Law Commons^™

Shortlisted, Hannah Brenner, Renee Knake

Faculty Scholarship

As the New York Times noted in 1971, Mildred Lillie fortunately had no children. Even in her fifties, she maintained "a bathing beauty figure." Lillie was not, however, a swimsuit model. She was one of President Nixon's possible nominees for the United States Supreme Court. This Article tells the stories of nearly a dozen extraordinary women considered, but ultimately not nominated, for the Court before Justice Sandra Day O'Connor became the first in 1981. The public nature of the nomination process enables us to analyze the scrutiny of these women by the profession and media, and analogize to those similarly …