ABSTRACT
John Paul Stevens was appointed to the US Supreme Court by President Gerald R. Ford in 1975 to replace retiring Justice William O. Douglas. Justice Stevens consistently supported the rights of women and civil rights issues and became an opponent of the death penalty later in his tenure on the Court. Women's and civil liberty groups were initially concerned about how Justice Stevens would vote, but quickly were assured when he dissented in General Electric Co. v. Gilbert, 429 US 125, in which the majority had held that the exclusion of pregnancy from health insurance was not discrimination. Stevens served in the Navy from 1942 to 1945, engaged in efforts to intercept and break Japanese code. After the war, he graduated in 1947 from North-western University Law School, again magna cum laude and first in his class while also editing the law review.
