December 1, 2023 • 37 mins
Reposting this classic ep in honor of Sandra Day O'Connor. From her hardscrabble upbringing on cattle ranch (where she tamed a bobcat!) to her incredible sway on the Supreme Court, Will and Mango explore Justice O'Connor's incredible life, the glass ceilings she broke through along the way, and what made her both such a practical and a fiercely independent voice on the court.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Guess what will?
Speaker 2 (00:00):
What's that mango?
Speaker 1 (00:01):
So you know, one thing I'm pretty terrible at is
time management, right yep, Like I always have too many
commitments to try to get too many things done and
end up a little late on everything. But one of
my heroes in this regard is Sandra Day O'Connor.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
I can't say that I knew that she was known
for her time management.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Yeah, she was just a force at making things happen.
Like one of my favorite examples is this one time
when she was in the Arizona State Legislature and this
was before she was on the Supreme Court, and it
needed to pass its new budget before midnight, and everyone
just assumed the thing was impossible, but O'Connor, she just
insisted that they'd be done by six pm, and from
(00:40):
her perspective, there was no other option because one of
her sons was about to leave for summer camp and
she promised to be home to bake the cookies in
time before he headed off.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
Oh that's pretty great. So were they successful? Did they
get it pushed through in time?
Speaker 1 (00:52):
Yeah? Because she's amazing, Like she was just insanely diplomatic
but also no nonsense and super efficient. I mean, the
idea of adding unwilling sized degree and compromise feels like
a force we could use right now. But the budget
passed with plenty of time, and presumably Sandra's son went
on to be the most popular kid at summer camp.
But Santa Day O'Connor's life is a pretty amazing one,
(01:14):
and that's what we're about to dive into.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Hey, their podcast listeners, welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm
Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my good
friend mangesh Ha Ticketter and on the other side of
the soundproof glass waving his homemade Scotus pennant. It's impressive.
That's our friend and producer Tristan McNeil. I don't know
if I've ever seen anyone so fired up about the
judicial branch.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
Yeah, someone's been practicing his needle point.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Well. In this case, Tristan's enthusiasm is totally warranted, because
today's show us about a legal legend who's truly worth celebrating,
and that's Sandra Day O'Connor. She often cast the deciding
vote on all kinds of deadlock political and social issues,
and whether you agree with her politics or not, there's
no denying the impact O'Connor has had not just on
our legal institutions, but also on the roles women serve
(02:18):
within them. And as the first female justice, she showed
the world exactly why women deserve a place on our
nation's highest court.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
That's right. So I've been fascinated with Sandra Day for
a while, and as you know, I commissioned a story
on her at Mental Floss because I firmly believe more
people need to know her extraordinary story. Actually, I think
if I remember this spot, I wanted to pitch a
TV show on her called Sandra Day O'Connor Stripmall Attorney.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
I don't know how that never happened.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
I know, I mean notorious RVG gets all this attention,
but Sandra also deserves to be a folk hero, and
we'll get into all of that. But since you're bringing
up her biggest claim to fame, I wanted to mention
the acronym O'Connor came up with for her achievements. You know,
she was appointed to be the first woman on the
Supreme Court in nineteen eighty one by President Reagan. But
rather than spell out the title all the time, O'Connor
(03:04):
liked to abbreviate it to FWOTSC.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
This kind of rolls off the telling. So was this
really something she liked to go by.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
Yeah, she chose it herself, but it's got a good backstory.
So apparently The New York Times published an article in
nineteen eighty three, and it lamented is no Washington name
exempt from shorthand the chief Magistrate sometimes goes by potus,
the nine men who interpret them, or often the Scotis,
but the people who enact them are still for better
or worse Congress.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
I mean, I guess that's a moderately witty joke, right.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
No, but Saturday O'Connor had her own problem with the article.
In a letter to the editor, she wrote, according to
the information available to me, and which I had assumed
was generally available for over two years now, Scotus has
not consisted of nine men. If you have any contradictory information,
I would be grateful if you would forward it, as
I'm sure the Potus, the Scotis, and the undersigned the
(04:00):
FWOTSC would be most interested in seeing that.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
I like that.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
She schooled the New York Times and coined her own
nickname in one fell swoop there.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
Yeah, it's pretty great, But I'm guessing part of the
reason she was so peeved by the article was that
she'd already dealt with so many public slights by that point.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
Well what do you mean by that?
Speaker 1 (04:17):
Well, O'Connor received a staggering sixty thousand letters during her
first year on the job, and while most of the
correspondence was positive, she got a good amount of hate mail.
Like the negative letters were generally baseless enough to brush off,
and it was stuff like back to your kitchen and home, female,
this is a job for men, and only he can
make the rough decisions. Just such a terrible note. Another
(04:37):
person wrote in and said being a female justice was
better suited for Marxist related feminists rather than a wife
and a mother who respects the psychological component of a family.
I mean, the letters just poured in.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
Good Lord, I mean, I could see why she would
have bristled at the time story, and especially after having
to sit through two years of this stuff.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
Exactly, even though she had been handpicked by the President
and was unanimously conform by the Senate, there was still
this large chunk of the population that couldn't stand the
thought of a woman being in such a powerful position,
and actually how she was picked by Reagan was pretty fascinating.
We should talk a little about that in a bit.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
Well, definitely, but you know, thankfully O'Connor was made of
much sterner stuff than her detractors, and her childhood upbringing
all but assured that.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
Yeah. So, for those who don't know, sandur Day was
born and raised on her family's enormous cattle ranch. This
was on the New Mexico Arizona border, and it's called
the Lazy Bee Ranch. It's actually named after a bit
of rancher LINGO. I didn't realize this before, but apparently
when a letter used on the cattle brand is applied
in a crooked manner, so that the letters on its side,
in this case the bee, it's said to be lazy.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
Oh. I never knew that. I don't know how both
of us admits that, because we're cattle ranchers.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
Right, yeah, yeah, big time cattle aficionados. But the LazyB
was actually this massive piece of land. It was one
hundred and sixty thousand acres or roughly two hundred and
fifty square miles. And because I know you prefer to
like get your measurements and really to Rhode Island. Yeah,
it did the math, and the rash breaks down to
about one fifth the size of Rhode Island.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
I really appreciate you doing the math for me on
that one. But you know, we were talking about this
a little earlier, and just because the Day family had
so much land, that doesn't mean they were living well.
In fact, the property, which had been passed down for
a couple of generations, it really wasn't worth all that
much when Sanders dad inherited it. It was a one
bedroom house that they lived in there, didn't have electricity,
didn't have running water. They're basically scraping together enough income
(06:29):
just to survive in this constant struggle there. But the
family had an unrelenting work ethic, so they'd repair wells
and raise cattle for slaughter. And the really crazy thing
is that with all that acreage and about a thousand
head of cattle to look after, the Day family kept
this ridiculously tiny staff on hand to oversee it. I
think there were just like five full time employees year round,
(06:51):
and another few that came on for the big roundup,
so that happened each spring and fall. So it was
a really really small crew, I know, for a lot
of land, which is probably why say had to help
out so much herself. I mean, she grew up around
literal cowboys, and at a young age she was branding cattle,
driving tractors, and even warding off coyotes with her trusty
twenty two caliber rifle. I mean, this is exactly the
(07:13):
childhood that you expect from any Supreme Court justice.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
I know, well not at all, but the hardscrabvel lifestyle
did teach Sandra all kinds of important life lessons. For example,
there was one ranch hand in particular who she credits
for some of the early lessons in fairness and empathy.
His name was Raphael Estrada, and he's got an amazing
story too. He was this illiterate Mexican American who'd worked
for the family his whole life, and he grew so
(07:38):
adept at ranching that he could actually identify almost every
cow on the ranch just by a look. But Sandra
later wrote of him, he knew he was very good
at what he did, and he demanded a high standard
from those around him, but he was dealt with what
many would say was a poor hand in life. He
was small, crippled, fatherless, a minority race in his birthland,
(07:59):
but he played the he was dealt like a master
from rostas we learned the contentment of doing the best
you can with what you have.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
Yeah, and you know, you hear a lot about her
practicality on the bench coming from her lessons that she
learned back on the farm, and it was really a
deep part of who she was. But I know her
father also imparted some tough wisdom in those early years.
You know, there's that great story I think we've talked
about this before where she learned, you know, how to
change a tire when she got a flat.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
Yeah, you should tell the listeners because it's such a
great story and it's pretty cinematic.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
Right. So this was back when Sandra was just about fifteen,
I think, and this was in nineteen forty five. So
she'd offered to bring lunch to her father and his ranchands.
They were busy branding cattle on the far end of
the property, so early that hot summer morning, she heads
out in their old Chevy pickup and heads out to
the desert by herself. She's cruising along this remote dirt
road and she suddenly gets a flat tire. Now, she's
(08:52):
never changed a flat before, but she understands the basics.
So she spends the next hour stranded in the heat.
