sex on Judging” evaluated judges’ behavior in 13 areas of law. They found no “sex-based effects” in 12 of the areas. Only in cases concerning claims of sex discrimination did the composition of a three-judge appellate panel matter: panels with at least one female member were “significantly” more likely to rule in favor of the plaintiff claiming discrimination.The authors of a 2010 political science article titled “Untangling the Causal Effects of Sex on Judging” evaluated judges’ behavior in 13 areas of law. They found no “sex-based effects” in 12 of the areas. Only in cases concerning claims of sex discrimination did the composition of a three-judge appellate panel matter: panels with at least one female member were “significantly” more likely to rule in favor of the plaintiff claiming discrimination.
Interesting, and maybe even important, but I have to think the most important result of women becoming judges lies not in the exceptional but in the routine: the presence of three women on the Supreme Court bench — and five women on the very important 11-member United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit — simply announces that women belong there. And if they belong there, there’s no place they don’t belong. That’s why, as the balloons floated down at the conclusion of the Democratic convention, I thought of Sandra Day O’Connor, and I’d like to think that somewhere out there, as the presidential campaign goes along, a few young women and men with a sense of history might think of her too.Interesting, and maybe even important, but I have to think the most important result of women becoming judges lies not in the exceptional but in the routine: the presence of three women on the Supreme Court bench — and five women on the very important 11-member United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit — simply announces that women belong there. And if they belong there, there’s no place they don’t belong. That’s why, as the balloons floated down at the conclusion of the Democratic convention, I thought of Sandra Day O’Connor, and I’d like to think that somewhere out there, as the presidential campaign goes along, a few young women and men with a sense of history might think of her too.