Remembering Sandra Day O'Connor (1930-2023)
Posted by Gilder Lehrman Staff on Monday, 12/04/2023
On December 1, 2023, trailblazing Justice Sandra Day O’Connor died at age 93.
O’Connor became the first female US Supreme Court justice on September 25, 1981, nominated by President Ronald Reagan and sworn in by Chief Justice Warren Burger. She served for nearly twenty-five years before she stepped down from the Supreme Court on January 31, 2006.
In 2008, Sandra Day O’Connor led The History of the Judiciary, a special Gilder Lehrman Teacher Seminar in Washington, DC. We invite you to watch the full video here: “Sandra Day O’Connor: An Overview of Key Moments in the Separation of Powers and the Supreme Court.”
We also invite you to read “Sandra Day O’Connor: A Life of Action,”an essay by Meryl J. Chertoff, executive director of the Georgetown Project on State and Local Government Policy and Law, published in our online journal, History Now 15 (Spring 2008).