WEBVTT - Was Sandra Day O'Connor Our Last Independent Justice? 0:00:00.240 --> 0:00:00.840 Guess what will? 0:00:00.880 --> 0:00:01.560 What's that mango? 0:00:01.800 --> 0:00:03.840 So you know, one thing I'm pretty terrible at is 0:00:03.960 --> 0:00:07.560 time management, right yep, Like I always have too many 0:00:07.560 --> 0:00:09.680 commitments to try to get too many things done and 0:00:10.039 --> 0:00:12.480 end up a little late on everything. But one of 0:00:12.480 --> 0:00:15.280 my heroes in this regard is Sandra Day O'Connor. 0:00:15.680 --> 0:00:17.480 I can't say that I knew that she was known 0:00:17.560 --> 0:00:18.920 for her time management. 0:00:19.040 --> 0:00:21.640 Yeah, she was just a force at making things happen. 0:00:21.800 --> 0:00:24.439 Like one of my favorite examples is this one time 0:00:24.480 --> 0:00:27.400 when she was in the Arizona State Legislature and this 0:00:27.560 --> 0:00:30.160 was before she was on the Supreme Court, and it 0:00:30.200 --> 0:00:33.760 needed to pass its new budget before midnight, and everyone 0:00:33.760 --> 0:00:37.159 just assumed the thing was impossible, but O'Connor, she just 0:00:37.240 --> 0:00:40.280 insisted that they'd be done by six pm, and from 0:00:40.360 --> 0:00:43.760 her perspective, there was no other option because one of 0:00:43.760 --> 0:00:45.920 her sons was about to leave for summer camp and 0:00:46.000 --> 0:00:47.920 she promised to be home to bake the cookies in 0:00:47.960 --> 0:00:49.120 time before he headed off. 0:00:49.280 --> 0:00:51.320 Oh that's pretty great. So were they successful? Did they 0:00:51.360 --> 0:00:52.360 get it pushed through in time? 0:00:52.479 --> 0:00:55.920 Yeah? Because she's amazing, Like she was just insanely diplomatic 0:00:55.960 --> 0:00:59.520 but also no nonsense and super efficient. I mean, the 0:00:59.560 --> 0:01:02.840 idea of adding unwilling sized degree and compromise feels like 0:01:02.880 --> 0:01:05.520 a force we could use right now. But the budget 0:01:05.520 --> 0:01:08.880 passed with plenty of time, and presumably Sandra's son went 0:01:08.920 --> 0:01:11.160 on to be the most popular kid at summer camp. 0:01:11.720 --> 0:01:14.600 But Santa Day O'Connor's life is a pretty amazing one, 0:01:14.640 --> 0:01:33.840 and that's what we're about to dive into. 0:01:37.400 --> 0:01:40.119 Hey, their podcast listeners, welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm 0:01:40.120 --> 0:01:41.840 Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my good 0:01:41.840 --> 0:01:43.960 friend mangesh Ha Ticketter and on the other side of 0:01:43.959 --> 0:01:48.080 the soundproof glass waving his homemade Scotus pennant. It's impressive. 0:01:48.120 --> 0:01:50.760 That's our friend and producer Tristan McNeil. I don't know 0:01:50.760 --> 0:01:52.640 if I've ever seen anyone so fired up about the 0:01:52.720 --> 0:01:53.559 judicial branch. 0:01:53.760 --> 0:01:55.720 Yeah, someone's been practicing his needle point. 0:01:56.560 --> 0:02:00.200 Well. In this case, Tristan's enthusiasm is totally warranted, because 0:02:00.200 --> 0:02:03.680 today's show us about a legal legend who's truly worth celebrating, 0:02:03.880 --> 0:02:06.760 and that's Sandra Day O'Connor. She often cast the deciding 0:02:06.840 --> 0:02:10.280 vote on all kinds of deadlock political and social issues, 0:02:10.639 --> 0:02:13.040 and whether you agree with her politics or not, there's 0:02:13.080 --> 0:02:15.960 no denying the impact O'Connor has had not just on 0:02:16.000 --> 0:02:18.560 our legal institutions, but also on the roles women serve 0:02:18.639 --> 0:02:21.560 within them. And as the first female justice, she showed 0:02:21.560 --> 0:02:23.840 the world exactly why women deserve a place on our 0:02:23.960 --> 0:02:25.000 nation's highest court. 