She figures out how to the car up, starts wrestling
with the rusty lugnuts, but the things won't budge. She
starts to panic for a minute because it's almost lunchtime
and everybody is counting on her to get there with
the food. Then she fits the wrench around each of
(09:12):
the nuts and starts jumping on it with all her
weight until finally the rust gives way and she manages
to get the tire changed.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
So I mean, it sounds like the success story and
this lesson in perseverance.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
Exactly, and that's no doubt how Sander viewed it. In fact,
she proudly explained the whole story when she finally made
it to where the crew was working. You know, she'd
gotten up early that morning but then got stranded in
the middle of nowhere with this flat tire, bunch of
rusted lug nuts, but which she'd arrived late, well after lunchtime.
So her father didn't share any of her sense of victory.
He just kind of balled her out, saying, you should
(09:46):
have started a lot earlier. You need to expect anything
out there.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
Which he really takes to heart.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
Right Well, Yes, Sander wrote of the experience later on,
She said, I had expected a word of praise for
changing the tire, But to the contrary I realized is
that the only thing was expected an on time lunch,
no excuses accepted.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
And that story sounds like a folksy story a politician
would sell you, but you can actually see how it
made her work twice as hard and be prepared for
any situation. I know that when ken Starr went to
vetter for the Supreme Court, this was when she was
just a nominee. He mentioned that it was like she'd
been preparing for the Supreme Court all her life. At
the time, people assumed Sandra was this lightweight and that
(10:26):
she was only on the list because Reagan had made
this campaign promise that he'd add a woman to the
Supreme Court if he had the chance. But when Star
met her and she really did have this non traditional
path to the Supreme Court, he was floored by her
depth of knowledge. But let's get back to the ranch.
While her dad was tough, he clearly had this softer
side as well, and he and Sandra's mother recognized how
(10:47):
smart she was and knew that she couldn't get the
formal education she deserved on the ranch. I mean, she
kind of always lived in two worlds. There's a great
line in that mental Flaw story where her days could
start with her reading Nancy drew lying on her, and
with her having to mercy kill a calf. It's sort
of incredible. But her double life grew even more extreme
when her parents sent her to live with her grandmother
(11:09):
in El Paso, Texas, and that's where she attended this
all girls private school for her primary education. It gave
her this view into high society and it kind of
put a new polish on her. She learned how to
dress and charm people and all these various social graces
in addition to giving her much better access to studies.
But then, just a year after the tire incident, Sandra
was allowed to skip two grades and go straight to
(11:30):
Stanford University at the age of sixteen.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
Wow. I mean again, it just points to how bright
she is. I feel like the college bit of her
story does get glossed over sometimes. I was looking a
little bit deeper into it in our research here and
it's amazing. I mean, there's these two incredibly formative things
that happened to her while she's there at Stanford. Now,
the first was when she met a law professor named
Harry Rathman. And he was one of those professors who
(11:53):
would hold these informal gatherings at his home every Sunday.
He invites students to talk about the meaning of life
and all these other high minded matters. You might remember
that Sandra had enrolled as an econ major. I didn't,
but it was her encounters with Rathmann that convinced her
to change course. The professor would make these forceful arguments
about civic duty and the satisfaction that comes from serving
(12:14):
your community. And for Sandra, who'd grown up as this
independent cowgirl some like twenty five miles from her closest neighbor,
it really did strike a chord with her, so much
so that she decided to go to law school and
devote her life to public service.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
I mean, it always comes down to a great professor, right, Yeah.
But okay, so what's the other life changing thing that
happens while Sander's in college.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
Well after she graduated at the age of twenty Sandra
started attending Stanford Law School, which is actually where she
met the love of her life and future husband, and
that was John J. O'Connor, and their courtship story is
actually pretty cute, so I'm gonna share it here. So
John was a fellow law student and he and Sander
were assigned a project to work on together, and they
weren't quite finished when the library was closing up one night,
(12:58):
so John suggested they finish their work over a beer
at a little place he knew just down the road.
And apparently they really hit it off there, because you know,
not only did they do the same thing the next night,
they actually went out for a solid forty nights in
a row.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
I never heard that. Did she ever take him home
to the ranch?
Speaker 2 (13:15):
Oh? She did, and it was just as awkward as
you might expect. So the first time John came to
meet Sandra's parents, her father was actually branding some calves,
so they went down to the corral so John could
say hello to him. And now the thing to know
is that when male calves are branded, the ranchers generally
castrate them as well.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
Oh no, so I think I know where this is going.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
I'm willing to bet that you do not know where
this is going. In fact, I'm just gonna let Sandra
tell the story herself. So, according to her, when she
and John arrived, quote, my father put a few testicles
on some bailing wire and put them in a branding fire,
and he said, I'll just fix a few of these
for you, John, And John, to his credit, took the
things off the wire, popped him in his mouth and said,
(13:58):
very good, mister day, very good.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
Oh and no, sauce, I.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
Would be so far down the street by that. But
that is real love. And you know, Sandra obviously knew
John was a keeper at that point, so it's really
no surprise that they got married soon after. And that
was in nineteen fifty two, which happened to be the
same year they graduated from law school.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
All right, well, what do you say we move off
the ranch and talk about Sandra's early law career.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
That sounds great, but first let's take a quick break.
You're listening to part Time Genius and we're talking about
the life and times of Sandra Day O'Connor. All right, mango,
(14:43):
so I know we're leaving the Lazy b ranch behind,
but before we do that, I wanted to share one
last reflection on it from the woman herself, and this
is from a part in her memoir where she's recounting
what it was like to join her father and the
ranch crew on these roundups. You know, they had to
steer cattle sleeping out on the open range alongside a
bunch of cowboys. So Sander writes, it had been an
(15:04):
all male domain. Changing it to accommodate a female was
probably my first initiation into joining an all men's club,
something I did more than once in my life. After
the cowboys understood that a girl could hold up her end,
it was much easier for my sister, my niece, and
the other girls and young women who followed to be
accepted in that rough and tumble world.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
Yeah, it's amazing to think she was really breaking down
barriers for women from the beginning. And it's definitely true
what she says about having to fight her way into
the boys clubs. I mean, Sandra was one of the
top students in her class at law school, and by
the way, she actually ranked third in her class, with
the top spot going to another future Scotus member, William Rehnquist.
But when she graduated, not a single law firm was
(15:45):
willing to hire her. In fact, when she did finally
land an interview with a California law firm, it was
only because of a favor of friend's father had given her.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
And is that how she got her first job as
a lawyer.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
No, that's not even the case. So when she went
to la for the interview, the firm made it clear
that they'd never hired a female lawyer before and they
didn't intend to start, And instead they asked her how
well she could type and offered to bring her on
as a legal secretary.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
No way. Yeah, it's really crazy to think about how
recent a change it is to have women practicing law.
It only started happening in the US around World War Two,
like so many other fields, where women started taking these
jobs because the men were overseas. But even then the
change was exceedingly slow. Even by the time Sandra was
looking for work in the early nineteen fifties, only three
(16:31):
percent of the country's lawyers were women. The number has
risen a great deal since then, obviously thanks in no
small part, of course, to Sandra, but even now only
thirty three percent of the lawyers are female.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
Which is staggering right, like I would imagine it was
much higher. But let's get back to Sandra's job hunt.
So the turning point came when she caught wind of
a firm in San Mateo that actually had a female
lawyer on staff. So she went to the office and
asked for a job, but the county attorney there said
they didn't have the budget for a new hire or
even a place for her to work. But Sandra knew
this was the only place where she'd be able to
(17:03):
get a foot in the door, so she actually convinced
the firm to take her on by agreeing to work
for free and to share desk space with the secretary.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
I mean, you've got to admire her passion, but what
a raw deal.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
Yeah, and things didn't really improve on the career front
for a while, so after marrying John, they moved to Phoenix,
where Sandra opened a little shop. It was this walk
in practice. It was in the Strip mall. As I
mentioned before, it was sort of like a better call
Saul situation, where people would wander in to ask off
end questions about I don't know, like the legality of
something their landlord did, or how to beat a speeding ticket.
(17:37):
And it's really kind of upsetting when you think about, like,
she's this incredible legal mind, third in her class. She
edits the law review at Stanford. You know, she keeps
up with this for a few years, all while getting
more and more involved with local Republican politics.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
Yeah, and it's around this time that Sandra actually steps
away from her practice for I think it was like
five or six years a stay at home mom for
her three boys. And I'd say stay at home, but honestly,
Sanders stayed so busy with all these various volunteer, civic
and community groups that it's pretty much a misnomer to
say stay at home. I mean, listen to the rap
sheet that I was looking at here, it says O'Connor
(18:12):
served on the Governor's Committee on Marriage and Family, as
an administrative assistant at the Arizona State Hospital. She volunteered
at a school for minorities. She wrote test questions for
the Arizona Bar Exam, acted as an advisor to the
Salvation Army.
Speaker 1 (18:25):
Yeah, it doesn't sound like she did too much staying
at home, not at all. And after the kids were
a little older, she went right back to work in earnest.
