The IU Maurer School of Law announced the Juanita Kidd Stout Professorship on Wednesday to honor the first black woman to serve on a state supreme court.
The professor position was named after IU alumna Stout and is the first IU professorship to recognize a black woman’s achievement, according to an IU press release.
IU-Bloomington Provost Lauren Robel donated the lead gift to the endowment, with law school faculty and alumni following suit.
Stout graduated with a J.D. degree in 1948 and a Master of Laws in 1954. After she graduated, Stout went to Pennsylvania and started a practice, according to the press release.
Stout was then elected to the Philadelphia Municipal Court in 1959, making her the first black woman to be elected to a court of record, or a court that must record proceedings, according to the press release.
In 1988, she was appointed to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, according to the Oklahoma Historical Society.
Twelve years before her death in 1998, Stout was inducted into Maurer’s Academy of Law School Alumni Fellows in 1986.
The professorship honors a pioneering graduate, and isn’t the only one step toward diversity in the past few years, according to the press release.
In 2016, Annie Xie was elected the first woman of color editor-in-chief for Maurer’s law journal. Jose Moncada will be the first Latino editor-in-chief, starting his role in the fall.
