Justice Is Served—By IU Alums

Is IU a pillar of justice(s)? You bet. Allow us to make the case.

Between Indiana University’s Maurer School of Law (at IU Bloomington) and Robert H. McKinney School of Law (at IUPUI), IU has produced a whopping 40 justices who have served on the highest courts in the United States and beyond.

In fact, nearly 25 percent of all justices to ever serve on the Indiana Supreme Court—including all five sitting justices—are graduates of either the Maurer or McKinney schools.

What’s more, Juanita Kidd Stout, former justice of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, was the first Black woman to serve as a state supreme court justice. Franklin D. Cleckley was the first Black justice of the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals. And Gregory Kellam Scott was the first—and has still been the only—Black justice on the Colorado Supreme Court.

All rise for the honorable IU grads who have held these esteemed positions:

Maurer, 27 justices

• Indiana Supreme Court (20)
• Supreme Court of Appeals of W. Virginia (1)
• Supreme Court of Pennsylvania (1)
• Supreme Court of the Philippines (3)
• U.S. Supreme Court (1)
• Wisconsin Supreme Court (1)

McKinney, 13 justices

• Colorado Supreme Court (1)
• Indiana Supreme Court (12)

This article was originally published in the 2021 issue of Imagine magazine.