At first, she was a part time assistant for the
attorney general because no private firm was willing to hire
her yet. But then the Arizona governor was so impressed
with her work that he appointed her to a vacant
seat in the state Senate, and the next year, in
nineteen seventy, Sandra formally won the seat, and just a
(18:46):
few months later, her fellow Republicans voted her in as
America's first female state majority leader.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
Oh, it's pretty amazing. Well, she's got all kinds of
first under her belt when you look at the list,
As you know, I'm always so impressed by the way
she was able to apply experience, you know, as a
mother and a homemaker to this role as a stateswoman. Really, actually,
I'm going to quote the mental flaw story you mentioned earlier,
and this is from Lizzie Jacob's riding. O'Connor knew what
she wanted to remove sexism from the books. She searched
(19:14):
for laws biased against women and quietly worked to change them.
The Republicans had a razor thin majority, negotiations were essential.
She regularly hosted parties at her Adobe house, inviting leaders
from all sides to eat homemade burritos, not to broke
her deals, but to get to know one another. Her
cooking was legendary, but it worked. She was all business.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
I'd forgotten that, and I want to eat homemade burritos
at Sanders House too, And you're right. It's amazing how
she was able to balance all these different responsibilities without compromise.
And actually that pretty much takes us up to the
time when President Reagan tapped her to replace the retiring
Justice Stewart.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
Yeah, she was serving on the Arizona State Court of
Appeals when she was invited to Washington to meet the
president back in nineteen eighty one, and she really didn't
want to go, but the two hit it off off
right away. They were swapping stories about horse riding and
the Western way of life. And as we've talked about before,
Reagan had won the woman's vote by campaigning on this
promise that he would nominate a woman to the Supreme Court,
(20:12):
and in Sandra, he found the perfect candidate.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
So I know there's a lot of Reagan worship for
a bunch of different reasons, but one of the things
I found fascinating and hearing this story was that his
advisors were actively telling him he didn't have to keep
his promise, like there was so much swirling at the
time politically. This was even the year that he was
shot in that assassination attempt, and his advisors claimed just
having a woman on the list was enough to you know,
(20:37):
appease his voters. But to Reagan's credit, he kept his word.
And of course conservatives like Philis Schaffey and Jerry Folwell
they started this write in to protest the nomination. But
once she was sworn in, the then fifty one year
old O'Connor set herself apart not only by her gender
and relative youth, but also with this level headed approach
(20:58):
to cases. As one of her cleric saw, ron Ell
Anderson Jones later recalled, quote eternally a ranch girl. She
wanted solutions that really worked and had little patience for
esoteric theory that had no grounding in reality.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
Well, and that's something we see from the start of
her time on the bench, you know. For example, the
Supreme Court heard a case in nineteen eighty two called
Mississippi University for Women Versus Hogan. This was a case
where a male student, Hogan was suing because he'd been
denied admission to an all female nursing school, and O'Connor
actually sided with the student, believing that the gender based
enrollment policy was invalid. She said, because it, you know,
(21:33):
it tends to perpetuate the stereotype view of nursing as
this exclusively women's job. And so rather than siding with
the women of the college in the short term, O'Connor
was taking a practical approach and think about helping them
break down the stigma that surrounded this nursing profession. And
not only that, O'Connor later alluded to the ruling as
a way to potentially boost the pay rates, you know,
(21:55):
for all these nurses and thinking about doing so with
this influx of male nurses. That was, you know, kind
of turning the gender wage gap to the women's advantage
as much as possible.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
Yeah, it's pretty clever, and we should definitely talk more
about some of her work on the bench. You know,
she was there for twenty plus years, not to mention
the legacy she left behind after retiring. But first, how
about we take a quick break.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
All right, mango, it's quiz time.
Speaker 3 (22:28):
Now.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
We've got a listener on the line, a regular listener
of Part Time Genius, who actually wrote to us telling
us about her love of sloths after we did a
nine things on sloths, and she's on the line with
us right now. Katie Coile, Welcome to Part Time Genius.
Speaker 3 (22:42):
Hi guys, happy to be here.
Speaker 2 (22:44):
All right, Katie, you have to tell us why do
you love sloths so much? And was there anything that
we missed in that episode that you feel like our
listeners need to know?
Speaker 3 (22:52):
You know, I think I love slots specifically because Charles
Darwin and Survival of the Fit should have gotten them already,
but they're still kicking and they are a relic of evolution.
And once you tell people you love slops, you get
slap gifts for every possible holiday. So I get a
(23:13):
little too deep in to give up now, you know.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
I feel like that's true because we've known a couple
of sloth lovers and are actually especially at Mental Floss,
and it did feel like anytime a special occasion came around,
everyone was giving them sloth gifts.
Speaker 3 (23:30):
It makes me easier to shop for, so I'm really
helping everyone.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
Wow, that's so thoughtful of you. And we decided to
have Katie on for today's quiz because she has a
very special connection to the Supreme Court. Katie, tell us
what that is.
Speaker 3 (23:43):
Ruth Vader Ginsberg and I are both sorority sisters. We're
very good friends. Obviously.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
Well that's awesome. Well, let's get started with the quiz.
Number one. Justice Thirgood Marshall was addicted to Days of
Our Lives and would often call a recess set one
PM to watch his stories. Supreme or not Supreme?
Speaker 3 (24:04):
Please let that be supreme?
Speaker 1 (24:06):
It is? His wife claimed he would watch anything on TV,
from wrestling to news to talk shows, but he especially
loved Days of Our Lives.
Speaker 2 (24:15):
One for one question number two. The Justices enjoy celebrating
each other's birthdays, and for years, Ruth Bader Ginsberg's husband, Martin,
made all the cakes for everyone's birthday. Supreme or not Supreme?
Speaker 3 (24:27):
Supreme?
Speaker 1 (24:29):
Yeah, that's true. Marty's fondness for the kitchen began shortly
after RVG cooked her first meal for him.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
Apparently you're doing pretty well so far, Katie. All right,
let's see question number three. Since nineteen ninety six, lawyers
who argue a case before the Supreme Court get a
special keepsake, a Supreme Court sleep mask that reads justice
is blind. Supreme or not supreme?
Speaker 3 (24:52):
That sounds a little too weird. I'm going to say
not supreme.
Speaker 1 (24:56):
You're right. They don't get a sleep mask, but each
council does get two white feather quill pens for their effort.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
All right, good job, Okay, two left, number four. There's
an image of Mohammed on the side of the Supreme Court.
Supreme or not supreme?
Speaker 3 (25:11):
You know, despite separation of church and state. I feel
like that might be supreme for whatever reason.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
You' doing. Amazing, Katie, It's true. While depictions of Mohammad
are rare, the prophet is depicted in a relief with
other lawmakers and icons of justice, including Solomon, Moses, Confucius,
and HAMMARAVII.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
All right, let's see if we can bring it home
with the final question and go five for five. Here
we go. Justice Renquist loved the musical West Side Story
so much that he often wore a tiny shark pin
on his robes. Supreme or not supreme.
Speaker 3 (25:44):
As much as I want that to be true, I'm
going to say that's not supreme.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
Oh my gosh, Katie, you went five for five. You're
absolutely right. He wasn't a West side story fan that
we know, but he was a huge Gilbert and Sullivan fan,
and he actually stitched gold stripes on his robe sleeves
as a tribute to it. And he was also a
notoriously bad dresser.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
Wow. All right, so how did how did Katie do today? Mango?
Speaker 1 (26:07):
She ran the table and went five for five, which
gets her the big prize, an official PTG Certificate of Genius,
and a part time Genius T shirt.
Speaker 2 (26:15):
Congrasts, Katie, that's wonderful. Well, thanks so much for joining
us today, Katie.
Speaker 3 (26:19):
Thank you?
Speaker 1 (26:33):
Okay, Mango.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
So what else do you want to cover from O'Connor's
time on the Supreme Court?
Speaker 1 (26:38):
Well, I was always struck by the times when she
seemed to go her own way on what are typically
partisan issues. I mean, don't get me wrong. O'Connor was
a moderate conservative, and she tended to vote as such
for the most part, but she also had a reputation
for caring more about how legal matters would affect individuals
than she did for towing the party line or even
rigidly adhering to legal president. For instance, O'Connor bucked conservative
(27:00):
expectations in nineteen ninety two, and this is when the
court had to decide whether it was constitutional to require
women to notify their spouses before getting an abortion, and
in her written opinion, O'Connor called the measure quote repugnant
to our present understanding of marriage and of the nature
of the rights secured by the Constitution. Women do not
lose the constitutionally protected liberty when they marry.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
Yeah, I remember that. And she actually cast the deciding
vote to uphold row, if you remember, and drew a
lot of iron from her Republican colleagues.
Speaker 1 (27:29):
Actually, yeah, O'Connor was responsible for the determining vote of
a lot of five to four decisions, and this gave
her a reputation as a swing vote, since you really
couldn't predict where she'd come down on some of the
more divisive issues. But she really hated that term.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
Yeah, it's something I didn't remember, but found that interesting
in doing the research for the episode. But she never
liked being called a swing vote because she thought implied
that maybe she liked principles and was kind of flighty
or fickle in the way she made her decisions. And
so she was both praised and criticized for casting these
really narrow opinions, And she wasn't as interested in writing law.
