Sandra Day O'Connor was the first woman to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court, appointed by President Reagan in 1981, and for many years the Court's decisive swing vote.
O'Connor's pragmatic, case-by-case approach to constitutional adjudication made her the most influential swing justice of the Rehnquist Court era; her majority opinion in Grutter v. Bollinger (2003) upheld race-conscious admissions and shaped affirmative action law for two decades.
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