0:02:25.320 --> 0:02:27.919 That's right. So I've been fascinated with Sandra Day for 0:02:27.960 --> 0:02:30.320 a while, and as you know, I commissioned a story 0:02:30.320 --> 0:02:32.560 on her at Mental Floss because I firmly believe more 0:02:32.600 --> 0:02:35.680 people need to know her extraordinary story. Actually, I think 0:02:35.680 --> 0:02:37.080 if I remember this spot, I wanted to pitch a 0:02:37.080 --> 0:02:40.480 TV show on her called Sandra Day O'Connor Stripmall Attorney. 0:02:40.560 --> 0:02:41.960 I don't know how that never happened. 0:02:42.480 --> 0:02:45.440 I know, I mean notorious RVG gets all this attention, 0:02:45.600 --> 0:02:48.399 but Sandra also deserves to be a folk hero, and 0:02:48.480 --> 0:02:50.680 we'll get into all of that. But since you're bringing 0:02:50.720 --> 0:02:52.800 up her biggest claim to fame, I wanted to mention 0:02:52.880 --> 0:02:56.520 the acronym O'Connor came up with for her achievements. You know, 0:02:56.600 --> 0:02:58.640 she was appointed to be the first woman on the 0:02:58.639 --> 0:03:01.560 Supreme Court in nineteen eighty one by President Reagan. But 0:03:02.080 --> 0:03:04.760 rather than spell out the title all the time, O'Connor 0:03:04.840 --> 0:03:08.000 liked to abbreviate it to FWOTSC. 0:03:09.400 --> 0:03:12.000 This kind of rolls off the telling. So was this 0:03:12.080 --> 0:03:13.480 really something she liked to go by. 0:03:13.760 --> 0:03:16.480 Yeah, she chose it herself, but it's got a good backstory. 0:03:16.680 --> 0:03:19.120 So apparently The New York Times published an article in 0:03:19.200 --> 0:03:22.679 nineteen eighty three, and it lamented is no Washington name 0:03:22.760 --> 0:03:26.800 exempt from shorthand the chief Magistrate sometimes goes by potus, 0:03:27.120 --> 0:03:29.640 the nine men who interpret them, or often the Scotis, 0:03:29.880 --> 0:03:32.480 but the people who enact them are still for better 0:03:32.560 --> 0:03:34.040 or worse Congress. 0:03:34.840 --> 0:03:36.920 I mean, I guess that's a moderately witty joke, right. 0:03:37.080 --> 0:03:40.680 No, but Saturday O'Connor had her own problem with the article. 0:03:41.000 --> 0:03:43.480 In a letter to the editor, she wrote, according to 0:03:43.520 --> 0:03:46.400 the information available to me, and which I had assumed 0:03:46.480 --> 0:03:49.920 was generally available for over two years now, Scotus has 0:03:49.960 --> 0:03:54.200 not consisted of nine men. If you have any contradictory information, 0:03:54.400 --> 0:03:56.440 I would be grateful if you would forward it, as 0:03:56.440 --> 0:04:00.040 I'm sure the Potus, the Scotis, and the undersigned the 0:04:00.240 --> 0:04:03.520 FWOTSC would be most interested in seeing that. 0:04:04.400 --> 0:04:04.800 I like that. 0:04:04.840 --> 0:04:07.120 She schooled the New York Times and coined her own 0:04:07.200 --> 0:04:08.920 nickname in one fell swoop there. 0:04:09.040 --> 0:04:11.200 Yeah, it's pretty great, But I'm guessing part of the 0:04:11.200 --> 0:04:13.200 reason she was so peeved by the article was that 0:04:13.240 --> 0:04:16.000 she'd already dealt with so many public slights by that point. 0:04:16.120 --> 0:04:16.960 Well what do you mean by that? 0:04:17.200 --> 0:04:20.880 Well, O'Connor received a staggering sixty thousand letters during her 0:04:20.880 --> 0:04:22.839 first year on the job, and while most of the 0:04:22.839 --> 0:04:26.120 correspondence was positive, she got a good amount of hate mail. 0:04:26.520 --> 0:04:29.200 Like the negative letters were generally baseless enough to brush off, 0:04:29.240 --> 0:04:32.359 and it was stuff like back to your kitchen and home, female, 0:04:32.400 --> 0:04:34.280 this is a job for men, and only he can 0:04:34.320 --> 0:04:37.680 make the rough decisions. Just such a terrible note. Another 0:04:37.680 --> 0:04:40.000 person wrote in and said being a female justice was 0:04:40.040 --> 0:04:43.479 better suited for Marxist related feminists rather than a wife 0:04:43.520 --> 0:04:47.320 and a mother who respects the psychological component of a family. 