HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — Ellen Ash Peters, who was the first woman to serve as Connecticut’s chief justice and wrote the majority opinion in the state Supreme Court’s landmark school desegregation ruling in 1996, has died. She was 94.
Peters, who also was the first female faculty member at Yale Law School, passed away Tuesday, according to the Connecticut Judicial Branch. The cause and location of her death were not immediately disclosed.
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“What a trailblazer she was!” the current chief justice, Richard Robinson, said in a statement. “While small in stature, she was a fearless legal giant who was dedicated to upholding the rule of law. She also recognized the importance of fairness, openness, transparency and providing true equal access to justice for all.”
Chief Justice Ellen Ash Peters smiles as she conducts a news conference at the Connecticut Supreme Court, Nov. 13, 1984, in Hartford, Conn. Peters, the first woman to serve as Connecticut’s chief justice and wrote the majority opinion in the state Supreme Court’s landmark school desegregation ruling in 1996, died on Tuesday, April 16, 2024. She was 94. (Bob Child/AP Photo)
Peters was appointed to the state Supreme Court in 1978 by then-Gov. Ella Grasso, a Democrat and the first woman who was not a spouse or widow of a former governor to be elected the governor of a U.S. state. Peters was also the first woman to serve on the state’s highest court. She became chief justice in 1984, served on the court until 1996 and later took part-time senior status.
In her last year as chief justice, Peters wrote the majority opinion in a 4-3 ruling in the Sheff v. O’Neill case, declaring the segregation of Hartford-area schools to be unconstitutional. In particular, the majority said the extreme racial isolation of minorities in Hartford schools deprived them of a state constitutional right to equal education.
“In staying our hand, we do not wish to be misunderstood about the urgency of finding an appropriate remedy for the plight of Hartford’s schoolchildren,” Peters wrote. “Every passing day shortchanges these children in their ability to contribute to their own well-being and to that of this state and nation.”
In response, the state legislature created a network of magnet schools and school choice options to attract a mix of city and suburban children. But the legal case that prompted the ruling continued to be litigated because of…
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