Margaret H. Marshall

Margaret Hilary Marshall (born September 1, 1944) is an American jurist who served as the 24th chief justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, the first woman to hold the position. She was chief justice from 1999 to 2010. On July 21, 2010, she announced her retirement. She was Senior Fellow of the Yale Corporation until she retired from the board in 2016, Senior Counsel at Choate Hall & Stewart, and a member of the Council of the American Law Institute. Marshall was elected in 2017 to the American Philosophical Society. Early life and education Marshall was born in Newcastle, South Africa, and raised Anglican. Margaret was educated at the University of the Witwatersrand where she was active in student and anti apartheid politics. In 1967 she was president of the National Union of South African Students (NUSAS), which was dedicated to ending oppressive minority rule and achieving equality for all South Africans. According to Marshall, "There was no access to justice in South Africa...There were a few courageous barristers who agreed to represent people charged with political crimes, but, by and large, if you were a black South African, you had no justice. The death penalty was imposed in vastly disproportionate numbers. Many of the offenses were applicable to black South Africans only." In June 1966, as a NUSAS vice president, she welcomed U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy to South Africa, in place of union's president Ian Robertson, who had been banned from political appearances. Marshall emigrated to the United States to escape political persecution. In Johannesburg, she attended Kingsmead College, and in Delaware she graduated from the Tatnall School. She earned a master's degree in education from Harvard University in 1969, and a J.D. degree from Yale Law School in 1976. She acquired United States citizenship in 1978. In 1984, she married then-New York Times columnist Anthony Lewis, to whom she remained married until his death in 2013.