The first woman on the U.S. Supreme Court, Sandra Day O'Connor, passed away Friday night at the age of 93 in Phoenix. The court said she died in Phoenix from complications of dementia.
O'Connor was the daughter of a farmer and spent most of her life in Arizona, where she was born. In a public letter published in October 2018, at the age of 88, the former judge, who had not been seen in public for some time, announced that she had been diagnosed with early-stage dementia, "probably Alzheimer's disease," and as a result she retired from public life.
Although William H. Rehnquist, a classmate at Stanford Law School, served as a Supreme Court justice for much of O'Connor's term, the Supreme Court at the time was often called O'Connor's Court, and she herself was called "the most powerful woman in America."
Sandra Day O'Connor sworn in to the U.S. Supreme Court, 1981, photo: AP
O'Connor was appointed to the top job in 1981 by President Ronald Reagan, who about a month before the election in which he defeated Jimmy Carter pledged: "It's time for a woman to sit with our most important jurists."
O'Connor retired in 2006 after her husband John was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. Two years after she retired, John died at the age of 79.
During her tenure, O'Connor voted for civil rights and supported Roe v. Wade, which gave women the option to have an abortion. In 2000, she was the decisive voice in a ruling that determined the winner of the presidential election, a decision that helped George W. Bush enter the White House, a decision she regretted.
O'Connor was seen in the United States as a decisive voice in abortion, affirmative action and other controversial social issues in court.
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