Sandra Day O’Connor, first woman on the Supreme Court, dies at 93

Retired Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, who blazed a trail as the first woman to sit on the Supreme Court, died on Friday in Phoenix, the Supreme Court said. She was 93 years old.

O’Connor died of complications related to advanced dementia, probably Alzheimer’s, and a respiratory illness, the court said in a statement. She withdrew from public life in 2018 after she was diagnosed with dementia.

O’Connor was appointed to the Supreme Court by then President Ronald Reagan in 1981, making history as the first woman justice. During her 24-year tenure on the high court, she was often at its center and was a crucial swing vote in divisive cases, including those involving abortion and affirmative action.

O’Connor was also in the 5-4 majority in the 2000 case Bush v. Gore, which effectively decided the election for George W. Bush. She would go on to express doubts about the court’s decision to intervene in the election dispute, telling the Chicago Tribune in 2013, “Maybe the court should have said, ‘We’re not going to take it, goodbye.'”

Born in El Paso, Texas, in 1930, Sandra Day grew up on her family’s cattle ranch, called the “Lazy B,” in southeastern Arizona. She was admitted to Stanford University at the age of 16 and graduated from Stanford Law in 1952, completing her degree in two years rather than the standard three. She graduated third in her class at Stanford Law, two places behind a future colleague on the Supreme Court, Chief Justice William Rehnquist.

It was also during her time in law school that she met her husband, John Jay O’Connor. He died in 2009 of complications from Alzheimer’s disease.

As she entered the legal field, O’Connor struggled to find a job because of her gender and received only one offer to work as a legal secretary at a firm based in Los Angeles. O’Connor turned down the job, and offered to work for free for the county attorney for San Mateo County in California. She then was hired as deputy county attorney and, after her husband was stationed in Frankfurt, Germany, worked as a civilian attorney with the Army Quartermaster Corps.

O’Connor and her husband returned to the U.S. in 1957 and moved to the Phoenix area, where she was admitted to the bar and, with another lawyer, began a private practice. In 1965, O’Connor worked as an assistant state attorney general of Arizona and four years later, was selected to fill a vacancy in the Arizona State Senate. She was reelected to the state’s upper chamber twice and in 1972, became the first woman to serve as the majority leader of any state senate.