 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Content provided by the American Bar Association Division for Public Education. Visit the Division for Public Education's website to learn more about the law and its role in society (www.abanet.org/publiced). For more profiles of pioneers in the legal profession, visit the Division for Public Education's Raising the Bar: Pioneers in the Legal Profession website at www.abanet.org/publiced/raisingthebar.html.
Joyce Kennard
|
On March 11, 1989, when Governor George Deukmejian nominated Joyce Kennard to the California Supreme Court, he gave her warm praise: Joyce Kennard is superbly qualified and she has had a remarkable life of achievement and triumph over adversity… [she] has proved that hard work, skill and intelligence, combined with the promise of the American dream, can lead one to great achievements.¹ Kennard was born in 1941 to a Dutch-Indonesian father and a Chinese-Indonesian mother in West Java, Indonesia. During the complex struggle for Indonesia in World War II and subsequent decolonization, she and her family often faced danger and discrimination because of Kennard's Dutch-Indonesian ethnicity. During the war, her father died in a Japanese prison camp when she was only one year old. She and her mother lost their home and all of their belongings when they were taken to a camp, where they remained until the end of the war. In 1951, she and her mother moved to Dutch New Guinea (now Irian Jaya). Kennard and her mother shared a Quonset hut in the jungle with four other families. The hut had no kitchen, no refrigeration, and no indoor plumbing. Kennard attended a missionary school and started to learn English by listening to song lyrics broadcast from Australia. But life was difficult, and, when they had the chance, she and her mother moved to Holland. Kennard was 14. An excellent student and linguist, Kennard always planned to attend college, but was forced to take time off from school when her leg had to be amputated below the knee due to a serious infection. Deferring her dreams of higher education, she enrolled in secretarial school. At the age of 20, Kennard had a chance to immigrate to the United States. She seized the opportunity and settled in Southern California in 1961. For seven years, Kennard worked as a secretary in a life insurance firm. Her mother passed away in the Netherlands and left her five thousand dollars. Kennard decided to give up full-time work and use her mother's life savings to embark on a university education. "Some people dream of wealth," she recalled later, "but I had always dreamed of earning a university degree."² Kennard graduated magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Southern California with a degree in German, earned in just three years while she was still working part-time 20 hours a week. She then attended the USC Gould School of Law, graduating in 1974. Simultaneously, she earned a Master's in Public Administration, and her thesis received the Outstanding Thesis of the Year Award. Kennard then spent nearly five years in the criminal division of the California State attorney general's office. She then joined the state court of appeal as a senior research attorney. Kennard then began a meteoric ascent through the judiciary. In 1986, Governor George Deukmejian appointed her to the Los Angeles Municipal Court; in 1987 she was appointed to the Los Angeles County Superior Court; in 1988 she was appointed to the state Court of Appeal; and in 1989 she was nominated to the California Supreme Court. Kennard became the first Asian Pacific American Justice on the state high court, and only the second woman. Six months into her term Kennard told a meeting of the California Women Lawyers, "I can assure you I am not a token presence."³ She added that it was "nice...to see so many women in their proper place-here at the State Bar… rubbing elbows with the 'old boys.'"4 Kennard has established a reputation as a judge's judge, an apolitical advocate for the law. A recent article on her judicial temperament asserted, Attempts to classify Justice Kennard's views into any particular political ideology fail-not because her opinions lack forcefulness, but rather because her independence and diligence drive her to look beyond the political issues surrounding each case and focus on the individual parties, the specific facts, and the law.5 She is a frequent dissenter, in accordance with her belief that opposing views within the court should be expressed and heard. Kennard has received numerous honorary degrees and dozens of awards since her appointment to the California Supreme Court, including the American Bar Association's "Margaret Brent Women Lawyers of Achievement Award" in 1993, the American Bar Association's "Spirit of Excellence Award" in 1996, and the Access Award from the Los Angeles County Commission on Disabilities. Fourteen years after her nomination to the California Supreme Court, the words spoken by Governor George Deukmejian in 1989 still ring true. Sources and Resources 1Philip Hager, "L.A. Judge Named to California High Court," L.A Times, 12 March 1989. 2Nancy Smith Harris in conjunction with the Writer's Center of Marin, "Joyce Luther Kennard." 3Philip Hager, "Kennard Seeks Her Own Way on High Court," L.A. Times, 17 September 1989. 4Ibid. 5Jeremy Speich, "Joyce L. Kennard: An Independent Streak on California's Highest Court," 65 Alb. L. Rev. 1181. (Originally published in 2003) |
