Sisters in Law

by Linda Hirshman

  111 “expectations were unrealistic”: Ginsburg to Spann, Ginsburg Archive, Library of Congress, Box 16, December 1978.

  111 deafened herself to ignore: American Trial Lawyers Association speech, Ginsburg Archive, Library of Congress, Box 13, 1977.

  111 earlier in her campaign: Duren v. Missouri, 439 U.S. 357 (1979).

  112 “explicit sex lines in the law”: Ginsburg, letter to Stephen Wiesenfeld, May 31, 1979.

  112 standing in her office: Marilyn Haft, interview with the author, June 19, 2013.

  113 “anyone changes his mind”: Sarah Weddington, interview with the author, December 5, 2012.

  113 “U.S. Court of Appeals Here”: Laura Kiernan, “Feminist Picked for U.S. Court of Appeals Here,” Washington Post, December 16, 1979.

  113 a long, anxious wait: Ginsburg, letter to Stephen Wiesenfeld, February 15, 1980.

  113 even setting a hearing: Lynn Hecht Schafran, letter to the author, October 9, 2014.

  113 “ground of my ‘militant feminism’”: Ginsburg to Lynn Hecht Schafran, Ginsburg Archive, Library of Congress, Box 19, Folder Century 1980.

  113 law partner Ira Millstein: Ginsburg confirmation hearings, http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/GPO-CHRG-GINSBURGpdfGPO-CHRG-GINSBURG-4-28-1.pdf.

  113 cases involving his companies: Gardiner Harris, “M. D. Ginsburg, 78, Dies, Lawyer and Tax Expert,” New York Times, June 27, 2010.

  CHAPTER 9: SANDRA O’CONNOR RAISES ARIZONA

  117 great time to add a woman: O’Connor papers, Arizona History and Archive, Box 1:1, letter to President Nixon, October 1, 1971.

  117 school desegregation in Brown: William H. Rehnquist, “A Random Thought on the Segregation Cases,” 1952, http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/GPO-CHRG-REHNQUISTpdfGPO-CHRG-REHNQUIST-4-16-6.pdf.

  118 told the city council: O’Connor papers, Arizona History and Archives, 3:9.

  119 “how do you think I got here?”: “10 Things You Didn’t Know about Antonin Scalia,” US News and World Report, October 2, 2007, http://www.usnews.com/news/national/articles/2007/10/02/10-things-you-didnt-know-about-justice-antonin-scalia.

  120 Booze, Beefsteaks, and Blondes: David R. Berman, Arizona Politics and Government (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1998), 50.

  120 useful economic growth: Ibid., 51–52.

  120 redistricted to favor Republicans: Joan Biskupic, Sandra Day O’Connor: How the First Woman on the Supreme Court Became Its Most Influential Justice (New York: Harper Perennial, 2006), 37.

  120 would do the same: Arizona Republic editorial, October 24, 1971, cited in Biskupic, Sandra Day O’Connor, 352.

  120 better governors: Letter from O’Connor with calculation of election predictions, undated, Lewis F. Powell, Jr. Archives, Washington and Lee University School of Law; O’Connor, letter to Barry M. Goldwater, November 1, 1988, Personal and Political Papers of Senator Barry M. Goldwater, Arizona State University Libraries Arizona Collection; Jeffrey Toobin, Too Close to Call: The Thirty-Six-Day Battle to Decide the 2000 Election (New York: Random House, 2001), 248.

  120 to contact their senators: O’Connor papers, Arizona History and Archives, 3:8.

  121 “not come out”: O’Connor to William H. Rehnquist, October 29, 1971, O’Connor papers, Arizona History and Archives, 3:10.

  121 “he was hanged”: William H. Rehnquist, “A Cat Looks at Five Kings,” O’Connor papers, Arizona History and Archives, 3:10. Rehnquist’s admiration for Judge Parker surfaced at some point years later when it could no longer do harm. William H. Rehnquist, “Isaac Parker, Bill Sykes and the Rule of Law,” University of Arkansas Little Rock Law Journal 6 (1983): 485 (defending Parker against contemporary criticisms of his administration of justice).

  121 “future of the Court”: O’Connor, letters to supporters, O’Connor papers, Arizona History and Archives, 3:10.

  121 almost without exception voted no: The exception was Weinberger v. Wiesenfeld, where he voted for Baby Jason.

  122 1972 election effort: Biskupic, Sandra Day O’Connor, 53.

  122 identity groups within the campaign: O’Connor papers, Arizona History and Archives, 2:3.

  122 boys in school, she said: Interview with Thomas Reed, head of regional Committee to Reelect the President, reported in Biskupic, Sandra Day O’Connor, 56.

  122 “I wanted enacted”: Phoenix Oral History Project, taped interview with Sandra Day O’Connor, 1980, Arizona Historical Society.

