Six women have served as justices of the United States Supreme Court: Sandra Day O’Connor, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Amy Coney Barrett, and Ketanji Brown Jackson. O’Connor took her seat in 1981, nearly two centuries into the Court’s existence. Four of the six are on the bench today: Sotomayor, Kagan, Barrett, and Jackson. Their paths to confirmation stretched across four decades and five presidents, and the Senate votes behind them trace the country’s slide from bipartisan consensus to near party-line splits.
Sandra Day O’Connor (1981–2006)
President Ronald Reagan nominated Sandra Day O’Connor in 1981, fulfilling a campaign promise to put the first woman on the Supreme Court.1National Archives. President Ronald Reagan’s Nomination of Sandra Day O’Connor to be Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States She was fifty-one and sitting on the Arizona Court of Appeals. Before the judiciary, she had become the first female majority leader of any state senate in the country, serving in the Arizona legislature.2Arizona State Library, Archives and Public Records. Sandra Day O’Connor
The Senate confirmed her 99–0.1National Archives. President Ronald Reagan’s Nomination of Sandra Day O’Connor to be Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States Over roughly a quarter century on the Court, she became its most influential swing vote, often casting the deciding ballot in closely divided cases. When she was appointed, about 36 percent of law students were women; by her retirement in 2006, that figure had climbed to 48 percent.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg (1993–2020)
Ruth Bader Ginsburg built her reputation as an advocate before she ever joined the bench. In the early 1970s she co-founded the ACLU’s Women’s Rights Project, which challenged gender-based discrimination through a sequence of carefully chosen test cases.3ACLU. How Ruth Bader Ginsburg Got Her Start at the ACLU She argued several landmark cases before the Court she would later sit on, helping establish that the Constitution’s equal protection guarantee reaches sex-based classifications.
President Bill Clinton nominated her in 1993 from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, and the Senate confirmed her 96–3.4Congress.gov. Nomination of Ruth Bader Ginsburg for Supreme Court of the United States In 1996 she wrote the majority opinion striking down the Virginia Military Institute’s male-only admissions policy, holding that any government action based on gender must meet an “exceedingly persuasive justification” standard.5Justia. United States v. Virginia, 518 U.S. 515 (1996) That test remains central to equal protection law. Ginsburg served until her death in September 2020. Her passing during a presidential election year triggered one of the most politically charged vacancies in the Court’s history.
Sonia Sotomayor (2009–Present)
President Barack Obama nominated Sonia Sotomayor in 2009, making her the first Latina to serve on the Supreme Court.6Congress.gov. Nomination of Sonia Sotomayor for The Supreme Court of the United States She came to the Court with more federal trial experience than most of her colleagues. After working as an assistant district attorney in Manhattan, she served as a federal district court judge before being elevated to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals.7Federal Judicial Center. Sotomayor, Sonia
Her prosecution and trial work gave her a ground-level view of how the legal system operates in practice. The Senate confirmed her 68–31, a sharp drop from the near-unanimous votes O’Connor and Ginsburg received.8U.S. Senate. Roll Call Vote 111th Congress, 1st Session
Elena Kagan (2010–Present)
Elena Kagan took an unusual route to the Court. Rather than climb through the federal judiciary, she built her career in academia and government. She became dean of Harvard Law School in 2003 and later served as Solicitor General under President Obama, the first woman to hold that position.9The American Presidency Project. Remarks on the Nomination of Solicitor General Elena Kagan To Be a Supreme Court Associate Justice As Solicitor General she argued cases before the justices who would soon become her colleagues.
Obama nominated her in 2010, and the Senate confirmed her 63–37.10U.S. Senate. Roll Call Vote 111th Congress, 2nd Session Kagan had never served as a judge before joining the Court, which makes her the most recent justice to arrive without prior judicial experience. She has since earned a reputation for sharp, readable opinions and a pragmatic approach to building coalitions.
Amy Coney Barrett (2020–Present)
President Donald Trump nominated Amy Coney Barrett in September 2020, days after Ginsburg’s death and barely a month before a presidential election. Barrett had served on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals since 2017 and spent years as a law professor specializing in constitutional law. Early in her career she clerked for Justice Antonin Scalia from 1998 to 1999, an experience that shaped her approach to interpreting legal texts.11Congress.gov. Judge Amy Coney Barrett
The timeline from nomination to confirmation ran about thirty days. Trump announced her nomination on September 26, 2020, and the Senate confirmed her on October 26 by a vote of 52–48, with no Democratic support.12The White House. SCOTUS13U.S. Senate. Roll Call Vote 116th Congress, 2nd Session She was sworn in the following day. The speed of the process during an active presidential election made it one of the most politically contentious appointments in modern Court history.
Ketanji Brown Jackson (2022–Present)
President Joe Biden nominated Ketanji Brown Jackson in February 2022. She became the first Black woman to serve on the Supreme Court when she took her seat on June 30 of that year.14Oyez. Ketanji Brown Jackson Her professional background was unlike that of any previous justice. She had worked as a federal public defender, representing people who could not afford a lawyer, and later served as a Vice Chair of the U.S. Sentencing Commission, where she helped develop federal sentencing guidelines.15United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary. Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson
Jackson also served as a federal district judge and on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals before her nomination.16Congress.gov. Nomination of Ketanji Brown Jackson for Supreme Court of the United States Her experience as a public defender gives her a perspective on the criminal justice system that no other sitting justice shares. The Senate confirmed her 53–47.
A Shrinking Margin of Confirmation
Put the six confirmation votes side by side and the pattern is hard to miss. O’Connor cleared the Senate 99–0 in 1981. Ginsburg won 96–3 twelve years later. Sotomayor dropped to 68–31, Kagan to 63–37, Barrett to 52–48, and Jackson to 53–47. Part of the reason sits in a 2017 procedural change: until that year, Supreme Court nominees effectively needed sixty votes because any senator could filibuster a nomination, and it took sixty votes to end debate. During the confirmation of Neil Gorsuch, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell invoked the “nuclear option” to lower that threshold to a simple majority. Barrett and Jackson, the two women confirmed since, each cleared the Senate without reaching sixty votes.
The way these justices leave the Court shapes its direction as much as how they arrive. Article III of the Constitution says federal judges “shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour,” which in practice means a lifetime appointment.17Constitution Annotated. Constitution of the United States – Article III O’Connor retired in 2006, letting President George W. Bush name her successor. Ginsburg’s death in office during an election year gave the vacancy to President Trump. A single departure can reshape the Court for a generation, and the women who have served on it have illustrated that fact more vividly than most.