A pleasant surprise was given to Austin High School graduates in El Paso in 1996.
Justice Sandra Day O’Connor of the Supreme Court, their most well-known classmate, would be attending their 50th reunion.
“What a pleasure it is to return,” O’Connor exclaimed to the El Paso Times. I’m happy to see that I haven’t entirely forgotten how everything appears. Seeing the faces and learning about the lives of people I knew here is enjoyable.
O’Connor passed away on Friday at the age of ninety-three, five years after withdrawing from public life following a diagnosis of early-stage dementia. Since Arizona was her home state for the majority of her early career, many people remember the first female justice on the U.S. Supreme Court as an Arizonan. However, O’Connor is also a source of civic pride for Texans because she was raised in El Paso and completed her high school education there.
“Justice O’Connor was a trailblazer in this country and El Paso’s daughter, attending Austin High School and Radford School for Girls,” City of El Paso Mayor Oscar Leeser stated on Friday. “We will treasure her amazing legacy going forward, and we will always remember her. May she find peace in her resting place.
O’Connor was well-known for her feisty personality and innate leadership skills while attending Austin High School, skills that would come in handy as the first female justice on the Supreme Court.
1996: “Oh, we always anticipated great things of her, She was an exceptional student,” Gayle Welsch, a friend from high school, said to the El Paso Times. And even now, she remains incredibly approachable and grounded. We’re all very pleased with her.
O’Connor was raised on the 200,000-acre Lazy B Ranch in southeast Arizona, which her grandfather had established thirty years prior to Arizona’s statehood. She picked up skills like.22 rifle shooting, truck driving, and fence repair there.
O’Connor was born on March 26, 1930, in El Paso, and she split her early years between Texas and Arizona. Sixth in her class, she graduated from Austin High at the age of sixteen in 1946. She went to Stanford University after graduating and studied economics there.
Following her undergraduate studies, O’Connor enrolled at Stanford Law School, where she eventually married her future husband and graduated among the top students in her class, along with William H. Rehnquist, who would later work with her on the court.
O’Connor returned to Arizona after graduating and got engaged in Republican politics. She was reelected twice after being appointed in 1969 to take the place of an Arizona state senator. O’Connor became the first woman to serve as majority leader of the Senate in any state when she was elected in 1972.
Following her election to a state judgeship, O’Connor continued her political ascent in Arizona by being appointed to the Arizona Court of Appeals. Her nomination to the Supreme Court came from President Ronald Reagan in 1981. On September 21, 1981, she was unanimously confirmed by the Senate. O’Connor spent 25 years as a justice on the Supreme Court and was known for being a moderate “swing vote” who was hesitant to make decisions that had wide implications.
She was a strong supporter of equal legal protection. Her concurring opinion in the historic case Lawrence v. Texas, which overturned the state’s sodomy law in a significant win for gay rights, is among her most well-known opinions. The Texas law, according to her writing, “brands all homosexuals as criminals.”
Her ties to Texas have long been praised by Texans. In 2008, she was admitted into the Texas Women’s Hall of Fame. She was inducted into the National Cowgirl Hall of Fame in 2002, located in Fort Worth. In Texas, she has several schools named after her, including the magnet school for criminal justice located in Austin High, her former school.
In a statement he made on Friday regarding the justice’s passing, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott reflected on his 2005 argument before Justice O’Connor.
Abbott said in the statement, “Judge O’Connor was a trailblazer and was still an inspiration to women all through her lifetime as our country’s first woman on the Supreme Court.” “I am confident that her legacy will endure for many more generations.”
El Paso state representative Eddie Morales, Jr., encouraged people to join him in praying for the O’Connor family.
“Today, I honor the groundbreaking legacy of Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, the first female justice on the United States Supreme Court, who was born in El Paso, Texas, ninety-three years ago,” stated a statement from Morales. Generations to come will remember her legacy and her dedication to the law and the US Constitution.