  122 approach to welfare: Nancy Maveety, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, Strategist on the Supreme Court (Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 1996), 15, citing Edward V. Heck and Paula C. Arledge, “Justice O’Connor and the First Amendment, 1981–84,” Pepperdine Law Review 13 (1986): 993–1019, and Howard Kohn, “Front and Center: Sandra Day O’Connor,” Los Angeles Times Magazine, April 18, 1993.

  123 ancient divisions survived: “Uniform Disposition of Community Property Rights at Death Act,” National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws, August 21–28, 1971, http://www.uniformlaws.org/shared/docs/disposition%20of%20community%20property%20rights/udcprda%201971.pdf.

  123 injury of a child: Schafran testimony at confirmation hearings, http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/GPO-CHRG-OCONNORpdfGPO-CHRG-OCONNOR-4-24-2.pdf and statutes cited at Schafran notes 2 and 3. The Arizona Republic specifically credits O’Connor with fighting efforts to water down the equalizing initiative, May 4, 1973, http://www.newspapers.com/image/8349961/.

  123 total personal income of the state: O’Connor papers, Arizona History and Archives, 5:1, 5:8.

  123 “similar action in other states”: Personal and Political Papers of Senator Barry M. Goldwater, Arizona State University Libraries Arizona Collection, correspondence, O’Connor file.

  123 Majority Leader Burton Barr: “Arizona’s Expenditure and Tax Limitation Proposal: An Analysis of Proposition 106,” Arizona State University Papers in Public Administration, 1974, O’Connor papers, Arizona History and Archives, 5:2.

  123 Trunk ’n Tusk Club: Ibid.

  124 “Miller Time”: “Justice Sandra Day O’Connor Announces Retirement after 24 Years,” Metropolitan News-Enterprise, July 5, 2005, http://www.metnews.com/articles/2005/ocon070505.htm.

  124 legislature too long: Interview, O’Connor, Arizona History Project, January 31, 1980.

  124 responded, “you could”: Biskupic, Sandra Day O’Connor, 52.

  124 “never one of the boys”: Ibid., 63, citing Kohn, “Front and Center.”

  124 ordinary criminal trials: Ibid., 64–65.

  124 human emotions and experiences: Ibid., 65.

  125 “Ogg/judicial Miller Time”: Rosenblatt interview, February 7, 2014.

  CHAPTER 10: WELCOME JUSTICE O’CONNOR

  126 married “wealthily”: Shakespeare, The Taming of the Shrew, Act I, scene 2, “Wive it wealthily,” technically.

  126 advisor to Richard Nixon: Joe Holley, “Leading Texas Republican Anne Armstrong,” Washington Post, July 31, 2008, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/20080730/AR2008073002605.html.

  126 it was Armstrong he asked: Biskupic, Sandra Day O’Connor, 56.

  126 special assistant for women: Ann Wood, “Pat Lindh Says She ‘Nags a Lot’ as Special Assistant to President,” Toledo Blade, November 17, 1975, http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1350&dat=19751117&id=BQ9PAAAAIBAJ&sjid=QgIEAAAAIBAJ&pg=7176,4753121.

  127 William O. Douglas in 1975: Janet M. Martin, The Presidency and Women: Promise, Performance, and Illusion (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2003).

  127 spice up his social life: The story of the whole trip is from John and Gail Driggs, interview with the author, January 25, 2014.

  129 his Republican opponent: Paul Rosenblatt, interview with the author, February 7, 2014. Babbitt apparently denies this; see Biskupic, Sandra Day O’Connor, 68.

  130 “these things were making”: Penny Clark, interview with the author, December 27, 2013.

  130 men the Republican: Biskupic, Sandra Day O’Connor, 70. Biskupic tells the story of O’Connor
’s nomination and confirmation in painstaking detail in chapter 5.

  130 yields social change: In 1992, Bill Clinton casually tossed off a commitment to stop the United States driving gay soldiers out of the military. Linda Hirshman, Victory: The Triumphant Gay Revolution (New York: HarperCollins, 2012), 22.

  130 campaign advisor Stuart Spencer: “Interview with Stuart Spencer,” 2005, Ronald Reagan Oral History, Miller Center, University of Virginia, http://millercenter.org/president/reagan/oralhistory/stuart-spencer.

  131 getting her on the list: Ann Carey McFeatters, Sandra Day O’Connor: Justice in the Balance (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2005), 11–12.

  131 right-to-life activists in Arizona: Goldwater to “each of the family,” Goldwater correspondence, May 14, 1980, Personal and Political Papers of Senator Barry M. Goldwater, Arizona State University Libraries Arizona Collection; Biskupic, Sandra Day O’Connor, 85.

