There’s never been an openly queer Supreme Court Justice, but there’s evidence that Associate Justice William Francis Murphy is the first gay Justice. But that’s not the only reason the LGBTQ+ community should celebrate him: He was also a tireless fighter against prejudice in all forms and the first to use the word “racism” in a Supreme Court opinion.
Murphy would have been in the history books regardless of whether he’d been appointed to the Supreme Court or not. Born April 13, 1890, in Harbor Beach, Michigan, he attended law school at the University of Michigan and joined the bar in 1914. His legal career was interrupted three years later when he joined the American Expeditionary Forces in World War I.
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After coming back to Michigan in 1919, he served for a few years before forming a legal partnership with college friend Edward G. Kemp in 1922. For the rest of his life, Kemp would be by his side publicly as an adviser and friend… and as possibly more than a friend.
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It was around this time that Murphy made his way into politics. Though he lost a 1920 race for Congress, in 1923, he won an election for judge of the Recorder’s Court—what Detroit calls its criminal courts—by a massive majority.
At the Recorder’s Court, Murphy was the judge in the first of the Sweet trials. These trials centered around Dr. Ossian Sweet, a Black man targeted by a white mob upset he’d moved into their previously all-white neighborhood. Sweet, his wife, and nine others were charged with murder for firing a gun at the mob, killing one. When the case came before Murphy, he declared a mistrial due to a hung jury. Ultimately, none of the Sweet defendants were convicted.
From there, he became the mayor of Detroit from 1930 to 1933. Following his single term as mayor, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt appointed him governor-general of the Philippines, where he helped oversee the nation’s transition to independence. In 1937, he was elected governor of Michigan, and in that position, he sent the National Guard to protect striking General Motors workers from strikebreakers, leading to GM recognizing the United Automobile Workers union.
Before being appointed to the Supreme Court in 1940, he spent a year as U.S. attorney general and established the Civil Liberties Unit of the Department of Justice.
As Associate Justice, Murphy continued in his fight for equality and protecting workers. While conservative Justice Felix Frankfurter gave him the disparaging nickname “The Saint,” legal scholar Alfred L. Scanlan instead called him “The conscience of a Court.”
One of his most famous writings was a dissent in Korematsu v. United States, the 1944 ruling that declared that the internment camps for Japanese Americans during World War II were constitutional. Murphy wrote that the ruling was the “legalization of racism” and was the first time the word “racism” appeared in a Supreme Court opinion.
In Steele v. Louisville & Nashville R.R. Co., a case where a railroad union wanted to ban Black people from joining, Murphy joined in the unanimous decision condemning the union, writing: “The Constitution voices its disapproval whenever economic discrimination is applied under authority of law against any race, creed or color. A sound democracy cannot allow such discrimination to go unchallenged. Racism is far too virulent today to permit the slightest refusal, in the light of a Constitution that abhors it, to expose and condemn it wherever it appears in the course of a statutory interpretation.”
In the final year of World War II, Murphy formed and chaired the National Committee Against Nazi Persecution and Extermination of the Jews, even though the United States was refusing to allow Jewish people entry to escape the Holocaust. Murphy, along with Vice President Henry Wallace and former presidential candidate Wendell Willkie, tried to pressure the government to change its stance by “[rallying] the full force of the public conscience… to rescue those who may yet be saved,” according to a quote in the January 31, 1944 issue of the New York Times.
Murphy served on the Supreme Court for nearly 10 years, dying at 59 in 1949. Thousands of people came out to his funeral. He received many posthumous honors and tributes, including a Hall of Justice named for him. He never married, though he was engaged at the time of his death to Joan Cuddihy, and the two were due to be married a month after he passed away.
Many people believed he was gay. Though he never publicly came out for obvious reasons—homosexuality was illegal at the time—it’s believed Kemp, his legal partner since 1922, was his life partner. The two met in college, served together in World War I and often lived together. Kemp was an assistant during Murphy’s term as attorney general. The two were both “lifelong bachelors,” a frequent euphemism for being gay.
In preparation for his upcoming marriage to Cuddihy, Murphy asked his secretary to find a home where Murphy could live with Cuddihy, Kemp, and his secretary following the wedding, according to the book Courting Justice. That book quotes Murphy as telling his secretary that if they all lived together, “We would have great fun.” The wedding was to be a small affair attended by only the four of them.
There is also evidence that Murphy may have had other male lovers. For example, a letter from Abe Garfinkel, who was stationed in the Philippines as a soldier during Murphy’s term as governor-general, made reference to a relationship the two had. Courting Justice describes the letter as saying Garfinkel “felt Murphy belonged to him ever since” and that he “expressed admiration for Murphy and regret about a breakup apparently caused by a jealous Murphy.”
Frank Murphy was a true hero, and while the current Court is in disarray with a record-low approval rating, we can fight for more justices in the Murphy mould and fewer corrupt creeps like John Roberts.
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