In October, the Minneapolis federal courthouse was renamed to honor Judge Diana Murphy (B.A. ’54, J.D. ’74). Murphy was the first woman to be Chief Judge of a district court in the Eighth Circuit; first woman to be a U.S. District Judge in Minnesota; first woman to be Chief Judge of the U.S. District Court, District of Minnesota; first woman appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit; and the first woman to chair the U.S. Sentencing Commission.

Murphy, who died in 2018, was considered a trailblazer for women in the law and remained deeply engaged with the University during her life, says Ryan Greenwood, curator of Rare Books and Special Collections at the University of Minnesota Law Library. Greenwood’s office has curated an entire exhibit devoted to Murphy, displayed within the Law School Library’s Riesenfeld Rare Book Center.