Rita C. Davidson (September 1, 1928 – November 11, 1984) was a lawyer and public servant who was the first woman to serve on the
Maryland Court of Appeals
The Supreme Court of Maryland is the highest court of the U.S. state of Maryland. Its name was changed on December 14, 2022, from the Maryland Court of Appeals, after a voter-approved change to the state constitution. The court, which is compose ...
.
Davidson was born in
Brooklyn
Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...
,
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
, the daughter of Lithuanian and Latvian Jewish immigrants by way of Russia.
She graduated from
Goucher College
Goucher College ( ') is a private liberal arts college in Towson, Maryland. It was chartered in 1885 by a conference in Baltimore led by namesake John F. Goucher and local leaders of the Methodist Episcopal Church.https://archive.org/details/h ...
in 1948 and
Yale Law School
Yale Law School (Yale Law or YLS) is the law school of Yale University, a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. It was established in 1824 and has been ranked as the best law school in the United States by '' U.S. News & Worl ...
in 1951.
She worked in private practice in
Washington, D.C.
)
, image_skyline =
, image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...
, and was active in politics in
Montgomery County, Maryland. In 1970, Governor
Marvin Mandel
Marvin Mandel (April 19, 1920 – August 30, 2015) was an American politician and lawyer who served as the 56th Governor of Maryland from January 7, 1969, to January 17, 1979, including a one-and-a-half-year period when Lt. Governor Blair ...
appointed her as the secretary of Employment and Social Services, the first woman named to a Maryland governor's cabinet.
In 1972, Davidson was appointed to the
Maryland Court of Special Appeals
Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean to i ...
. In 1978, acting governor
Blair Lee III
Francis Preston Blair Lee III (May 19, 1916 – October 25, 1985) was an American Democratic politician. He served as the Secretary of State of Maryland from 1969 to 1971. He was Lieutenant Governor of Maryland from 1971 to 1979 and served ...
appointed her to a seat on the
Maryland Court of Appeals
The Supreme Court of Maryland is the highest court of the U.S. state of Maryland. Its name was changed on December 14, 2022, from the Maryland Court of Appeals, after a voter-approved change to the state constitution. The court, which is compose ...
vacated by the death of Justice
Irving A. Levine. Davidson was the first woman appointed to the state's highest court.
[Lee selects woman for top court]
, ''The Baltimore Sun
''The Baltimore Sun'' is the largest general-circulation daily newspaper based in the U.S. state of Maryland and provides coverage of local and regional news, events, issues, people, and industries.
Founded in 1837, it is currently owned by T ...
'' (December 20, 1978), p. 1.
Davidson died of cancer on November 11, 1984, at her home in
Chevy Chase, Maryland.
See also
*
List of female state supreme court justices Female state supreme court justices
First female justices
Below is a list of the names of the first woman to sit on the highest court of their respective states in the United States.
The first state with a female justice was Ohio; Florence E. ...
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Davidson, Rita
1928 births
1984 deaths
Goucher College alumni
Yale Law School alumni
Judges of the Supreme Court of Maryland
20th-century American judges
20th-century American women lawyers
Deaths from cancer in Maryland
Lawyers from Brooklyn
Lawyers from Washington, D.C.
20th-century American lawyers
20th-century American women judges
American people of Lithuanian-Jewish descent
American people of Latvian-Jewish descent