TEXAS SUPREME COURT HISTORICAL SOCIETY

The Optimist (Abilene, Tex.), 69(4), Ed. 1, Tues., Sept. 15, 1981 (newspaper),http://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth99589/).Notable U.S. Supreme Court DecisionsThe first opinion she wrote as a Justice was Mississippi University for Women v. Hogan, a genderdiscriminationcase. 5 Her opinion allows us to examine how Justice O’Connor viewed college admission rules.Mississippi University for Women (“MUW”) was a women’s university that included a nursing school that, like theuniversity of which it was a part, admitted only women under the auspices of “educational affirmative action.” 6In 1979, Joe Hogan applied to enter the nursing school in order to obtain a B.A. to go with the R.N. degreehe already had, but although he was otherwise qualified he was denied admission solely because he was a man.Hogan brought suit claiming that he was denied admission solely on the basis of his gender and that MUW’ssingle-sex admission policy violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.The main focus of Justice O’Connor’s opinion was that, since women already dominated the field of nursing(she supplied statistics, a favorite tool of hers, to prove her point), there was no need for “educational affirmativeaction” for women in the field of nursing. “In limited circumstances a gender-based classification favoring one sex canbe justified if it intentionally and directly assists members of the sex that is disproportionately burdened.” 7 In fact, she5458 U.S. 718 (1982).6Id. at 727. Mississippi University for Women is now a coeducational institution.7Id. at 728 (citing Schlesinger v. Ballard, 419 U.S. 498 [1975]).93