The path that took US District Judge J. Michelle Childs to a public honors college in Florida is about as unconventional as the rest of the eclectic professional journey that has now put the South Carolina jurist in contention for a seat on the Supreme Court.
She landed at the University of South Florida on a scholarship after a chance encounter in her high school guidance counselor’s office with a coach from the university who was recruiting for the school’s basketball team.
“What about those of us who are academic?” she recalled telling the coach, pressing him about the “focus on just the sport.”
The coach agreed to help facilitate her application to USF’s Honors College, according to her retelling during a 2020 virtual fireside chat organized by the South Carolina bar, and ultimately tapped her to tutor the basketball team.
Childs’ public education, which includes a law degree she obtained from University of South Carolina, as well as her professional experience including a trail-blazing partnership at a major law firm, stints at state government agencies and the grind of being a trial judge in state and federal court, sets her apart, admirers say, from many of the other Black female lawyers President Joe Biden is considering to replace the retiring Justice Stephen Breyer.
Weeks before Breyer announced his departure from the court, Biden nominated Childs to the powerful US Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington, DC……. read more