0:04:47.720 --> 0:04:49.240 I mean, the letters just poured in. 0:04:49.440 --> 0:04:51.360 Good Lord, I mean, I could see why she would 0:04:51.360 --> 0:04:53.680 have bristled at the time story, and especially after having 0:04:53.680 --> 0:04:55.520 to sit through two years of this stuff. 0:04:55.839 --> 0:04:58.560 Exactly, even though she had been handpicked by the President 0:04:58.640 --> 0:05:01.520 and was unanimously conform by the Senate, there was still 0:05:01.560 --> 0:05:04.080 this large chunk of the population that couldn't stand the 0:05:04.080 --> 0:05:06.680 thought of a woman being in such a powerful position, 0:05:07.200 --> 0:05:10.640 and actually how she was picked by Reagan was pretty fascinating. 0:05:10.920 --> 0:05:12.640 We should talk a little about that in a bit. 0:05:13.040 --> 0:05:15.400 Well, definitely, but you know, thankfully O'Connor was made of 0:05:15.480 --> 0:05:18.919 much sterner stuff than her detractors, and her childhood upbringing 0:05:19.000 --> 0:05:20.000 all but assured that. 0:05:20.640 --> 0:05:23.000 Yeah. So, for those who don't know, sandur Day was 0:05:23.040 --> 0:05:26.279 born and raised on her family's enormous cattle ranch. This 0:05:26.440 --> 0:05:28.920 was on the New Mexico Arizona border, and it's called 0:05:28.920 --> 0:05:31.680 the Lazy Bee Ranch. It's actually named after a bit 0:05:31.720 --> 0:05:34.320 of rancher LINGO. I didn't realize this before, but apparently 0:05:34.360 --> 0:05:36.520 when a letter used on the cattle brand is applied 0:05:36.560 --> 0:05:39.359 in a crooked manner, so that the letters on its side, 0:05:39.680 --> 0:05:41.760 in this case the bee, it's said to be lazy. 0:05:42.000 --> 0:05:43.560 Oh. I never knew that. I don't know how both 0:05:43.600 --> 0:05:46.160 of us admits that, because we're cattle ranchers. 0:05:45.880 --> 0:05:49.800 Right, yeah, yeah, big time cattle aficionados. But the LazyB 0:05:49.960 --> 0:05:52.280 was actually this massive piece of land. It was one 0:05:52.360 --> 0:05:55.200 hundred and sixty thousand acres or roughly two hundred and 0:05:55.200 --> 0:05:58.640 fifty square miles. And because I know you prefer to 0:05:58.720 --> 0:06:01.160 like get your measurements and really to Rhode Island. Yeah, 0:06:01.200 --> 0:06:03.560 it did the math, and the rash breaks down to 0:06:03.600 --> 0:06:05.520 about one fifth the size of Rhode Island. 0:06:06.000 --> 0:06:08.000 I really appreciate you doing the math for me on 0:06:08.000 --> 0:06:09.640 that one. But you know, we were talking about this 0:06:09.680 --> 0:06:12.160 a little earlier, and just because the Day family had 0:06:12.240 --> 0:06:14.760 so much land, that doesn't mean they were living well. 0:06:15.040 --> 0:06:17.000 In fact, the property, which had been passed down for 0:06:17.040 --> 0:06:19.760 a couple of generations, it really wasn't worth all that 0:06:19.880 --> 0:06:22.440 much when Sanders dad inherited it. It was a one 0:06:22.480 --> 0:06:25.599 bedroom house that they lived in there, didn't have electricity, 0:06:25.680 --> 0:06:29.520 didn't have running water. They're basically scraping together enough income 0:06:29.640 --> 0:06:32.920 just to survive in this constant struggle there. But the 0:06:32.920 --> 0:06:36.679 family had an unrelenting work ethic, so they'd repair wells 0:06:36.760 --> 0:06:39.560 and raise cattle for slaughter. And the really crazy thing 0:06:39.600 --> 0:06:42.200 is that with all that acreage and about a thousand 0:06:42.240 --> 0:06:44.920 head of cattle to look after, the Day family kept 0:06:44.920 --> 0:06:48.520 this ridiculously tiny staff on hand to oversee it. I 0:06:48.520 --> 0:06:51.359 think there were just like five full time employees year round, 0:06:51.400 --> 0:06:53.880 and another few that came on for the big roundup, 0:06:53.920 --> 0:06:55.840 so that happened each spring and fall. So it was 0:06:55.880 --> 0:06:58.400 a really really small crew, I know, for a lot 0:06:58.400 --> 0:07:00.600 of land, which is probably why say had to help 0:07:00.640 --> 0:07:03.200 out so much herself. I mean, she grew up around 0:07:03.240 --> 0:07:06.760 literal cowboys, and at a young age she was branding cattle, 0:07:06.880 --> 0:07:10.640 driving tractors, and even warding off coyotes with her trusty 0:07:10.720 --> 0:07:13.640 twenty two caliber rifle. I mean, this is exactly the 0:07:13.680 --> 0:07:16.239 childhood that you expect from any Supreme Court justice. 