(28:03):
She wasn't deciding a case. So she actually listened case
by case, and people who have argued in front of
her said they really couldn't tell which way she would
go just because she she truly took each case as
a learning activity.
Speaker 1 (28:16):
Well, I mean, agree with him or not. She definitely
had principles and I mean just look at some of
her opinions during the George W. Bush administration. In two thousand,
she cast the deciding vote that ended the Florida recount
for the contested presidential race. But then in two thousand
and four, she went against the man she helped elect
when she faced the Hamdi versus Rumsfeld case. And this
was the one where the court was tasked with deciding
(28:38):
whether an American citizen is still entitled a due process
after being named an enemy combandant by the president.
Speaker 2 (28:43):
So O'Connor in this one, she voted in favor of
due process right.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
Yeah, And in her opinions, she reminded her party that
a state of war is not a blank check for
the president when it comes to the rights of the
nation citizens.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
Yeah. And you know, we've talked a good bit today
about O'Connor's rough and tumble upbringing and her determination in
the face of unfair treatment. But I did want to
touch a little bit on some of her softer, more
playful qualities, because you know, it's the side of Supreme
Court justices that we don't really see that much of, honestly.
Speaker 1 (29:12):
Sure, So what kind of stuff are you thinking of?
Speaker 2 (29:14):
Well? I kind of like that even though she had
the same work ethic as her father, she still took
the time to relax a little bit. You know. For instance,
she was an avid tennis player, so for most of
the year she was on the bench, she would plan
this week long vacation in July where she and seven
of her friends from Arizona. They dubbed themselves the Mobile
Party Unit. They'd get together to play tennis and golf,
as well as go horseback riding even whitewater rafting together.
Speaker 1 (29:37):
I love that. Another story I like is how O'Connor
commandeer the Supreme Court's basketball court so she could hold
these women only yoga and aerobics classes.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
Wait, I think we need to pause for a seconds.
So there's a Supreme Court there, there's a basketball court
at the Supreme Court.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
Yeah, it's called the highest court in the land and
it's located on the fifth floor of the Supreme Court building.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
I get it.
Speaker 1 (29:55):
It used to be just this place for old legal
journals like that's where these the story. But in the
nineteen forties some courthouse workers converted into a workout area,
and then it was later turned into this full basketball court.
And apparently O'Connor didn't want to give up the exercise
routine she'd gotten used to in Arizona, and once she
found out that other women there in the building wanted
(30:15):
a place to work out as well, she booked the
gym and asked the YWCA to send over an instructor
to help them start up a class. I mean, the
class really took off and they started meeting daily and
they even got custom printed T shirts that read women
work out at the Supreme Court. Isn't that awesome?
Speaker 2 (30:31):
I loeve is she co opted what must have been
a pretty male dominated space before she came onto the
scene there though, it just feels fitting seeing who she
is it Actually it also reminds me of an interview
I read about O'Connor where there was no women's bathroom
at the Supreme Court when she first arrived, and the
closest one was way down this hallway, far from the
actual courtroom. So once again, in trough O'Connor fashion, she
(30:54):
just took over the men's restroom near her chambers.
Speaker 1 (30:56):
Yeah. I mean, it's crazy to think about, right, but
I guess it was close to two hundred years before
the Supreme Court finally got a female justice, so it
wasn't something they'd ever planned for.
Speaker 2 (31:06):
Yeah, and it just underscores how much of a trailblazer
O'Connor really was. I mean, she once remarked, it's all
right to be the first to do something, but I
certainly didn't want to be the last woman on the
Supreme Court, and of course, thankfully she wasn't. And you know,
the current sitting Supreme Court actually includes three women. Of course,
there's Ruth Bader Ginsburg Soda Soda Mayor and Elena Kagan
(31:27):
And O'Connor herself retired back in two thousand and five.
As you may remember, she was caring for her husband, John,
who'd been suffering for a while from Alzheimer's.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
Yeah, which, you know, it seems totally in keeping with
the high value she's always placed on family, although she
did continue to juggle projects well into her retirement. In
two thousand and six, she started this free online civics
education program. It's called is Civics. It's for middle schoolers.
It basically allows students to research and argue actual cases
and to take part in these mockups of realistic government situations.
(31:58):
And according to O'Connor, this venture to make learning civics
fun is one of the most important things she's ever done.
Speaker 2 (32:04):
And so how did she do that?
Speaker 1 (32:06):
Well, she turned it into a video game. Oh really, yeah,
So here's how she explained the idea to parade. What
we know is that kids like to play games on
the computer. So I set up an advisory group of
fabulous teachers to tell me what we needed to focus
on in a civics course, and then we had games
designed that focus on those parameters. Young people spend an
average of forty hours a week in front of a screen.
(32:27):
One or two hours a week would do to teach
them civics and it seems to be working. I mean,
Isivic is actually used by educators in all fifty states
and about five million students use it each year.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
That's pretty awesome. Well, then after a lifetime of public service,
it is inspiring that she still feels this drive to
help spark the next generation's sense of civic duty. You know,
given her track record, it's exactly what I would expect
from her. And as she once put it, I'm not
accustomed to sitting around and doing nothing, that's for sure.
Speaker 1 (32:55):
And now, what do you say we follow her lead
and keep ourselves busy with a good old fashioned fact.
Speaker 2 (32:59):
Off, you know what, Mango, I say. This fact off
is now in session.
Speaker 1 (33:12):
So I'm not sure if you watched the Senate hearings
with Justice Roberts, but it was a little frustrating from
the outside because he refused to show any of his
opinions and his claim was that he needed the details
of the case before he could speak about anything. And
this has kind of become a fairly common and smart
tactic for justices trying to be confirmed. But what's interesting
is that Justice O'Connor actually used the same tactic during
(33:34):
her hearings decades prior, and you could tell from her
opinions that she really believed that she needed the details
and that they truly mattered. But one of the lawyers
who assisted her for that hearing was a young Justice Roberts.
Speaker 2 (33:48):
Well, there's another thing I love about her judiciary hearing,
and it she took the time to introduce her three
sons to the chamber. She probably listed out where they'd
gone to school, what they'd majored in, their hobbies and accomplishments,
you know, like being a state swimming champ and skydiving,
or being like the family writer. I mean, did all
of these things she took the time to do. Isn't
that pretty amazing?
Speaker 1 (34:08):
I love that. So one thing I love is how
playful she could be. So in two thousand and one
she made a guest appearance at the Shakespeare Theater in
DC where they put King Lear on trial and apparently
her verdict was not mad all right?
Speaker 2 (34:22):
Well, did you know that she had a pet bobcat
in her youth. Apparently she tamed one on her ranch
back home. That's nuts.
Speaker 1 (34:29):
So there was a New York Times piece that said
sander Dale O'Connor was the hardest judge to clerk for.
And as you might guess, she wanted to know everything
and she wanted to be fully able to defend any
side of any opinion she made. So she really worked
her staff, but she also deliberated an extraordinary amount over
who she chose, like she picked clerks from a wide
range of universities and across the political spectrum, because she
(34:52):
both wanted rigorous candidates, but she also wanted to be
challenged in her thoughts as well.
Speaker 2 (34:56):
Well. I did read on the other side of that,
I guess you could say is that she would really
close to her clerks. She'd organized these picnics to see
the cherry blossoms, or host these jack o lantern carving parties,
and even asked to see pictures and get updates on
all of her grand clerks, as she called them.
Speaker 1 (35:12):
So here's a story that's kind of sweet and heartbreaking.
Santade O'Connor cut her career short to be with her husband,
who had severe Alzheimer's because she wanted to take care
of him and make his life more comfortable. And when
he went to a facility, he actually started a romance
with a fellow patient. This is something that a lot
of people with Alzheimer's do, but for her that meant
(35:32):
supporting him through that as well. And as she put it,
he was in a cottage and there was a woman
who kind of attached herself to him. It was nice
for him to have someone who was there to sometimes
hold his hand and keep him company. And I'm glad.
Speaker 2 (35:45):
Wow, that is heartbreaking. All right, Well, here's a fun one,
a very different note. Did you know Sanderday O'Connor is
in the Cowgirl Hall of Fame? Id you know there
was the Cowgirl Hall of Fame. Well, in her bio
she talks about how she learned to ride and shoot
a gun by the age of eight. And for the record,
she's the only Supreme Court justice in the Cowgirl Hall
of Fame, but you know the door is wide open
(36:05):
for future cowgirls to join her.
Speaker 1 (36:08):
I like that and I like ending on something up feet.
So what do you say you take this week's trophy?
Speaker 2 (36:12):
All right? Well, thanks so much. Well, if we have
missed any facts about Sandra Day O'Connor, or any Supreme
Court justices for that matter, we would love to hear
from you. You can always email us part time genius at
HowStuffWorks dot com or call on our twenty four to
seven fact hotline that's one eight four four pt Genius.
You can also hit us up on Facebook or Twitter.
But thanks so much for listening. Thanks again for listening.
(36:46):
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Speaker 1 (37:16):
Did we forget Jason?
Speaker 2 (37:17):
Jason who
Guess what will?
Speaker 2 (00:00):
What's that mango?