  131 Reagan’s own hand: Biskupic, Sandra Day O’Connor, 77–78.

  132 foot in the door: “The only problem I ever had,” she told an interviewer in 1980, “was in obtaining employment initially,” from transcript of the Arizona historical society interview, 10.

  132 O’Connor’s house: McFeatters, Sandra Day O’Connor, 12–13.

  132 he told his team: Biskupic, Sandra Day O’Connor, 77.

  132 never heard of the nominee: Mike Sacks, “Women Supreme Court Justices Celebrate 30 Years since Court’s First Female,” Huffington Post, April 11, 2012, http://www.huffingtonpost.com201204/11/supremecourt-women-justices_n_1419183.html.

  133 prepare her for her hearings: Ruth McGregor, interview with the author, January 23, 2013.

  133 John Driggs got a call: John and Gail Driggs, interview with the author, January 25, 2014.

  133 her short-term memory: Biskupic, Sandra Day O’Connor, 91.

  134 advocacy of the Equal Rights Amendment: Ibid., 86–96.

  134 when there clearly was: Ibid., 84.

  134 steadfast silence: Ibid., 96–97.

  134 women and the judiciary: Lynn Hecht Schafran, “Sandra O’Connor and the Supremes,” Ms., October 1981.

  134 experience of discrimination: Virginia Kerr, “Supreme Court Justice O’Connor: The Woman Whose Word Is Law,” Ms., December 1982, 52; Margaret A. Miller, “Justice Sandra Day O’Connor: Token or Triumph from a Feminist Perspective,” Golden Gate University Law Review 15 (2010): 493–525, http://digitalcommons.law.ggu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1373&context=ggulrev.

  135 “good many problems”: Burger Memorandum to the Conference, September 22, 1981, Lewis F. Powell, Jr. Archives, Washington and Lee University School of Law.

  135 the new nominee: O’Connor, family letter, October 8, 1981.

  135 attend her ascension: Paul Rosenblatt, interview with the author, February 7, 2014.

  135 “I did not want to be the last”: “Justice Sandra Day O’Connor Visits Duke Law,” Duke Law News (website), http://law.duke.edu/features/news_oconnor/ (accessed November 18, 2014).

  136 O’Connor hates mess: Dahleen Glanton, “O’Connor Questions Court’s Decision to Take On Bush v. Gore,” Chicago Tribune, April 27, 2013, http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2013-04-27/news/ct-met-sandra-day-oconnor-edit-board-20130427_1_o-connor-bush-v-high-court.

  136 “watch over Sandra”: Mary-Audrey Weicker Mellor to Powell, July 8, 1981, Lewis F. Powell, Jr. Archives, Washington and Lee University School of Law, correspondence.

  136 apartment in the Watergate: “A Tribute to Lewis F. Powell, Jr,” Washington and Lee Law Review 56 (1999): 6, http://scholarlycommons.law.wlu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1532&context=wlulr.

  136 find her place in her notes: Ruth McGregor, interview with the author, January 23, 2013.

  136 “partly through your eyes”: O’Connor to Powell, November 15, 1982, Lewis F. Powell, Jr. Archives, Washington and Lee University School of Law.

  137 “Pebble Beach Corp and Aspen Corp.”: O’Connor to Powell, May 25, 1984, Lewis F. Powell, Jr. Archives, Washington and Lee University School of Law.

  137 would not have women as members: Lynn Hecht Schafran, testimony at the confirmation hearing, http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/GPO-CHRG-OCONNORpdfGPO-CHRG-OCONNOR-4-24-2.pdf.

  137 behavior of the PVCC: “Paradise Valley Country Club,” A People’s Guide to Maricopa County (website), May 2, 2011, http://peoplesguidetomaricopa .blogspot.com/2011/05/paradise-valley-country-club.html.

  138 could not be reached for comment: “Senators Decry ‘Racism’ of Exclusive Country Club,” Prescott Courier (Associated Press), April 3, 1990, http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=886&dat=19900803&id=bQtTAAAAIBAJ&sjid=woEDAAAAIBAJ&pg=4272,278272.

  138 And the Ginsburgs left: “Ginsburgs Say Clubs Scored Poorly in Conscience,” Orlando Sentinal (Washington Post), June 20, 1993, http://articles.orlando sentinel.com/1993-06-20/news/9306200267_1_martin-ginsburg-harvard-club-country-club.

  138 or hurt them: Ruth McGregor, Preliminary Memorandum, October 30, 1981, Lewis F. Powell, Jr. Archives, Washington and Lee University School of Law, Hogan case file.

  139 male-only draft registration: Rostker v. Goldberg, 453 U.S. 57 (1981); Michael M. v. Superior Court of Sonoma County, 450 U.S. 464 (1981).

  139 never had trouble making decisions: Stephen Gilles, interview with the author, March 28, 2014.

