The news of SCOTUS Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s passing sadly overshadowed the loss of another trailblazer right here in Connecticut last month when The Honorable Antoinette Dupont, beloved former Chief Judge of the Appellate Court, passed away at the age of 91.
Born in New York City when her father was a student at Fordham University, Judge Dupont—or Billie, as those close to her called her—was raised in New London, Connecticut. She graduated in 1946 from Williams Memorial Institute, a local all-girls high school from which only 50% of her class went on to college. She went on to graduate with a political science degree from Brown University in 1950 and, upon learning that women had only just recently been allowed to matriculate, continued on to Harvard Law School, graduating with the class of 1954—Harvard Law’s second class of women to graduate. She was one of only 20 female students in her law school class of nearly 700 men, and one of only 12 women to graduate. The men had dorms and the women had to find apartments.
Judge Antoinette Dupont
