Shortlisted

Shortlisted is the inspiring and previously untold history of the women considered—but not selected—for the U.S. Supreme Court.

In 1981, after almost two centuries of exclusively male appointments, Sandra Day O'Connor became the first female Supreme Court Justice of the United States, a significant historical moment and a symbolic triumph for women's rights supporters. But there were other remarkable women shortlisted for the Supreme Court in the decades before O'Connor's success.

Shortlisted gives nine women formally considered but passed over for a seat on the Supreme Court going back to the 1930s the recognition they deserve. Award-winning scholars Renee Knake Jefferson and Hannah Brenner Johnson rely on previously unpublished materials to illustrate the professional and personal lives of these accomplished women. From Florence Allen, the first woman judge in Ohio, and the first to appear on a president's list for the Court, to Cornelia Kennedy, the first woman to serve as chief judge of a US district court, shortlisted by Ford and Reagan, Shortlisted shares the overlooked stories of those who paved the way for women's representation throughout the legal profession and beyond.

Filling a notable historical gap, the book also exposes the harms of shortlisting, revealing how adding qualified female candidates to a list but passing over them creates the appearance of diversity while preserving the status quo. Women, especially female minorities, while as qualified as others on the shortlist (if not more so), find themselves far less likely to be chosen. With the stories of these nine exemplary women as a framework, Shortlisted offers all women a valuable set of strategies for upending these enduring injustices.