0:07:16.360 --> 0:07:21.040 I know, well not at all, but the hardscrabvel lifestyle 0:07:21.080 --> 0:07:24.040 did teach Sandra all kinds of important life lessons. For example, 0:07:24.120 --> 0:07:27.080 there was one ranch hand in particular who she credits 0:07:27.080 --> 0:07:29.640 for some of the early lessons in fairness and empathy. 0:07:30.200 --> 0:07:33.320 His name was Raphael Estrada, and he's got an amazing 0:07:33.320 --> 0:07:36.280 story too. He was this illiterate Mexican American who'd worked 0:07:36.280 --> 0:07:38.520 for the family his whole life, and he grew so 0:07:38.680 --> 0:07:41.960 adept at ranching that he could actually identify almost every 0:07:42.040 --> 0:07:44.840 cow on the ranch just by a look. But Sandra 0:07:44.960 --> 0:07:47.200 later wrote of him, he knew he was very good 0:07:47.240 --> 0:07:49.520 at what he did, and he demanded a high standard 0:07:49.520 --> 0:07:51.920 from those around him, but he was dealt with what 0:07:51.960 --> 0:07:54.280 many would say was a poor hand in life. He 0:07:54.360 --> 0:07:58.880 was small, crippled, fatherless, a minority race in his birthland, 0:07:59.160 --> 0:08:01.560 but he played the he was dealt like a master 0:08:02.200 --> 0:08:04.640 from rostas we learned the contentment of doing the best 0:08:04.680 --> 0:08:05.720 you can with what you have. 0:08:06.360 --> 0:08:08.240 Yeah, and you know, you hear a lot about her 0:08:08.240 --> 0:08:10.960 practicality on the bench coming from her lessons that she 0:08:11.120 --> 0:08:13.520 learned back on the farm, and it was really a 0:08:13.560 --> 0:08:15.840 deep part of who she was. But I know her 0:08:15.840 --> 0:08:19.080 father also imparted some tough wisdom in those early years. 0:08:19.120 --> 0:08:21.520 You know, there's that great story I think we've talked 0:08:21.520 --> 0:08:23.960 about this before where she learned, you know, how to 0:08:24.000 --> 0:08:25.480 change a tire when she got a flat. 0:08:25.680 --> 0:08:27.680 Yeah, you should tell the listeners because it's such a 0:08:27.720 --> 0:08:29.400 great story and it's pretty cinematic. 0:08:29.880 --> 0:08:32.600 Right. So this was back when Sandra was just about fifteen, 0:08:32.679 --> 0:08:35.520 I think, and this was in nineteen forty five. So 0:08:35.520 --> 0:08:38.439 she'd offered to bring lunch to her father and his ranchands. 0:08:38.520 --> 0:08:40.559 They were busy branding cattle on the far end of 0:08:40.600 --> 0:08:43.840 the property, so early that hot summer morning, she heads 0:08:43.840 --> 0:08:46.079 out in their old Chevy pickup and heads out to 0:08:46.120 --> 0:08:49.400 the desert by herself. She's cruising along this remote dirt 0:08:49.480 --> 0:08:52.480 road and she suddenly gets a flat tire. Now, she's 0:08:52.520 --> 0:08:55.920 never changed a flat before, but she understands the basics. 0:08:56.160 --> 0:08:58.840 So she spends the next hour stranded in the heat. 0:08:59.040 --> 0:09:01.600 She figures out how to the car up, starts wrestling 0:09:01.600 --> 0:09:05.200 with the rusty lugnuts, but the things won't budge. She 0:09:05.280 --> 0:09:07.680 starts to panic for a minute because it's almost lunchtime 0:09:07.720 --> 0:09:09.960 and everybody is counting on her to get there with 0:09:10.040 --> 0:09:12.679 the food. Then she fits the wrench around each of 0:09:12.720 --> 0:09:15.160 the nuts and starts jumping on it with all her 0:09:15.160 --> 0:09:18.440 weight until finally the rust gives way and she manages 0:09:18.480 --> 0:09:19.959 to get the tire changed. 