Photo by Dane Penland, Smithsonian Institution, Collection of the Supreme Court of the United States

This coming Radcliffe Day—June 5, 2009—the Radcliffe Institute will bestow upon Sandra Day O’Connor its Radcliffe Institute Medal, which is awarded annually to an individual whose life and work have substantially and positively influenced society. O’Connor is the first woman to serve on the United States Supreme Court.

Born in El Paso, Texas, O’Connor followed her Stanford University bachelor’s degree with an LLB from Stanford Law School, where she graduated near the top of her class and worked on the Stanford Law Review. In 1952, however, O’Connor couldn’t find a law firm in California willing to hire a woman as a lawyer. This led her to her first position in public service, as deputy county attorney of San Mateo County. She would later serve in all three branches of the Arizona state government: as assistant attorney general, state senator, and judge, first in trial court and then in the Court of Appeals.

Ronald Reagan appointed O’Connor an associate justice of the Supreme Court in 1981, and she was unanimously confirmed by the Senate. She served in that office for twenty-five years, until her retirement in 2006.

In her book The Majesty of the Law: Reflections of a Supreme Court Justice (Random House, 2003), she says, “My intuition and my experience persuade me that having women on the bench, and in other positions of prominence, is extremely important. The self-perception of women is informed by such examples, and by the belief of women that they, too, can achieve professional success at the highest levels.” She has contributed to or written eight other books, including the illustrated Chico (Dutton Children’s Books, 2005) and the memoir Lazy B: Growing Up on a Cattle Ranch in the American Southwest (Random House, 2002), which she cowrote with her brother H. Alan Day. Her papers from 1963 to 1988 are housed at the Library of Congress.

O’Connor has been awarded the Liberty Medal from the National Constitution Center, had the law school at Arizona State University renamed in her honor, and been inducted into the Texas Women’s Hall of Fame and the National Cowgirl Hall of Fame.

For a full list of Radcliffe Day events, please see the Radcliffe Day Schedule. Advance registration for Radcliffe Day is required by May 20, 2009. For questions, contact Jessica Obara at 617-496-0516 or jessica_obara@radcliffe.edu.

For more information, please see "Sandra Day O’Connor Named 2009 Radcliffe Institute Medalist."