National Public Radio
Sandra Day O’Connor wasn’t expecting the call from President Reagan that would change her life that day in 1981.
“I was working in my office on the Arizona Court of Appeals,” she tells Fresh Air’s Terry Gross. “I was at the court in my chambers when the telephone rang. And it was the White House calling for me, and I was told that the president was waiting to speak to me. That was quite a shock, but I accepted the phone call, and it was President Reagan, and he said, ‘Sandra?’ ‘Yes, Mr. President?’ ‘Sandra, I’d like to announce your nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court tomorrow. Is that all right with you?’ Well, now, that’s kind of a shock, wouldn’t you say?”
O’Connor — who has a new book about the history of the Supreme Court called Out of Order — was sworn in by Reagan on July 7, 1981, as the first female Supreme Court justice, replacing Justice Potter Stewart. In a politically divided court, she often cast the swing vote, sometimes siding with the conservatives, as she did in Bush v. Gore, and sometimes with the liberals, as she did in upholding the McCain-Feingold campaign law and the use of affirmative action in college admissions. The term “swing vote,” however, is not one she associates with herself and her tenure on the court.
