This year marks the 41st anniversary of the moment O’Connor’s perseverance and determination paid off -- with her forever etched in American history.
And yet, she couldn’t find a job as a lawyer after graduating from law school in 1952, mainly because she was a woman,But this year marks the 41st anniversary of the moment O’Connor’s perseverance and determination paid off, with her forever etched in American history.That distinction didn’t seem feasible to be dreamt about, let alone achieved, in her years after graduating law school.
So O’Connor decided to run for a judge position in Arizona, but back then, judges in Arizona were elected, not appointed. After serving as assistant attorney general of Arizona from 1965-69 and becoming the first woman to serve as Arizona’s state majority leader in 1973, O’Connor was nominated to the Supreme Court in 1981 by then-President Ronald Reagan to replace the retiring Potter Stewart.