0:09:20.320 --> 0:09:22.760 So I mean, it sounds like the success story and 0:09:22.840 --> 0:09:25.000 this lesson in perseverance. 0:09:24.600 --> 0:09:27.600 Exactly, and that's no doubt how Sander viewed it. In fact, 0:09:27.640 --> 0:09:30.480 she proudly explained the whole story when she finally made 0:09:30.480 --> 0:09:32.679 it to where the crew was working. You know, she'd 0:09:32.679 --> 0:09:34.959 gotten up early that morning but then got stranded in 0:09:35.040 --> 0:09:37.400 the middle of nowhere with this flat tire, bunch of 0:09:37.480 --> 0:09:41.480 rusted lug nuts, but which she'd arrived late, well after lunchtime. 0:09:41.480 --> 0:09:44.280 So her father didn't share any of her sense of victory. 0:09:44.600 --> 0:09:46.840 He just kind of balled her out, saying, you should 0:09:46.880 --> 0:09:49.600 have started a lot earlier. You need to expect anything 0:09:49.640 --> 0:09:50.320 out there. 0:09:50.440 --> 0:09:51.960 Which he really takes to heart. 0:09:52.000 --> 0:09:54.920 Right Well, Yes, Sander wrote of the experience later on, 0:09:55.040 --> 0:09:57.280 She said, I had expected a word of praise for 0:09:57.400 --> 0:10:00.120 changing the tire, But to the contrary I realized is 0:10:00.160 --> 0:10:03.320 that the only thing was expected an on time lunch, 0:10:03.600 --> 0:10:05.160 no excuses accepted. 0:10:05.760 --> 0:10:08.439 And that story sounds like a folksy story a politician 0:10:08.480 --> 0:10:10.800 would sell you, but you can actually see how it 0:10:10.880 --> 0:10:13.400 made her work twice as hard and be prepared for 0:10:13.440 --> 0:10:16.160 any situation. I know that when ken Starr went to 0:10:16.240 --> 0:10:18.560 vetter for the Supreme Court, this was when she was 0:10:18.600 --> 0:10:21.040 just a nominee. He mentioned that it was like she'd 0:10:21.080 --> 0:10:23.760 been preparing for the Supreme Court all her life. At 0:10:23.760 --> 0:10:26.839 the time, people assumed Sandra was this lightweight and that 0:10:26.880 --> 0:10:28.760 she was only on the list because Reagan had made 0:10:28.760 --> 0:10:30.760 this campaign promise that he'd add a woman to the 0:10:30.800 --> 0:10:33.280 Supreme Court if he had the chance. But when Star 0:10:33.440 --> 0:10:35.959 met her and she really did have this non traditional 0:10:36.040 --> 0:10:38.640 path to the Supreme Court, he was floored by her 0:10:38.679 --> 0:10:41.679 depth of knowledge. But let's get back to the ranch. 0:10:42.200 --> 0:10:44.960 While her dad was tough, he clearly had this softer 0:10:45.040 --> 0:10:47.920 side as well, and he and Sandra's mother recognized how 0:10:47.960 --> 0:10:50.040 smart she was and knew that she couldn't get the 0:10:50.040 --> 0:10:53.000 formal education she deserved on the ranch. I mean, she 0:10:53.160 --> 0:10:55.520 kind of always lived in two worlds. There's a great 0:10:55.559 --> 0:10:57.760 line in that mental Flaw story where her days could 0:10:57.800 --> 0:11:00.880 start with her reading Nancy drew lying on her, and 0:11:01.080 --> 0:11:03.640 with her having to mercy kill a calf. It's sort 0:11:03.640 --> 0:11:06.960 of incredible. But her double life grew even more extreme 0:11:07.000 --> 0:11:08.960 when her parents sent her to live with her grandmother 0:11:09.000 --> 0:11:11.480 in El Paso, Texas, and that's where she attended this 0:11:11.559 --> 0:11:14.920 all girls private school for her primary education. It gave 0:11:14.920 --> 0:11:17.240 her this view into high society and it kind of 0:11:17.240 --> 0:11:19.280 put a new polish on her. She learned how to 0:11:19.440 --> 0:11:22.880 dress and charm people and all these various social graces 0:11:22.920 --> 0:11:25.440 in addition to giving her much better access to studies. 0:11:25.920 --> 0:11:28.520 But then, just a year after the tire incident, Sandra 0:11:28.640 --> 0:11:30.720 was allowed to skip two grades and go straight to 0:11:30.720 --> 0:11:33.000 Stanford University at the age of sixteen. 