Time For A Woman
June 21, 1981
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THERE have been 101 justices on the United States Supreme Court since it was formed nearly 200 years ago.
All men.
Now a woman may make it.
It's high time.
During his campaign for the presidency, Ronald Reagan promised one of his first appointments to the highest court in the land would be a woman.
He will make his first appointment, to fill the forthcoming resignation of Justice Potter Stewart, before Oct. 1.
While Justice Stewart said that appointing a judge on the basis of sex "was antithetical to the very idea of what a judge is supposed to be," being a female won't hurt any candidate for the Supreme Court now.
Here are some who undoubtedly will be considered:
Anne Armstrong, of Texas, a Republican dynamo who has served as ambassador to Great Britain.
Carla Hills, a Republican lawyer from California who has served in the Cabinet. At one time President Reagan was considering her for solicitor general.
Cornelia Kennedy and Amalya Kerase, appellate federal judges in Michigan and New York. While available reference books do not give the political party affiliations of either, both are black.
The opportunity of breaking the female barrier with a black woman must have great attraction to any politically inclined president, which Reagan certainly is. But Justice Thurgood Marshall is black, and there might be political problems with having two black justices on a nine-member court. We suspect Kennedy and Kerase will have to wait until Justice Marshall leaves the court.
Arizona Appellate Court Judge Sandra O'Connor has been suggested as a possible candidate.
One of her main problems, of course, is that Arizona already has one Supreme Court Justice, William Rehnquist, and it would be unusual indeed for a small state to have two members of the court.