On This Day in History: September 25

The first woman is appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court

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Ruth Bader Ginsburg, may her memory be a blessing, said, “When I'm sometimes asked when will there be enough [women on the Supreme Court] and I say, ‘When there are nine,’ people are shocked. But there'd been nine men, and nobody’s ever raised a question about that.” This is the story of the first woman.

--On This Day in History, Shit Went Down: September 25, 1981--

Trickle-down economics can inhale a big bag of dog farts. Reagan, despite the deification of him by many on the right, was not a good president. He did do one right thing, at least, and that was to finally get a woman as an associate justice on the Supreme Court of the United States: Sandra Day O’Connor. A conservative woman, yes, but at least he finally broke the long chain of “only dudes get to do this.”

Reagan had promised to appoint a woman to the Supreme Court as part of his election campaign, and in a rare show of good faith by a politician he followed through. He announced he would nominate O’Connor in early July of 1981, giving her one day’s notice. She didn’t know she was a candidate.

Reagan wrote in his diary that he caught shit from the pro-forced-birth religious wingnuts because they believed, correctly, that she would not be on board with overturning Roe v. Wade. She said she found abortion personally repugnant but wasn’t interested in changing the law. And so of course there was a big religious shitshow over the nomination, with Jerry Falwell and others stirring up much excrement over the choice. They didn’t like her support for the Equal Rights Amendment either. Which, by the way, still has not been ratified.

Her confirmation hearing began on September 9, and for the first time it was televised. Much of it focused on the issue of abortion. O’Connor was careful not to speak out in favor of abortion rights, because ‘murica. The judiciary approved her with 17 votes in favor and one vote of “present.” With one senator absent, she was confirmed by the Senate in a vote of 99–0. On September 25, 1981, she was sworn in.

Her voting record was very conservative, at least at first. Gradually it became somewhat less so, with her becoming more of a swing vote between conservative and liberal in more contentious decisions. Still, she didn’t side against the conservative blocs all that often.

O’Connor retired in 2006 and was replaced by Samuel Alito. In 2009, President Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

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