0:11:33.320 --> 0:11:35.720 Wow. I mean again, it just points to how bright 0:11:35.800 --> 0:11:37.800 she is. I feel like the college bit of her 0:11:37.840 --> 0:11:40.760 story does get glossed over sometimes. I was looking a 0:11:40.760 --> 0:11:42.960 little bit deeper into it in our research here and 0:11:43.000 --> 0:11:46.400 it's amazing. I mean, there's these two incredibly formative things 0:11:46.400 --> 0:11:49.320 that happened to her while she's there at Stanford. Now, 0:11:49.360 --> 0:11:51.480 the first was when she met a law professor named 0:11:51.480 --> 0:11:53.840 Harry Rathman. And he was one of those professors who 0:11:53.880 --> 0:11:56.960 would hold these informal gatherings at his home every Sunday. 0:11:57.240 --> 0:11:59.520 He invites students to talk about the meaning of life 0:11:59.559 --> 0:12:02.560 and all these other high minded matters. You might remember 0:12:02.559 --> 0:12:05.559 that Sandra had enrolled as an econ major. I didn't, 0:12:05.800 --> 0:12:08.240 but it was her encounters with Rathmann that convinced her 0:12:08.280 --> 0:12:11.960 to change course. The professor would make these forceful arguments 0:12:11.960 --> 0:12:14.880 about civic duty and the satisfaction that comes from serving 0:12:14.920 --> 0:12:17.640 your community. And for Sandra, who'd grown up as this 0:12:17.760 --> 0:12:22.080 independent cowgirl some like twenty five miles from her closest neighbor, 0:12:22.360 --> 0:12:24.679 it really did strike a chord with her, so much 0:12:24.720 --> 0:12:26.480 so that she decided to go to law school and 0:12:26.520 --> 0:12:28.559 devote her life to public service. 0:12:29.000 --> 0:12:31.920 I mean, it always comes down to a great professor, right, Yeah. 0:12:31.920 --> 0:12:34.400 But okay, so what's the other life changing thing that 0:12:34.440 --> 0:12:35.880 happens while Sander's in college. 0:12:36.280 --> 0:12:39.160 Well after she graduated at the age of twenty Sandra 0:12:39.240 --> 0:12:42.440 started attending Stanford Law School, which is actually where she 0:12:42.520 --> 0:12:45.080 met the love of her life and future husband, and 0:12:45.080 --> 0:12:48.000 that was John J. O'Connor, and their courtship story is 0:12:48.000 --> 0:12:50.240 actually pretty cute, so I'm gonna share it here. So 0:12:50.320 --> 0:12:52.640 John was a fellow law student and he and Sander 0:12:52.679 --> 0:12:55.280 were assigned a project to work on together, and they 0:12:55.280 --> 0:12:58.040 weren't quite finished when the library was closing up one night, 0:12:58.120 --> 0:13:00.600 so John suggested they finish their work over a beer 0:13:00.640 --> 0:13:02.720 at a little place he knew just down the road. 0:13:03.240 --> 0:13:05.800 And apparently they really hit it off there, because you know, 0:13:05.840 --> 0:13:07.880 not only did they do the same thing the next night, 0:13:08.160 --> 0:13:10.920 they actually went out for a solid forty nights in 0:13:10.960 --> 0:13:11.400 a row. 0:13:12.320 --> 0:13:14.960 I never heard that. Did she ever take him home 0:13:15.000 --> 0:13:15.440 to the ranch? 0:13:15.640 --> 0:13:18.040 Oh? She did, and it was just as awkward as 0:13:18.040 --> 0:13:20.840 you might expect. So the first time John came to 0:13:20.880 --> 0:13:24.720 meet Sandra's parents, her father was actually branding some calves, 0:13:25.160 --> 0:13:27.160 so they went down to the corral so John could 0:13:27.200 --> 0:13:29.680 say hello to him. And now the thing to know 0:13:29.800 --> 0:13:33.199 is that when male calves are branded, the ranchers generally 0:13:33.320 --> 0:13:34.560 castrate them as well. 0:13:34.640 --> 0:13:37.000 Oh no, so I think I know where this is going. 