{"id":30979,"date":"2024-03-28T15:46:34","date_gmt":"2024-03-28T19:46:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/?p=30979"},"modified":"2024-03-28T16:25:16","modified_gmt":"2024-03-28T20:25:16","slug":"womens-history-month-former-justice-kay-hearn-discusses-a-womans-place","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/womens-history-month-former-justice-kay-hearn-discusses-a-womans-place\/","title":{"rendered":"Women\u2019s History Month: Former Justice Kay Hearn discusses \u2018A Woman\u2019s Place\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Women\u2019s History Month at Furman<\/a>
\nRead more stories >><\/a><\/em><\/h4>\n

Not long before retiring on Dec. 31, 2022, Kaye Hearn, the only woman serving on the South Carolina Supreme Court at the time, wrote the majority opinion of a ruling striking down the state\u2019s ban on abortions after six weeks.<\/p>\n

Just a few months later, the now all-male court issued another decision that brought the six-week ban back<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI defy you to bring those two statues in and see any meaningful difference between them,\u201d Hearn told an audience of more than 200 people in the Watkins Room of Furman University\u2019s Trone Student Center for \u201cA Woman\u2019s Place,\u201d a discussion hosted by The Riley Institute<\/a>\u2019s Advance Team during Women\u2019s History Month. \u201cWhat was different was there was not a woman\u2019s voice in the caucus.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"

Kaye Hearn (center), a former member of the South Carolina Supreme Court, was joined by Teresa Nesbitt Cosby, professor of political science, and Glen Halva-Neubauer, chair of Politics and International Affairs, for a discussion during \u201cA Woman\u2019s Place\u201d on March 28, 2024.<\/p><\/div>\n

More than half of the students in South Carolina\u2019s law schools are women, Hearn said, and women make up well over 30 percent of the state court judiciary. But that diversity does not extend to the state\u2019s highest court, which is now the only all-male state supreme court in the United States.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn a very basic level, litigants and lawyers who come into the courtroom need to be able to look up on that bench and see someone who looks like them,\u201d she said. \u201cIt gives confidence in the judicial system. And a diverse bench promotes richer jurisprudence by incorporating a broader range of life experiences.\u201d<\/p>\n

South Carolina is also one of only two states in which state Supreme Court justices are elected by their state legislatures. \u201cOur General Assembly has become more and more conservative over the years,\u201d Hearn said during a panel discussion with Teresa Cosby<\/a>, a professor of politics and international affairs and an attorney, and Glen Halva-Neubauer<\/a>, the Dana Professor and Chair of Politics and International Affairs. The way to add women to the bench, Hearn said, is to elect more women to the General Assembly.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Riley Institute Advance Team Leader Lillian Meyer \u201924 gives the welcoming remarks at \u201cA Woman\u2019s Place\u201d on March 28, 2024.<\/p><\/div>\n

The message resonated with Lillian Meyer \u201924, leader of The Riley Institute Advance Team<\/a>. In October 2023, the team of more than 30 students had helped facilitate a visit to Furman<\/a> by the five state supreme court justices.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat really made us think about representation in the judicial branch,\u201d said Meyer, a double major in politics and international affairs<\/a> and Africana studies<\/a>, in an interview before the event. \u201cA lot of people are paying more attention to judges and courts right now because they\u2019re having a lot more control in our lives, especially for women with the abortion decisions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hearn would be a perfect choice to speak about those issues, Meyer and her colleagues decided. Getting to know the retired justice has also given the senior, who plans to enter the legal profession herself, a morale boost.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe is so inspirational, in that she was doing these things when so few women were, and she was opening doors for so many people,\u201d said Meyer. \u201cI really hope people leave the event feeling empowered \u2013 that it can get better, that they can be a part of making it better.\u201d<\/p>\n

For her part, Hearn was proud to be at Furman during Women\u2019s History Month to discuss \u201cA Woman\u2019s Place.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe very strongly that a woman\u2019s place is wherever she wants it to be,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kay Hearn, one of two women to ever serve on the South Carolina Supreme Court, visited Furman to talk about the past, present and future of the state\u2019s judicial system.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":265,"featured_media":30981,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,29],"tags":[2684,1931],"class_list":["post-30979","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics-and-international-affairs","category-riley-institute","tag-riley-advance-team","tag-womens-history-month"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30979","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/265"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30979"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30979\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30981"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}