COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — The Ohio League of Women Voters urged the state’s high court on Friday to relocate a portrait of the state’s first female chief justice from a new exhibit to be located in the courthouse basement back to the building’s main hallway.
In a letter dripping with sarcasm, Executive Director Jen Miller told Ohio Supreme Court justices she was certain that they chose the location of their new Women in the Law display — where retired Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor ‘s portrait would be the centerpiece — to emphasize the difficulties of being female.
“Situating the exhibit so far from the history-making action happening above ground also sends a powerful message about the distance women must travel to reach success,” she wrote, “inviting visitors to consider the fortitude required to make it out of the darkness of exclusion.”
O’Connor’s portrait initially stood in the court’s Grand Concourse, alongside an otherwise all male lineup. But it recently was removed amid disagreements about its placement among justices. Miller suggested that the court could commission a reproduction for use in the exhibit and return the original back upstairs.
Among the issues that have arisen with the portrait, by artist Paul Wyse, is that its carved walnut frame is freestanding — so to be stood, rather than hung on a wall.
Miller otherwise commended the conservative-leaning court for supporting such an exhibit as “so many of those in leadership are abandoning expressions of diversity and inclusion,” and said the league plans to widely promote it.
O’Connor, a Republican, sided with Democrats in a series of rulings finding GOP-drawn congressional and Statehouse maps unconstitutional, alienating many members of her own party. Last year, after retiring because of age limits, she became the face of a proposed constitutional amendment to change the troubled political mapmaking process. The measure failed in the face of forceful opposition from Ohio’s Republican establishment.
In its announcement, the court said the Women in the Law exhibit — to be located in the Thomas J. Moyer Judicial Center’s “historic ground floor” — will highlight women besides O’Connor, too.
Other female trailblazers include Florence Allen, the first woman to serve on the Ohio Supreme Court and the first woman appointed to a federal court of appeals; and Melody Stewart, the first Black woman elected to the high court. Planned interactive displays would also bring to life the stories of former justices Alice Robie Resnick, Yvette McGee Brown and Evelyn Stratton, among others, the court said.
A message seeking comment on Miller’s letter was left Friday.
