The US Supreme Court's first woman justice
Witness History
BBC
4.5 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 12 April 2021
⏱️ 10 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In 1981, Sandra Day O'Connor became the first woman judge to be appointed to the US Supreme Court. She was nominated by newly-elected Republican president Ronald Reagan, who'd made the pledge to appoint a woman part of the campaign that led to his landslide victory. Justice O'Connor served for 24 years and had the decisive vote in many landmark cases. Her friend and former law clerk, Ruth McGregor, has been talking to Louise Hidalgo.
Picture: Sandra Day O'Connor is sworn in at the Senate confirmation hearing on her selection as a US Supreme Court justice, September 1981 (Credit: Keystone/Consolidated News Pictures/Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Choosing what to watch night after night the flicking through the endless |
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| 0:21.0 | And me, Natalie Cassidy, so your evenings can be a little less |
| 0:24.9 | searching and a lot more auction listen on BBC sounds. Hello and |
| 0:37.0 | welcome to the Witness History Podcast here on the BBC World Service. |
| 0:41.0 | I'm Louis Adagno, and today we go back to 1981 and the appointment |
| 0:45.6 | of the first woman to the US Supreme Court. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's friend and |
| 0:51.3 | colleague Ruth McGregor has been telling me about that time. |
| 0:55.0 | It was such an emotional moment for me for every woman in law and for women in general and I think for a lot of |
| 1:05.6 | men. It was just one of those extraordinary moments in history. |
| 1:10.3 | In July 1981 newly elected Republican President Ronald Reagan announced he was |
| 1:16.1 | nominating Arizona Judge Sandra Day O'Connor to fill a vacancy on America's top |
| 1:21.6 | court. Supreme Court appointments are for life and one of the most consequential decisions a US president will make. |
| 1:28.0 | Their rulings have lasting importance on key issues like gun control, religious freedoms, abortion. |
| 1:35.0 | And Sandra Day O'Connor later explained with typical modesty why she thought President Reagan |
| 1:40.4 | had chosen her. |
| 1:41.4 | They started looking at the list and it didn't take them |
| 1:44.2 | too long before they saw well here's a Republican woman and they sort of thought |
... |
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