1930-2023 Sandra Day O'Connor: A Towering Legacy

The first female Supreme Court associate justice forged a path for women in the U.S.

- K.C. BAKER

One of the most consequential women in United States history, Sandra Day O’Connor began breaking barriers in 1949 as one of only five women admitted to her class at Stanford Law, eventually graduating at the top of that class. Her academic success seemed to mean little, however; the only job she was offered after school was as a legal secretary. “That was a time in the middle of the last century when women weren’t hired as lawyers,” she told ABC News in 2010.