What is Sandra Day O’Connor’s Net Worth and Salary?

Sandra Day O’Connor, the first female associate justice of the US Supreme Court, has a net worth of $8 million. She served as a judge and Republican leader of the Arizona Senate before her appointment to the Supreme Court in 1981. O’Connor often sided with the Court’s conservative bloc and wrote majority opinions in landmark cases like Hamdi v. Rumsfeld and Grutter v. Bollinger. Her net worth in 2004 was estimated to be between $3 million and $6.5 million, according to her last financial disclosure as a Supreme Court justice.

Early Life and Education

Sandra Day O’Connor was born in El Paso, Texas in 1930 and raised on a cattle ranch in Arizona. She attended the Radford School for Girls before graduating from Austin High School in 1946. O’Connor went on to attend Stanford University, where she graduated magna cum laude in 1950 with a bachelor’s degree in economics. She then obtained her law degree from Stanford Law School in 1952.

Sandra Day O’Connor’s Early Career

After graduating from law school, O’Connor became a deputy county attorney in San Mateo, California. She later worked in Germany as a civilian lawyer for the Army’s Quartermaster Corps. Upon returning to the US, she settled in Maricopa County, Arizona and volunteered in political organizations.

From 1965 to 1969, O’Connor served as assistant Attorney General of Arizona and was later appointed to fill a vacancy in the state’s Senate. In 1972, she won the election for that seat, becoming the first woman to serve as a state’s majority leader in the Senate.

In 1974, O’Connor was appointed to the Maricopa County Superior Court, where she served from 1975 to 1979. She was then promoted to the Arizona State Court of Appeals.

Sandra Day O’Connor’s Career on the US Supreme Court

In 1981, Sandra Day O’Connor became the first woman appointed to the US Supreme Court by President Ronald Reagan. She was confirmed by the Senate with a 99-0 vote, the most votes in the history of US Supreme Court confirmations. On the Court, O’Connor often joined the conservative voting bloc but was also known for being the swing vote.

O’Connor’s decisions on First Amendment Establishment Clause issues were unpredictable, but she consistently upheld the Fourth Amendment. She also deviated from conservative ideology in her support of a woman’s right to choose in abortion cases.

O’Connor was known for her case-by-case approach to issues, which some found reasonable while others criticized for lacking a coherent judicial philosophy. She was part of the majority in several major cases, including Grutter v. Bollinger, Lockyer v. Andrade, United States v. Lopez, and Bush v. Gore, which ended Al Gore’s presidential hopes.

Sandra Day O’Connor’s Retirement from the Supreme Court

In 2005, Sandra Day O’Connor retired from the Supreme Court. However, the passing of Justice Rehnquist later that year created a new vacancy on the Court, causing O’Connor to stay on until her replacement, Samuel Alito, could be confirmed in 2006. Despite retiring, O’Connor continued to hear cases in federal district courts and courts of appeals, spoke at various venues, and began teaching at the University of Arizona’s James E. Rogers College of Law. She also published various essays and a book titled “Out of Order: Stories from the History of the Supreme Court” in 2013.

Sandra Day O’Connor’s Philanthropic Endeavors

Sandra Day O’Connor founded the Sandra Day O’Connor Institute in 2009, a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting civic engagement and education. She also launched Our Courts, which later became iCivics, a website providing free lesson plans and educational games for teachers and students. Additionally, O’Connor co-chaired the National Advisory Board at the National Institute for Civil Discourse, created following the shooting of Gabby Giffords in 2011.

O’Connor was a strong advocate for Alzheimer’s awareness, as her husband suffered from the disease for close to 20 years before passing away in 2009. In 2018, she herself was diagnosed with a form of dementia.

You May Also Like