Portia's Progress
![handle is hein.journals/nylr66 and id is 1564 raw text is: MADISON LECTURE
PORTIA'S PROGRESS
SANDRA DAY O'CONNOR*
In 1981, Sandra Day O'Connor became the first woman appointed to the United States
Supreme Court. Through her wide-ranging career, Justice O'Connor personally wit-
nessed the evolution of the legal world from a time when a top Stanford Law School
graduate could gain employment only as a legal secretary, to one in which the law has
recognized a heightened consciousness of women's rights. She also has witnessed the
development of a new feminism, which posits that women and men have particular
ways of looking at the world. In this lecture, Justice O'Connor outlines the Supreme
Court's jurisprudence in the area of women's rights and takes on the new feminism,
calling it a throwback to the myths we have struggled to put behind us.
I am very happy to be celebrating with you the One Hundredth An-
niversary of Women Graduates from New York University School of
Law. New York University showed great foresight by admitting women
law students before the turn of the century. It was one of the first major
law schools to do so. Columbia Law School did not admit women until
1927; Harvard Law School did not admit women until 1950. In fact,
New York University flouted the wishes of Columbia Law School com-
mittee member George Templeton Strong, who had written in his diary:
Application from three infatuated Young Women to the [Columbia]
Law School. No woman shall degrade herself by practicing law in New
York especially if I can save her.'
New York women wouldn't be saved, however. The first woman to
sit on the federal bench was a New Yorker,2 as was the first woman
admitted to practice before the Supreme Court.3 A New York woman
wrote the state's first workmen's compensation law,4 and a New York
woman wrote the Little Wagner act that permitted New York City
employees to bargain collectively without violating antitrust laws.5 And,
* Associate Justice, Supreme Court of the United States. This Article was delivered as the
twenty-third James Madison Lecture on Constitutional Law at New York University School of
Law on October 29, 1991.
1 K. Morello, The Invisible Bar 76 (1986) (quoting 4 The Diary of George Templeton
Strong 256 (A. Nevins & M. Thomas eds. 1952)).
2 Florence Ellinwood Allen was appointed to the United States Court of Appeals for the
Sixth Circuit in 1934 by President Roosevelt. Id. at 234.
3 See text accompanying notes 18-22 infra (discussing Belva A. Lockwood).
4 See K. Morello, supra note 1, at 131 (discussing Crystal Eastman).
5 Morello, Bar Admission was Rough for 19th Century Women, N.Y.L.J., May 13, 1983,
at 19.
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Portia's Progress
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