According to the Sandra Day O'Connor Institute, 36 percent of law school students were women when she was appointed to the court.
She also inspired women to jump into the world of law. Though it would be 12 years before she was joined on the bench by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan eventually brought the number of women to have served on the court to four. "While the final chapter of my life with dementia may be trying, nothing has diminished my gratitude and deep appreciation for the countless blessings in my life." "I will continue living in Phoenix, Arizona, surrounded by dear friends and family," O'Connor wrote. Supreme Court, she spent over a decade in public office in Arizona, eventually serving as the GOP majority leader in the state Senate, the first woman to do so anywhere in the country, and then serving on the Arizona Supreme Court of Appeals. The former justice, who loved telling stories about growing up on the Lazy B Ranch in southwest Arizona before attending Stanford University and eventually settling in Phoenix, plans to remain there for the time being. "Since many people have asked about my current status and activities, I want to be open about these changes, and while I am still able, share some personal thoughts," she wrote. "Some time ago, doctors diagnosed me with the beginning stages of dementia, probably Alzheimer's disease," O'Connor wrote, explaining that the condition has progressed to the point that she can no longer participate in public life.
She was nominated to the court by President Ronald Reagan in 1981 when she was 51 years old. O'Connor retired from the Supreme Court in 2006 to take care of her husband, John, who also suffered from Alzheimer's. Retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, 88, the first woman ever to serve on the highest court in the land, has been diagnosed with dementia and is battling the early stages of what is probably Alzheimer's disease, she announced in a public letter addressed to "friends and fellow Americans" on Tuesday.
0 kommentar(er)