0:13:37.160 --> 0:13:39.200 I'm willing to bet that you do not know where 0:13:39.240 --> 0:13:41.600 this is going. In fact, I'm just gonna let Sandra 0:13:41.679 --> 0:13:44.640 tell the story herself. So, according to her, when she 0:13:44.720 --> 0:13:48.079 and John arrived, quote, my father put a few testicles 0:13:48.120 --> 0:13:50.400 on some bailing wire and put them in a branding fire, 0:13:50.440 --> 0:13:52.560 and he said, I'll just fix a few of these 0:13:52.640 --> 0:13:55.280 for you, John, And John, to his credit, took the 0:13:55.320 --> 0:13:57.920 things off the wire, popped him in his mouth and said, 0:13:58.520 --> 0:14:00.480 very good, mister day, very good. 0:14:00.559 --> 0:14:02.400 Oh and no, sauce, I. 0:14:02.400 --> 0:14:04.840 Would be so far down the street by that. But 0:14:05.400 --> 0:14:08.520 that is real love. And you know, Sandra obviously knew 0:14:08.559 --> 0:14:10.880 John was a keeper at that point, so it's really 0:14:10.920 --> 0:14:13.520 no surprise that they got married soon after. And that 0:14:13.559 --> 0:14:16.040 was in nineteen fifty two, which happened to be the 0:14:16.040 --> 0:14:17.880 same year they graduated from law school. 0:14:18.320 --> 0:14:20.200 All right, well, what do you say we move off 0:14:20.280 --> 0:14:22.520 the ranch and talk about Sandra's early law career. 0:14:22.840 --> 0:14:34.520 That sounds great, but first let's take a quick break. 0:14:38.640 --> 0:14:40.640 You're listening to part Time Genius and we're talking about 0:14:40.640 --> 0:14:43.720 the life and times of Sandra Day O'Connor. All right, mango, 0:14:43.760 --> 0:14:46.160 so I know we're leaving the Lazy b ranch behind, 0:14:46.200 --> 0:14:48.560 but before we do that, I wanted to share one 0:14:48.640 --> 0:14:51.480 last reflection on it from the woman herself, and this 0:14:51.560 --> 0:14:53.600 is from a part in her memoir where she's recounting 0:14:53.600 --> 0:14:55.400 what it was like to join her father and the 0:14:55.480 --> 0:14:57.720 ranch crew on these roundups. You know, they had to 0:14:57.760 --> 0:15:00.760 steer cattle sleeping out on the open range alongside a 0:15:00.760 --> 0:15:04.240 bunch of cowboys. So Sander writes, it had been an 0:15:04.280 --> 0:15:07.640 all male domain. Changing it to accommodate a female was 0:15:07.720 --> 0:15:11.160 probably my first initiation into joining an all men's club, 0:15:11.480 --> 0:15:14.120 something I did more than once in my life. After 0:15:14.160 --> 0:15:16.680 the cowboys understood that a girl could hold up her end, 0:15:17.080 --> 0:15:19.680 it was much easier for my sister, my niece, and 0:15:19.720 --> 0:15:22.280 the other girls and young women who followed to be 0:15:22.400 --> 0:15:24.240 accepted in that rough and tumble world. 0:15:24.640 --> 0:15:26.760 Yeah, it's amazing to think she was really breaking down 0:15:26.840 --> 0:15:29.720 barriers for women from the beginning. And it's definitely true 0:15:29.800 --> 0:15:31.520 what she says about having to fight her way into 0:15:31.560 --> 0:15:33.920 the boys clubs. I mean, Sandra was one of the 0:15:33.960 --> 0:15:36.600 top students in her class at law school, and by 0:15:36.600 --> 0:15:38.680 the way, she actually ranked third in her class, with 0:15:38.720 --> 0:15:42.160 the top spot going to another future Scotus member, William Rehnquist. 0:15:42.640 --> 0:15:45.560 But when she graduated, not a single law firm was 0:15:45.600 --> 0:15:48.360 willing to hire her. In fact, when she did finally 0:15:48.480 --> 0:15:51.080 land an interview with a California law firm, it was 0:15:51.160 --> 0:15:54.080 only because of a favor of friend's father had given her. 0:15:54.440 --> 0:15:56.360 And is that how she got her first job as 0:15:56.360 --> 0:15:56.800 a lawyer. 0:15:57.000 --> 0:15:59.000 No, that's not even the case. So when she went 0:15:59.040 --> 0:16:01.240 to la for the interview, the firm made it clear 0:16:01.320 --> 0:16:04.080 that they'd never hired a female lawyer before and they 0:16:04.080 --> 0:16:06.840 didn't intend to start, And instead they asked her how 0:16:06.880 --> 0:16:08.800 well she could type and offered to bring her on 0:16:08.840 --> 0:16:09.920 as a legal secretary. 