Lambda Legal Applauds Appointment of First Openly Lesbian Justice to Minnesota Supreme Court

Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton today announced that Minnesota Appeals Court Judge Margaret Chutich would be appointed to the state’s supreme court. With this appointment, Chutich became the state’s first openly gay justice.

Following the announcement, Lambda Legal Fair Courts Project Director Eric Lesh said:

"The appointment of Judge Chutich to the Minnesota Supreme Court is a powerful step toward building a judiciary that fully reflects the people of Minnesota in all their diversity. It is important that courts across the country are not seen as excluding particular segments of society, when all of us are subject to their rulings.”

"If there are gay attorneys, gay people thinking about going to law school, I think it's important that they know there aren't barriers to their dreams," Chutich told members of the press today.

To date, Oregon, Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Puerto Rico and Vermont have all had openly gay justices in their highest state courts.

Lambda Legal’s Fair Courts Project provides tools and information to counter harmful attacks on the courts that threaten LGBT and HIV-related civil rights and jeopardize the ability of our courts to make decisions based on constitutional and legal principles—not politics or popular opinion.