On anniversary of first woman joining U.S. Supreme Court, watch and read this

On Sept. 25, 1981, Sandra Day O’Connor became the first woman sworn into the U.S. Supreme Court.

Ronald Reagan had committed during his 1980 presidential campaign to appoint a woman to the Supreme Court, and he followed through on the promise by nominating O’Connor, who had extensive experience in multiple branches of government.

O’Connor was a judge on the Arizona Court of Appeals, had been the first woman in the nation to be a majority leader in a state legislature and worked as an assistant state attorney general.

O’Connor spoke at Georgia Southern University in 1990, and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution covered it. You can read the article from our archives here .

O’Connor died in 2023. Judge Adalberto Jordan of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, who was one of O