Speaker 1 (00:01):
So you know, one thing I'm pretty terrible at is
time management, right yep, Like I always have too many
commitments to try to get too many things done and
end up a little late on everything. But one of
my heroes in this regard is Sandra Day O'Connor.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
I can't say that I knew that she was known
for her time management.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Yeah, she was just a force at making things happen.
Like one of my favorite examples is this one time
when she was in the Arizona State Legislature and this
was before she was on the Supreme Court, and it
needed to pass its new budget before midnight, and everyone
just assumed the thing was impossible, but O'Connor, she just
insisted that they'd be done by six pm, and from
(00:40):
her perspective, there was no other option because one of
her sons was about to leave for summer camp and
she promised to be home to bake the cookies in
time before he headed off.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
Oh that's pretty great. So were they successful? Did they
get it pushed through in time?
Speaker 1 (00:52):
Yeah? Because she's amazing, Like she was just insanely diplomatic
but also no nonsense and super efficient. I mean, the
idea of adding unwilling sized degree and compromise feels like
a force we could use right now. But the budget
passed with plenty of time, and presumably Sandra's son went
on to be the most popular kid at summer camp.
But Santa Day O'Connor's life is a pretty amazing one,
(01:14):
and that's what we're about to dive into.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Hey, their podcast listeners, welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm
Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my good
friend mangesh Ha Ticketter and on the other side of
the soundproof glass waving his homemade Scotus pennant. It's impressive.
That's our friend and producer Tristan McNeil. I don't know
if I've ever seen anyone so fired up about the
judicial branch.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
Yeah, someone's been practicing his needle point.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Well. In this case, Tristan's enthusiasm is totally warranted, because
today's show us about a legal legend who's truly worth celebrating,
and that's Sandra Day O'Connor. She often cast the deciding
vote on all kinds of deadlock political and social issues,
and whether you agree with her politics or not, there's
no denying the impact O'Connor has had not just on
our legal institutions, but also on the roles women serve
(02:18):
within them. And as the first female justice, she showed
the world exactly why women deserve a place on our
nation's highest court.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
That's right. So I've been fascinated with Sandra Day for
a while, and as you know, I commissioned a story
on her at Mental Floss because I firmly believe more
people need to know her extraordinary story. Actually, I think
if I remember this spot, I wanted to pitch a
TV show on her called Sandra Day O'Connor Stripmall Attorney.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
I don't know how that never happened.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
I know, I mean notorious RVG gets all this attention,
but Sandra also deserves to be a folk hero, and
we'll get into all of that. But since you're bringing
up her biggest claim to fame, I wanted to mention
the acronym O'Connor came up with for her achievements. You know,
she was appointed to be the first woman on the
Supreme Court in nineteen eighty one by President Reagan. But
rather than spell out the title all the time, O'Connor
(03:04):
liked to abbreviate it to FWOTSC.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
This kind of rolls off the telling. So was this
really something she liked to go by.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
Yeah, she chose it herself, but it's got a good backstory.
So apparently The New York Times published an article in
nineteen eighty three, and it lamented is no Washington name
exempt from shorthand the chief Magistrate sometimes goes by potus,
the nine men who interpret them, or often the Scotis,
but the people who enact them are still for better
or worse Congress.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
I mean, I guess that's a moderately witty joke, right.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
No, but Saturday O'Connor had her own problem with the article.
In a letter to the editor, she wrote, according to
the information available to me, and which I had assumed
was generally available for over two years now, Scotus has
not consisted of nine men. If you have any contradictory information,
I would be grateful if you would forward it, as
I'm sure the Potus, the Scotis, and the undersigned the
(04:00):
FWOTSC would be most interested in seeing that.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
I like that.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
She schooled the New York Times and coined her own
nickname in one fell swoop there.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
Yeah, it's pretty great, But I'm guessing part of the
reason she was so peeved by the article was that
she'd already dealt with so many public slights by that point.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
Well what do you mean by that?
Speaker 1 (04:17):
Well, O'Connor received a staggering sixty thousand letters during her
first year on the job, and while most of the
correspondence was positive, she got a good amount of hate mail.
Like the negative letters were generally baseless enough to brush off,
and it was stuff like back to your kitchen and home, female,
this is a job for men, and only he can
make the rough decisions. Just such a terrible note. Another
(04:37):
person wrote in and said being a female justice was
better suited for Marxist related feminists rather than a wife
and a mother who respects the psychological component of a family.
I mean, the letters just poured in.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
Good Lord, I mean, I could see why she would
have bristled at the time story, and especially after having
to sit through two years of this stuff.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
Exactly, even though she had been handpicked by the President
and was unanimously conform by the Senate, there was still
this large chunk of the population that couldn't stand the
thought of a woman being in such a powerful position,
and actually how she was picked by Reagan was pretty fascinating.
We should talk a little about that in a bit.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
Well, definitely, but you know, thankfully O'Connor was made of
much sterner stuff than her detractors, and her childhood upbringing
all but assured that.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
Yeah. So, for those who don't know, sandur Day was
born and raised on her family's enormous cattle ranch. This
was on the New Mexico Arizona border, and it's called
the Lazy Bee Ranch. It's actually named after a bit
of rancher LINGO. I didn't realize this before, but apparently
when a letter used on the cattle brand is applied
in a crooked manner, so that the letters on its side,
in this case the bee, it's said to be lazy.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
Oh. I never knew that. I don't know how both
of us admits that, because we're cattle ranchers.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
Right, yeah, yeah, big time cattle aficionados. But the LazyB
was actually this massive piece of land. It was one
hundred and sixty thousand acres or roughly two hundred and
fifty square miles. And because I know you prefer to
like get your measurements and really to Rhode Island. Yeah,
it did the math, and the rash breaks down to
about one fifth the size of Rhode Island.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
I really appreciate you doing the math for me on
that one. But you know, we were talking about this
a little earlier, and just because the Day family had
so much land, that doesn't mean they were living well.
In fact, the property, which had been passed down for
a couple of generations, it really wasn't worth all that
much when Sanders dad inherited it. It was a one
bedroom house that they lived in there, didn't have electricity,
didn't have running water. They're basically scraping together enough income
(06:29):
just to survive in this constant struggle there. But the
family had an unrelenting work ethic, so they'd repair wells
and raise cattle for slaughter. And the really crazy thing
is that with all that acreage and about a thousand
head of cattle to look after, the Day family kept
this ridiculously tiny staff on hand to oversee it. I
think there were just like five full time employees year round,
(06:51):
and another few that came on for the big roundup,
so that happened each spring and fall. So it was
a really really small crew, I know, for a lot
of land, which is probably why say had to help
out so much herself. I mean, she grew up around
literal cowboys, and at a young age she was branding cattle,
driving tractors, and even warding off coyotes with her trusty
twenty two caliber rifle. I mean, this is exactly the
(07:13):
childhood that you expect from any Supreme Court justice.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
I know, well not at all, but the hardscrabvel lifestyle
did teach Sandra all kinds of important life lessons. For example,
there was one ranch hand in particular who she credits
for some of the early lessons in fairness and empathy.
His name was Raphael Estrada, and he's got an amazing
story too. He was this illiterate Mexican American who'd worked
for the family his whole life, and he grew so
(07:38):
adept at ranching that he could actually identify almost every
cow on the ranch just by a look. But Sandra
later wrote of him, he knew he was very good
at what he did, and he demanded a high standard
from those around him, but he was dealt with what
many would say was a poor hand in life. He
was small, crippled, fatherless, a minority race in his birthland,
(07:59):
but he played the he was dealt like a master
from rostas we learned the contentment of doing the best
you can with what you have.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
Yeah, and you know, you hear a lot about her
practicality on the bench coming from her lessons that she
learned back on the farm, and it was really a
deep part of who she was. But I know her
father also imparted some tough wisdom in those early years.
You know, there's that great story I think we've talked
about this before where she learned, you know, how to
change a tire when she got a flat.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
Yeah, you should tell the listeners because it's such a
great story and it's pretty cinematic.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
Right. So this was back when Sandra was just about fifteen,
I think, and this was in nineteen forty five. So
she'd offered to bring lunch to her father and his ranchands.
They were busy branding cattle on the far end of
the property, so early that hot summer morning, she heads
out in their old Chevy pickup and heads out to
the desert by herself. She's cruising along this remote dirt
road and she suddenly gets a flat tire. Now, she's
(08:52):
never changed a flat before, but she understands the basics.
So she spends the next hour stranded in the heat.
She figures out how to the car up, starts wrestling
with the rusty lugnuts, but the things won't budge. She
starts to panic for a minute because it's almost lunchtime
and everybody is counting on her to get there with
the food. Then she fits the wrench around each of
(09:12):
the nuts and starts jumping on it with all her
weight until finally the rust gives way and she manages
to get the tire changed.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
So I mean, it sounds like the success story and
this lesson in perseverance.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
Exactly, and that's no doubt how Sander viewed it. In fact,
she proudly explained the whole story when she finally made
it to where the crew was working. You know, she'd
gotten up early that morning but then got stranded in
the middle of nowhere with this flat tire, bunch of
rusted lug nuts, but which she'd arrived late, well after lunchtime.
