Thursday, March 1, 2007
Deanell Reece Tacha
Year: 1968
Degree: American Studies
Hometown: Scandia
Back in the day: Judge Deanell Reece Tacha says she didn’t always know she wanted to be a judge. She was encouraged by the faculty of the KU Law School and decided to pursue a law degree at a time when very few women did.
Grad life: Immediately after graduating from the University of Kansas, Tacha attended the University of Michigan Law School and received her degree in 1971. She became a White House fellow and special assistant to the secretary of the U.S. Department of Labor until 1972, but moved back to Kansas when she married a high school basketball coach in Concordia. One year later, she joined the KU Law faculty. In 1985, Tacha was appointed by President Ronald Reagan to the U.S. Court of Appeals and confirmed with the help of Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole.
Today: Judge Tacha was promoted to Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth District in 2001 and remains on the bench today. Although the Tenth District includes Kansas, Oklahoma, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming, she still lives in Lawrence, where she and her husband raised their four children. She is a member of the Judicial Conference of the United States, which includes the chief judge and one district court judge from every district in the country. With the other judges, she helps set policy for all federal courts in the U.S.
She says: Judge Tacha likes her job because it’s interesting and she’s always being challenged intellectually. “I’m always confronted with new and challenging issues,” she says.
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