  140 Mississippi schools: “School Desegregation,” West’s Encyclopedia of American Law (2005), http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/School_integration.aspx.

  140 working skills such as farming: Jill Elaine Hasday, “The Principle and Practice of Women’s ‘Full Citizenship’: A Case Study of Sex-Segregated Public Education,” University of Chicago Public Law and Legal Theory Working Paper no. 35 (2002), http://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/cgi/viewcontent .cgi?article=1333&context=public_law_and_legal_theory.

  140 “drawing, painting, designing, and engraving”: Ibid.

  140 weapon against racial integration: Ibid.

  140 living room window: Birney Imes, “Joe Hogan’s Legacy,” The Dispatch, March 14, 2009, http://www.cdispatch.com/opinions/article.asp?aid=678&TRID=1&TID=.

  140 away from black men: Hasday, “Principle and Practice.”

  140 the Mississippi establishment: Wilbur Colom, e-mail to the author, November 11, 2014.

  140 “the traditional fear”: Ibid.

  141 “‘procedures in social situations’”: John Wiley to Powell, Lewis F. Powell, Jr. Archives, Washington and Lee University School of Law, Hogan folder.

  141 “benefit of unisex schools”: Powell notes on conference votes, Lewis F. Powell, Jr. Archives, Washington and Lee University School of Law, Hogan folder.

  144 is just fashion: Powell memo to file, Lewis F. Powell Jr. Archive, Washington and Lee University School of Law, Hogan folder.

  144 “proud and respected reputation”: Powell memo to Wiley, Lewis F. Powell, Jr. Archives, Washington and Lee University School of Law, Hogan folder.

  145 one or two lynchings: Avis Thomas-Lester, “A History Scarred by Lynchings,” Washington Post, July 7, 2005, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/0706AR2005070600637.html.

  145 “every other school or department”: Burger to Powell and Powell to Burger, June 22, 1982, Lewis F. Powell Jr. Archive, Washington and Lee University School of Law, Hogan folder.

  145 “the entire university”: Powell, revised draft dissent, June 25, 1982, Lewis F. Powell, Jr. Archives, Washington and Lee University School of Law, Hogan folder.

  146 get his degree: Wilbur Colom, e-mails to the author, November 11, 2014.

  146 “if the college were coed”: Ibid.

  147 the Supreme Court steps: “Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor and Chief Justice Warren Burger on Steps of Supreme Court, Washington DC,” image by Ron Bennett Photography, http://ronbennett.photoshelter.com/image/I0000Del5UB91v3M.

  147 criticism and comment: Mary Schroeder, interview with the author, February 27, 2014.

  147 determined not to fail: Darragh Johnson, �
�Sandra Day O’Connor: Well Judged,” Washington Post, March 7, 2006, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/0307AR2006030700008_2.html.

  147 “highest court in the land”: “Hoops at the Supreme Court, Literally,” Baller-in-Chief (blog), March 31, 2009, http://baller-in-chief.com/articles/hoops-at-the-supreme-court-literally/.

  147 a decade later: David Goldberg, interview with the author, November 24, 2014.

  147 two prominent judges’ associations: Biskupic, Sandra Day O’Connor, 142; Barbara Babcock, interview with the author, March 9, 2014; Alexis K. Hill, Keeping the Promise of Justice: Celebrating 25 Years of the National Association of Women Judges (Paducah, Ky.: Turner, 2003), 22.

  148 where they were: Biskupic, Sandra Day O’Connor, 142; Babcock interview.

  148 always a fast learner: Stephen Gilles, interview with the author, March 28, 2014.

  148 “Improve the Courts”: O’Connor, “What Individuals Can Do to Improve the Courts” (remarks at Commencement Address at Stanford University), June 21, 1982, Los Angeles Daily Journal, 4.

  148 “Social Responsibility”: O’Connor, “Professional Competence and Social Responsibility: Fulfilling the Vanderbilt Vision,” Vanderbilt Law Review 36 (1983): 1.

  149 “being admitted to practice”: O’Connor, “Foreword,” New England Law Review 18 (1982–83): ix.

  149 “give remarks today”: O’Connor, “Legal Education and Social Responsibility,” Fordham Law Review 53 (1985).

  150 abortion laws since the 1960s: Linda Greenhouse and Reva Siegel, eds., Before Roe v. Wade: Voices that Shaped the Abortion Debate before the Supreme Court’s Ruling (New York: Kaplan, 2010), 282.

  150 what the Court had done: for the full story of the Missouri setup, see Mike Hoey, “A Short History of the Missouri Catholic Conference 1967–2007,” http://www.mocatholic.org/wp-content/uploads201210/MCC-Short-History-1.pdf.

  150 attract Catholic Democrats: Greenhouse and Siegel, Before Roe v. Wade, 291–92.