So her father didn't share any of her sense of victory.
He just kind of balled her out, saying, you should
(09:46):
have started a lot earlier. You need to expect anything
out there.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
Which he really takes to heart.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
Right Well, Yes, Sander wrote of the experience later on,
She said, I had expected a word of praise for
changing the tire, But to the contrary I realized is
that the only thing was expected an on time lunch,
no excuses accepted.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
And that story sounds like a folksy story a politician
would sell you, but you can actually see how it
made her work twice as hard and be prepared for
any situation. I know that when ken Starr went to
vetter for the Supreme Court, this was when she was
just a nominee. He mentioned that it was like she'd
been preparing for the Supreme Court all her life. At
the time, people assumed Sandra was this lightweight and that
(10:26):
she was only on the list because Reagan had made
this campaign promise that he'd add a woman to the
Supreme Court if he had the chance. But when Star
met her and she really did have this non traditional
path to the Supreme Court, he was floored by her
depth of knowledge. But let's get back to the ranch.
While her dad was tough, he clearly had this softer
side as well, and he and Sandra's mother recognized how
(10:47):
smart she was and knew that she couldn't get the
formal education she deserved on the ranch. I mean, she
kind of always lived in two worlds. There's a great
line in that mental Flaw story where her days could
start with her reading Nancy drew lying on her, and
with her having to mercy kill a calf. It's sort
of incredible. But her double life grew even more extreme
when her parents sent her to live with her grandmother
(11:09):
in El Paso, Texas, and that's where she attended this
all girls private school for her primary education. It gave
her this view into high society and it kind of
put a new polish on her. She learned how to
dress and charm people and all these various social graces
in addition to giving her much better access to studies.
But then, just a year after the tire incident, Sandra
was allowed to skip two grades and go straight to
(11:30):
Stanford University at the age of sixteen.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
Wow. I mean again, it just points to how bright
she is. I feel like the college bit of her
story does get glossed over sometimes. I was looking a
little bit deeper into it in our research here and
it's amazing. I mean, there's these two incredibly formative things
that happened to her while she's there at Stanford. Now,
the first was when she met a law professor named
Harry Rathman. And he was one of those professors who
(11:53):
would hold these informal gatherings at his home every Sunday.
He invites students to talk about the meaning of life
and all these other high minded matters. You might remember
that Sandra had enrolled as an econ major. I didn't,
but it was her encounters with Rathmann that convinced her
to change course. The professor would make these forceful arguments
about civic duty and the satisfaction that comes from serving
(12:14):
your community. And for Sandra, who'd grown up as this
independent cowgirl some like twenty five miles from her closest neighbor,
it really did strike a chord with her, so much
so that she decided to go to law school and
devote her life to public service.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
I mean, it always comes down to a great professor, right, Yeah.
But okay, so what's the other life changing thing that
happens while Sander's in college.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
Well after she graduated at the age of twenty Sandra
started attending Stanford Law School, which is actually where she
met the love of her life and future husband, and
that was John J. O'Connor, and their courtship story is
actually pretty cute, so I'm gonna share it here. So
John was a fellow law student and he and Sander
were assigned a project to work on together, and they
weren't quite finished when the library was closing up one night,
(12:58):
so John suggested they finish their work over a beer
at a little place he knew just down the road.
And apparently they really hit it off there, because you know,
not only did they do the same thing the next night,
they actually went out for a solid forty nights in
a row.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
I never heard that. Did she ever take him home
to the ranch?
Speaker 2 (13:15):
Oh? She did, and it was just as awkward as
you might expect. So the first time John came to
meet Sandra's parents, her father was actually branding some calves,
so they went down to the corral so John could
say hello to him. And now the thing to know
is that when male calves are branded, the ranchers generally
castrate them as well.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
Oh no, so I think I know where this is going.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
I'm willing to bet that you do not know where
this is going. In fact, I'm just gonna let Sandra
tell the story herself. So, according to her, when she
and John arrived, quote, my father put a few testicles
on some bailing wire and put them in a branding fire,
and he said, I'll just fix a few of these
for you, John, And John, to his credit, took the
things off the wire, popped him in his mouth and said,
(13:58):
very good, mister day, very good.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
Oh and no, sauce, I.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
Would be so far down the street by that. But
that is real love. And you know, Sandra obviously knew
John was a keeper at that point, so it's really
no surprise that they got married soon after. And that
was in nineteen fifty two, which happened to be the
same year they graduated from law school.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
All right, well, what do you say we move off
the ranch and talk about Sandra's early law career.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
That sounds great, but first let's take a quick break.
You're listening to part Time Genius and we're talking about
the life and times of Sandra Day O'Connor. All right, mango,
(14:43):
so I know we're leaving the Lazy b ranch behind,
but before we do that, I wanted to share one
last reflection on it from the woman herself, and this
is from a part in her memoir where she's recounting
what it was like to join her father and the
ranch crew on these roundups. You know, they had to
steer cattle sleeping out on the open range alongside a
bunch of cowboys. So Sander writes, it had been an
(15:04):
all male domain. Changing it to accommodate a female was
probably my first initiation into joining an all men's club,
something I did more than once in my life. After
the cowboys understood that a girl could hold up her end,
it was much easier for my sister, my niece, and
the other girls and young women who followed to be
accepted in that rough and tumble world.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
Yeah, it's amazing to think she was really breaking down
barriers for women from the beginning. And it's definitely true
what she says about having to fight her way into
the boys clubs. I mean, Sandra was one of the
top students in her class at law school, and by
the way, she actually ranked third in her class, with
the top spot going to another future Scotus member, William Rehnquist.
But when she graduated, not a single law firm was
(15:45):
willing to hire her. In fact, when she did finally
land an interview with a California law firm, it was
only because of a favor of friend's father had given her.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
And is that how she got her first job as
a lawyer.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
No, that's not even the case. So when she went
to la for the interview, the firm made it clear
that they'd never hired a female lawyer before and they
didn't intend to start, And instead they asked her how
well she could type and offered to bring her on
as a legal secretary.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
No way. Yeah, it's really crazy to think about how
recent a change it is to have women practicing law.
It only started happening in the US around World War Two,
like so many other fields, where women started taking these
jobs because the men were overseas. But even then the
change was exceedingly slow. Even by the time Sandra was
looking for work in the early nineteen fifties, only three
(16:31):
percent of the country's lawyers were women. The number has
risen a great deal since then, obviously thanks in no
small part, of course, to Sandra, but even now only
thirty three percent of the lawyers are female.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
Which is staggering right, like I would imagine it was
much higher. But let's get back to Sandra's job hunt.
So the turning point came when she caught wind of
a firm in San Mateo that actually had a female
lawyer on staff. So she went to the office and
asked for a job, but the county attorney there said
they didn't have the budget for a new hire or
even a place for her to work. But Sandra knew
this was the only place where she'd be able to
(17:03):
get a foot in the door, so she actually convinced
the firm to take her on by agreeing to work
for free and to share desk space with the secretary.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
I mean, you've got to admire her passion, but what
a raw deal.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
Yeah, and things didn't really improve on the career front
for a while, so after marrying John, they moved to Phoenix,
where Sandra opened a little shop. It was this walk
in practice. It was in the Strip mall. As I
mentioned before, it was sort of like a better call
Saul situation, where people would wander in to ask off
end questions about I don't know, like the legality of
something their landlord did, or how to beat a speeding ticket.
(17:37):
And it's really kind of upsetting when you think about, like,
she's this incredible legal mind, third in her class. She
edits the law review at Stanford. You know, she keeps
up with this for a few years, all while getting
more and more involved with local Republican politics.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
Yeah, and it's around this time that Sandra actually steps
away from her practice for I think it was like
five or six years a stay at home mom for
her three boys. And I'd say stay at home, but honestly,
Sanders stayed so busy with all these various volunteer, civic
and community groups that it's pretty much a misnomer to
say stay at home. I mean, listen to the rap
sheet that I was looking at here, it says O'Connor
(18:12):
served on the Governor's Committee on Marriage and Family, as
an administrative assistant at the Arizona State Hospital. She volunteered
at a school for minorities. She wrote test questions for
the Arizona Bar Exam, acted as an advisor to the
Salvation Army.
Speaker 1 (18:25):
Yeah, it doesn't sound like she did too much staying
at home, not at all. And after the kids were
a little older, she went right back to work in earnest.
At first, she was a part time assistant for the
attorney general because no private firm was willing to hire
her yet. But then the Arizona governor was so impressed
with her work that he appointed her to a vacant
seat in the state Senate, and the next year, in
nineteen seventy, Sandra formally won the seat, and just a
(18:46):
few months later, her fellow Republicans voted her in as
America's first female state majority leader.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
Oh, it's pretty amazing. Well, she's got all kinds of
first under her belt when you look at the list,
As you know, I'm always so impressed by the way
she was able to apply experience, you know, as a
mother and a homemaker to this role as a stateswoman. Really, actually,
I'm going to quote the mental flaw story you mentioned earlier,
and this is from Lizzie Jacob's riding. O'Connor knew what
she wanted to remove sexism from the books. She searched
(19:14):
for laws biased against women and quietly worked to change them.
