By Erin Fulbright
BATON ROUGE - Bernette J. Johnson, the first African-American Chief Justice of the Louisiana Supreme Court, will be the commencement speaker when 714 Southern University students receive their diplomas on Friday, May 17 during the Spring commencement ceremony.
The event will begin at 10:30 a.m. in the F.G. Clark Activity Center.
Johnson was sworn in as Chief Justice on February 1. She was elected to serve on the Supreme Court in 1994 and was re-elected, without opposition, in 2000 and 2010. She has served on the Court’s Legal Services Task Force and has worked with the National Campaign on Best Practices in the area of Racial and Ethnic Fairness on the Court.
Her judicial career began in 1984 as the first woman elected to serve on the Civil District Court of New Orleans. She was re-elected, without opposition, in 1990 and was elected Chief Judge by her colleagues in 1994.
