First woman nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court

On August 19, 1981, President Ronald Reagan formally nominated Sandra Day O’Connor to serve as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. This nomination made her the first woman ever selected for the nation’s highest court.

Reagan had campaigned on a promise to appoint a woman to the Court, and O’Connor—then serving on the Arizona Court of Appeals with a distinguished record as a legislator and judge—was chosen after intensive vetting. At the time, the Supreme Court had been an exclusively male institution since its creation in 1789, and women remained severely underrepresented in the legal profession and in high public office.

O’Connor’s nomination was met with intense public interest, ranging from praise by women’s organizations and legal groups to criticism by some social conservatives concerned about her prior votes on reproductive rights as a state legislator. Nonetheless, the nomination signaled a turning point in American judicial history, demonstrating that gender could no longer be an implicit barrier to service on the Court.

Historically, this event opened the door for subsequent generations of women jurists, including Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson. It also underscored the strategic importance of state‑level legislative and judicial experience as a pathway to the Supreme Court, particularly for women who had long been excluded from elite law firm and federal clerkship networks.