The Republicans had a razor thin majority, negotiations were essential.
She regularly hosted parties at her Adobe house, inviting leaders
from all sides to eat homemade burritos, not to broke
her deals, but to get to know one another. Her
cooking was legendary, but it worked. She was all business.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
I'd forgotten that, and I want to eat homemade burritos
at Sanders House too, And you're right. It's amazing how
she was able to balance all these different responsibilities without compromise.
And actually that pretty much takes us up to the
time when President Reagan tapped her to replace the retiring
Justice Stewart.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
Yeah, she was serving on the Arizona State Court of
Appeals when she was invited to Washington to meet the
president back in nineteen eighty one, and she really didn't
want to go, but the two hit it off off
right away. They were swapping stories about horse riding and
the Western way of life. And as we've talked about before,
Reagan had won the woman's vote by campaigning on this
promise that he would nominate a woman to the Supreme Court,
(20:12):
and in Sandra, he found the perfect candidate.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
So I know there's a lot of Reagan worship for
a bunch of different reasons, but one of the things
I found fascinating and hearing this story was that his
advisors were actively telling him he didn't have to keep
his promise, like there was so much swirling at the
time politically. This was even the year that he was
shot in that assassination attempt, and his advisors claimed just
having a woman on the list was enough to you know,
(20:37):
appease his voters. But to Reagan's credit, he kept his word.
And of course conservatives like Philis Schaffey and Jerry Folwell
they started this write in to protest the nomination. But
once she was sworn in, the then fifty one year
old O'Connor set herself apart not only by her gender
and relative youth, but also with this level headed approach
(20:58):
to cases. As one of her cleric saw, ron Ell
Anderson Jones later recalled, quote eternally a ranch girl. She
wanted solutions that really worked and had little patience for
esoteric theory that had no grounding in reality.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
Well, and that's something we see from the start of
her time on the bench, you know. For example, the
Supreme Court heard a case in nineteen eighty two called
Mississippi University for Women Versus Hogan. This was a case
where a male student, Hogan was suing because he'd been
denied admission to an all female nursing school, and O'Connor
actually sided with the student, believing that the gender based
enrollment policy was invalid. She said, because it, you know,
(21:33):
it tends to perpetuate the stereotype view of nursing as
this exclusively women's job. And so rather than siding with
the women of the college in the short term, O'Connor
was taking a practical approach and think about helping them
break down the stigma that surrounded this nursing profession. And
not only that, O'Connor later alluded to the ruling as
a way to potentially boost the pay rates, you know,
(21:55):
for all these nurses and thinking about doing so with
this influx of male nurses. That was, you know, kind
of turning the gender wage gap to the women's advantage
as much as possible.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
Yeah, it's pretty clever, and we should definitely talk more
about some of her work on the bench. You know,
she was there for twenty plus years, not to mention
the legacy she left behind after retiring. But first, how
about we take a quick break.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
All right, mango, it's quiz time.
Speaker 3 (22:28):
Now.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
We've got a listener on the line, a regular listener
of Part Time Genius, who actually wrote to us telling
us about her love of sloths after we did a
nine things on sloths, and she's on the line with
us right now. Katie Coile, Welcome to Part Time Genius.
Speaker 3 (22:42):
Hi guys, happy to be here.
Speaker 2 (22:44):
All right, Katie, you have to tell us why do
you love sloths so much? And was there anything that
we missed in that episode that you feel like our
listeners need to know?
Speaker 3 (22:52):
You know, I think I love slots specifically because Charles
Darwin and Survival of the Fit should have gotten them already,
but they're still kicking and they are a relic of evolution.
And once you tell people you love slops, you get
slap gifts for every possible holiday. So I get a
(23:13):
little too deep in to give up now, you know.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
I feel like that's true because we've known a couple
of sloth lovers and are actually especially at Mental Floss,
and it did feel like anytime a special occasion came around,
everyone was giving them sloth gifts.
Speaker 3 (23:30):
It makes me easier to shop for, so I'm really
helping everyone.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
Wow, that's so thoughtful of you. And we decided to
have Katie on for today's quiz because she has a
very special connection to the Supreme Court. Katie, tell us
what that is.
Speaker 3 (23:43):
Ruth Vader Ginsberg and I are both sorority sisters. We're
very good friends. Obviously.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
Well that's awesome. Well, let's get started with the quiz.
Number one. Justice Thirgood Marshall was addicted to Days of
Our Lives and would often call a recess set one
PM to watch his stories. Supreme or not Supreme?
Speaker 3 (24:04):
Please let that be supreme?
Speaker 1 (24:06):
It is? His wife claimed he would watch anything on TV,
from wrestling to news to talk shows, but he especially
loved Days of Our Lives.
Speaker 2 (24:15):
One for one question number two. The Justices enjoy celebrating
each other's birthdays, and for years, Ruth Bader Ginsberg's husband, Martin,
made all the cakes for everyone's birthday. Supreme or not Supreme?
Speaker 3 (24:27):
Supreme?
Speaker 1 (24:29):
Yeah, that's true. Marty's fondness for the kitchen began shortly
after RVG cooked her first meal for him.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
Apparently you're doing pretty well so far, Katie. All right,
let's see question number three. Since nineteen ninety six, lawyers
who argue a case before the Supreme Court get a
special keepsake, a Supreme Court sleep mask that reads justice
is blind. Supreme or not supreme?
Speaker 3 (24:52):
That sounds a little too weird. I'm going to say
not supreme.
Speaker 1 (24:56):
You're right. They don't get a sleep mask, but each
council does get two white feather quill pens for their effort.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
All right, good job, Okay, two left, number four. There's
an image of Mohammed on the side of the Supreme Court.
Supreme or not supreme?
Speaker 3 (25:11):
You know, despite separation of church and state. I feel
like that might be supreme for whatever reason.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
You' doing. Amazing, Katie, It's true. While depictions of Mohammad
are rare, the prophet is depicted in a relief with
other lawmakers and icons of justice, including Solomon, Moses, Confucius,
and HAMMARAVII.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
All right, let's see if we can bring it home
with the final question and go five for five. Here
we go. Justice Renquist loved the musical West Side Story
so much that he often wore a tiny shark pin
on his robes. Supreme or not supreme.
Speaker 3 (25:44):
As much as I want that to be true, I'm
going to say that's not supreme.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
Oh my gosh, Katie, you went five for five. You're
absolutely right. He wasn't a West side story fan that
we know, but he was a huge Gilbert and Sullivan fan,
and he actually stitched gold stripes on his robe sleeves
as a tribute to it. And he was also a
notoriously bad dresser.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
Wow. All right, so how did how did Katie do today? Mango?
Speaker 1 (26:07):
She ran the table and went five for five, which
gets her the big prize, an official PTG Certificate of Genius,
and a part time Genius T shirt.
Speaker 2 (26:15):
Congrasts, Katie, that's wonderful. Well, thanks so much for joining
us today, Katie.
Speaker 3 (26:19):
Thank you?
Speaker 1 (26:33):
Okay, Mango.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
So what else do you want to cover from O'Connor's
time on the Supreme Court?
Speaker 1 (26:38):
Well, I was always struck by the times when she
seemed to go her own way on what are typically
partisan issues. I mean, don't get me wrong. O'Connor was
a moderate conservative, and she tended to vote as such
for the most part, but she also had a reputation
for caring more about how legal matters would affect individuals
than she did for towing the party line or even
rigidly adhering to legal president. For instance, O'Connor bucked conservative
(27:00):
expectations in nineteen ninety two, and this is when the
court had to decide whether it was constitutional to require
women to notify their spouses before getting an abortion, and
in her written opinion, O'Connor called the measure quote repugnant
to our present understanding of marriage and of the nature
of the rights secured by the Constitution. Women do not
lose the constitutionally protected liberty when they marry.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
Yeah, I remember that. And she actually cast the deciding
vote to uphold row, if you remember, and drew a
lot of iron from her Republican colleagues.
Speaker 1 (27:29):
Actually, yeah, O'Connor was responsible for the determining vote of
a lot of five to four decisions, and this gave
her a reputation as a swing vote, since you really
couldn't predict where she'd come down on some of the
more divisive issues. But she really hated that term.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
Yeah, it's something I didn't remember, but found that interesting
in doing the research for the episode. But she never
liked being called a swing vote because she thought implied
that maybe she liked principles and was kind of flighty
or fickle in the way she made her decisions. And
so she was both praised and criticized for casting these
really narrow opinions, And she wasn't as interested in writing law.
(28:03):
She wasn't deciding a case. So she actually listened case
by case, and people who have argued in front of
her said they really couldn't tell which way she would
go just because she she truly took each case as
a learning activity.
Speaker 1 (28:16):
Well, I mean, agree with him or not. She definitely
had principles and I mean just look at some of
her opinions during the George W. Bush administration. In two thousand,
she cast the deciding vote that ended the Florida recount
for the contested presidential race. But then in two thousand
and four, she went against the man she helped elect
when she faced the Hamdi versus Rumsfeld case. And this
was the one where the court was tasked with deciding
(28:38):
whether an American citizen is still entitled a due process
after being named an enemy combandant by the president.
