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Source: Made By History at the Washington Post
Roundup
2/1/2022

After a Record of Distinction and Mentorship on the Bench, it's Time for a Black Woman Justice

by Angela Robinson

Retired Connecticut Superior Court Judge Angela Robinson is counsel with Halloran and Sage and the Waring and Carmen Partridge faculty fellow and visiting professor at Quinnipiac University School of Law. She is the author of First Black Women Judges: The Story of Three Black Women Judges in the United States.

President Biden has promised to appoint a Black woman to the upcoming Supreme Court vacancy, which would mark a long-overdue milestone. Biden has quietly and consistently been keeping his promise to enrich the federal courts with much-needed diverse talent, particularly the talent of women of color and, more specifically, Black women.

Now, with Justice Stephen G. Breyer’s pending retirement, Biden has an opportunity to make good on his promise about the next Supreme Court justice. Over the past century, Black women have earned their right to be represented on the court. They have proved themselves as able lawyers since 1872, as wise judicial magistrates and judges in state courts since 1939, in the federal court system since 1966 and as state Supreme Court justices and judges since 1975. Their absence on the Supreme Court is a stark reminder of the inequity of the legal system — especially given the historic contributions Black women have made to it.

When afforded the opportunity, Black women have proved themselves to be excellent jurists who improve the judicial system for the betterment of all.

Judge Jane Bolin became the first Black female judge in the country in 1939. Her path demonstrated how being a first means charting a new route. A graduate of Wellesley College, where Bolin entered as one of only two Black women in her class and, later, the first Black woman to graduate from Yale Law School, Bolin became a New York Family Court Judge at the young age of 31 in 1939. Gov. Fiorello LaGuardia appointed her, in part, in response to the continuing racial tensions and divisions in New York City. As a vocal and active member and leader of the NAACP, Bolin viewed her role as being a judicial pioneer. Along with other like-minded judges and government officials, she helped change racist laws and policies, including one that had assigned the files of children of color only to social workers of color. That race-based assignment system meant that children of color waited longer in the system for services than White children.

Despite her admirable 40 years on the bench and stellar record, her connections with former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt and other high-placed officials and her active role in the Black community including as a national officer in the NAACP, she was never promoted to higher courts. But her successful tenure was followed by the election or appointment of five other Black women as state court judges: Juanita Kidd Stout in Philadelphia in 1959; Vaino Spencer in Los Angeles in 1962; Marjorie Lawson in D.C. in 1962; Edith Spurlock Sampson in Chicago in 1962; and Myrtle B. Stryker in Cook County, Ill., in 1966.

Read entire article at Made By History at the Washington Post