0:16:10.040 --> 0:16:13.040 No way. Yeah, it's really crazy to think about how 0:16:13.040 --> 0:16:15.560 recent a change it is to have women practicing law. 0:16:15.880 --> 0:16:18.480 It only started happening in the US around World War Two, 0:16:18.920 --> 0:16:21.800 like so many other fields, where women started taking these 0:16:21.880 --> 0:16:25.120 jobs because the men were overseas. But even then the 0:16:25.200 --> 0:16:28.480 change was exceedingly slow. Even by the time Sandra was 0:16:28.520 --> 0:16:31.760 looking for work in the early nineteen fifties, only three 0:16:31.880 --> 0:16:34.920 percent of the country's lawyers were women. The number has 0:16:34.960 --> 0:16:37.240 risen a great deal since then, obviously thanks in no 0:16:37.360 --> 0:16:40.280 small part, of course, to Sandra, but even now only 0:16:40.400 --> 0:16:43.160 thirty three percent of the lawyers are female. 0:16:42.800 --> 0:16:45.240 Which is staggering right, like I would imagine it was 0:16:45.280 --> 0:16:47.600 much higher. But let's get back to Sandra's job hunt. 0:16:47.640 --> 0:16:50.080 So the turning point came when she caught wind of 0:16:50.120 --> 0:16:52.400 a firm in San Mateo that actually had a female 0:16:52.480 --> 0:16:54.800 lawyer on staff. So she went to the office and 0:16:54.840 --> 0:16:57.560 asked for a job, but the county attorney there said 0:16:57.560 --> 0:16:59.320 they didn't have the budget for a new hire or 0:16:59.440 --> 0:17:01.920 even a place for her to work. But Sandra knew 0:17:01.960 --> 0:17:03.440 this was the only place where she'd be able to 0:17:03.440 --> 0:17:05.600 get a foot in the door, so she actually convinced 0:17:05.640 --> 0:17:07.560 the firm to take her on by agreeing to work 0:17:07.600 --> 0:17:10.600 for free and to share desk space with the secretary. 0:17:11.080 --> 0:17:13.480 I mean, you've got to admire her passion, but what 0:17:13.560 --> 0:17:14.440 a raw deal. 0:17:14.880 --> 0:17:17.320 Yeah, and things didn't really improve on the career front 0:17:17.359 --> 0:17:20.200 for a while, so after marrying John, they moved to Phoenix, 0:17:20.240 --> 0:17:22.800 where Sandra opened a little shop. It was this walk 0:17:22.840 --> 0:17:24.960 in practice. It was in the Strip mall. As I 0:17:25.040 --> 0:17:28.240 mentioned before, it was sort of like a better call 0:17:28.440 --> 0:17:31.120 Saul situation, where people would wander in to ask off 0:17:31.200 --> 0:17:33.919 end questions about I don't know, like the legality of 0:17:33.960 --> 0:17:36.840 something their landlord did, or how to beat a speeding ticket. 0:17:37.240 --> 0:17:39.760 And it's really kind of upsetting when you think about, like, 0:17:40.000 --> 0:17:43.119 she's this incredible legal mind, third in her class. She 0:17:43.480 --> 0:17:46.280 edits the law review at Stanford. You know, she keeps 0:17:46.320 --> 0:17:48.359 up with this for a few years, all while getting 0:17:48.359 --> 0:17:50.880 more and more involved with local Republican politics. 0:17:51.200 --> 0:17:53.679 Yeah, and it's around this time that Sandra actually steps 0:17:53.680 --> 0:17:55.679 away from her practice for I think it was like 0:17:55.760 --> 0:17:58.159 five or six years a stay at home mom for 0:17:58.200 --> 0:18:01.480 her three boys. And I'd say stay at home, but honestly, 0:18:01.560 --> 0:18:04.840 Sanders stayed so busy with all these various volunteer, civic 0:18:04.880 --> 0:18:08.359 and community groups that it's pretty much a misnomer to 0:18:08.400 --> 0:18:10.320 say stay at home. I mean, listen to the rap 0:18:10.359 --> 0:18:12.520 sheet that I was looking at here, it says O'Connor 0:18:12.560 --> 0:18:15.199 served on the Governor's Committee on Marriage and Family, as 0:18:15.240 --> 0:18:19.040 an administrative assistant at the Arizona State Hospital. She volunteered 0:18:19.040 --> 0:18:21.480