Speaker 2 (28:43):
So O'Connor in this one, she voted in favor of
due process right.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
Yeah, And in her opinions, she reminded her party that
a state of war is not a blank check for
the president when it comes to the rights of the
nation citizens.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
Yeah. And you know, we've talked a good bit today
about O'Connor's rough and tumble upbringing and her determination in
the face of unfair treatment. But I did want to
touch a little bit on some of her softer, more
playful qualities, because you know, it's the side of Supreme
Court justices that we don't really see that much of, honestly.
Speaker 1 (29:12):
Sure, So what kind of stuff are you thinking of?
Speaker 2 (29:14):
Well? I kind of like that even though she had
the same work ethic as her father, she still took
the time to relax a little bit. You know. For instance,
she was an avid tennis player, so for most of
the year she was on the bench, she would plan
this week long vacation in July where she and seven
of her friends from Arizona. They dubbed themselves the Mobile
Party Unit. They'd get together to play tennis and golf,
as well as go horseback riding even whitewater rafting together.
Speaker 1 (29:37):
I love that. Another story I like is how O'Connor
commandeer the Supreme Court's basketball court so she could hold
these women only yoga and aerobics classes.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
Wait, I think we need to pause for a seconds.
So there's a Supreme Court there, there's a basketball court
at the Supreme Court.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
Yeah, it's called the highest court in the land and
it's located on the fifth floor of the Supreme Court building.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
I get it.
Speaker 1 (29:55):
It used to be just this place for old legal
journals like that's where these the story. But in the
nineteen forties some courthouse workers converted into a workout area,
and then it was later turned into this full basketball court.
And apparently O'Connor didn't want to give up the exercise
routine she'd gotten used to in Arizona, and once she
found out that other women there in the building wanted
(30:15):
a place to work out as well, she booked the
gym and asked the YWCA to send over an instructor
to help them start up a class. I mean, the
class really took off and they started meeting daily and
they even got custom printed T shirts that read women
work out at the Supreme Court. Isn't that awesome?
Speaker 2 (30:31):
I loeve is she co opted what must have been
a pretty male dominated space before she came onto the
scene there though, it just feels fitting seeing who she
is it Actually it also reminds me of an interview
I read about O'Connor where there was no women's bathroom
at the Supreme Court when she first arrived, and the
closest one was way down this hallway, far from the
actual courtroom. So once again, in trough O'Connor fashion, she
(30:54):
just took over the men's restroom near her chambers.
Speaker 1 (30:56):
Yeah. I mean, it's crazy to think about, right, but
I guess it was close to two hundred years before
the Supreme Court finally got a female justice, so it
wasn't something they'd ever planned for.
Speaker 2 (31:06):
Yeah, and it just underscores how much of a trailblazer
O'Connor really was. I mean, she once remarked, it's all
right to be the first to do something, but I
certainly didn't want to be the last woman on the
Supreme Court, and of course, thankfully she wasn't. And you know,
the current sitting Supreme Court actually includes three women. Of course,
there's Ruth Bader Ginsburg Soda Soda Mayor and Elena Kagan
(31:27):
And O'Connor herself retired back in two thousand and five.
As you may remember, she was caring for her husband, John,
who'd been suffering for a while from Alzheimer's.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
Yeah, which, you know, it seems totally in keeping with
the high value she's always placed on family, although she
did continue to juggle projects well into her retirement. In
two thousand and six, she started this free online civics
education program. It's called is Civics. It's for middle schoolers.
It basically allows students to research and argue actual cases
and to take part in these mockups of realistic government situations.
(31:58):
And according to O'Connor, this venture to make learning civics
fun is one of the most important things she's ever done.
Speaker 2 (32:04):
And so how did she do that?
Speaker 1 (32:06):
Well, she turned it into a video game. Oh really, yeah,
So here's how she explained the idea to parade. What
we know is that kids like to play games on
the computer. So I set up an advisory group of
fabulous teachers to tell me what we needed to focus
on in a civics course, and then we had games
designed that focus on those parameters. Young people spend an
average of forty hours a week in front of a screen.
(32:27):
One or two hours a week would do to teach
them civics and it seems to be working. I mean,
Isivic is actually used by educators in all fifty states
and about five million students use it each year.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
That's pretty awesome. Well, then after a lifetime of public service,
it is inspiring that she still feels this drive to
help spark the next generation's sense of civic duty. You know,
given her track record, it's exactly what I would expect
from her. And as she once put it, I'm not
accustomed to sitting around and doing nothing, that's for sure.
Speaker 1 (32:55):
And now, what do you say we follow her lead
and keep ourselves busy with a good old fashioned fact.
Speaker 2 (32:59):
Off, you know what, Mango, I say. This fact off
is now in session.
Speaker 1 (33:12):
So I'm not sure if you watched the Senate hearings
with Justice Roberts, but it was a little frustrating from
the outside because he refused to show any of his
opinions and his claim was that he needed the details
of the case before he could speak about anything. And
this has kind of become a fairly common and smart
tactic for justices trying to be confirmed. But what's interesting
is that Justice O'Connor actually used the same tactic during
(33:34):
her hearings decades prior, and you could tell from her
opinions that she really believed that she needed the details
and that they truly mattered. But one of the lawyers
who assisted her for that hearing was a young Justice Roberts.
Speaker 2 (33:48):
Well, there's another thing I love about her judiciary hearing,
and it she took the time to introduce her three
sons to the chamber. She probably listed out where they'd
gone to school, what they'd majored in, their hobbies and accomplishments,
you know, like being a state swimming champ and skydiving,
or being like the family writer. I mean, did all
of these things she took the time to do. Isn't
that pretty amazing?
Speaker 1 (34:08):
I love that. So one thing I love is how
playful she could be. So in two thousand and one
she made a guest appearance at the Shakespeare Theater in
DC where they put King Lear on trial and apparently
her verdict was not mad all right?
Speaker 2 (34:22):
Well, did you know that she had a pet bobcat
in her youth. Apparently she tamed one on her ranch
back home. That's nuts.
Speaker 1 (34:29):
So there was a New York Times piece that said
sander Dale O'Connor was the hardest judge to clerk for.
And as you might guess, she wanted to know everything
and she wanted to be fully able to defend any
side of any opinion she made. So she really worked
her staff, but she also deliberated an extraordinary amount over
who she chose, like she picked clerks from a wide
range of universities and across the political spectrum, because she
(34:52):
both wanted rigorous candidates, but she also wanted to be
challenged in her thoughts as well.
Speaker 2 (34:56):
Well. I did read on the other side of that,
I guess you could say is that she would really
close to her clerks. She'd organized these picnics to see
the cherry blossoms, or host these jack o lantern carving parties,
and even asked to see pictures and get updates on
all of her grand clerks, as she called them.
Speaker 1 (35:12):
So here's a story that's kind of sweet and heartbreaking.
Santade O'Connor cut her career short to be with her husband,
who had severe Alzheimer's because she wanted to take care
of him and make his life more comfortable. And when
he went to a facility, he actually started a romance
with a fellow patient. This is something that a lot
of people with Alzheimer's do, but for her that meant
(35:32):
supporting him through that as well. And as she put it,
he was in a cottage and there was a woman
who kind of attached herself to him. It was nice
for him to have someone who was there to sometimes
hold his hand and keep him company. And I'm glad.
Speaker 2 (35:45):
Wow, that is heartbreaking. All right, Well, here's a fun one,
a very different note. Did you know Sanderday O'Connor is
in the Cowgirl Hall of Fame? Id you know there
was the Cowgirl Hall of Fame. Well, in her bio
she talks about how she learned to ride and shoot
a gun by the age of eight. And for the record,
she's the only Supreme Court justice in the Cowgirl Hall
of Fame, but you know the door is wide open
(36:05):
for future cowgirls to join her.
Speaker 1 (36:08):
I like that and I like ending on something up feet.
So what do you say you take this week's trophy?
Speaker 2 (36:12):
All right? Well, thanks so much. Well, if we have
missed any facts about Sandra Day O'Connor, or any Supreme
Court justices for that matter, we would love to hear
from you. You can always email us part time genius at
HowStuffWorks dot com or call on our twenty four to
seven fact hotline that's one eight four four pt Genius.
You can also hit us up on Facebook or Twitter.
But thanks so much for listening. Thanks again for listening.
(36:46):
Part Time Genius is a production of how stuff works
and wouldn't be possible without several brilliant people who do
the important things we couldn't even begin to understand.
Speaker 1 (36:54):
Tristan McNeil does the editing thing.
Speaker 2 (36:56):
Noel Brown made the theme song and does the mixy
mixy sound thing.
Speaker 1 (36:59):
Jerry does the exact producer thing.
Speaker 2 (37:01):
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Research Army including Austin Thompson, Nolan Brown and Lucas Adams and.
Speaker 1 (37:07):
Eves Jeff Coote gets the show to your ears. Good job, Eves.
Speaker 2 (37:10):
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Speaker 1 (37:16):
Did we forget Jason?
Speaker 2 (37:17):
Jason who
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