Next Gen News

In 1952, O'Connor graduated near the top of her class, got married - not to Bill, but John Jay, a colleague on the Stanford Law Review - and excitedly entered the outside world. But the world wasn't ready for an ambitious, intelligent woman who could hold her own in conversation and shoot a jackrabbit at 50 yards. 'No one gave me a job,' she says. 'It was very frustrating because I had done very well in both undergraduate and law school and my male classmates weren't having any problems. No one would even speak to me.'

Brennan, Blackmun, Powell and Marshall were gone within the decade, replaced by Republican nominees Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, David Souter and Clarence Thomas, leaving White the sole 'Democratic' voice before Bill Clinton's appointments of Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Stephen Breyer in 1993 and 1994 respectively. Liberals were crying out for moderation, and in O'Connor, it seems, they got what they were asking for.

After despairing that only a third of young people could name the three branches of government, O'Connor also set up ourcourts.org used in schools as a civic educational tool, which has proved a great success.