Joyce L Kennard

Early years and education

Kennard was born in the city of Bandung in the Indonesian province of West Java. Both of her parents were of mixed Eurasian ancestry. Her father, Johan, was of Dutch, Indonesian and German ancestry, while her mother, Wilhemine, was mostly of Chinese Indonesian ancestry as well as Dutch and Belgian ancestry. Kennard speaks English with a distinct Dutch accent. During World War II, her father died in a Japanese concentration camp when she was one-year old.

Kennard and her mother moved to the Netherlands in 1955. The rigidity of the Dutch educational system meant that Kennard's hopes of attending university were derailed when she contracted a tumor on her right leg, which resulted in the amputation of part of that limb at age 16. She now walks with the help of a prosthesis.

In 1961, she was able to immigrate to the United States as a result of a special law that authorized 15,000 additional visas for Dutch Indonesian refugees. She settled in Los Angeles and found her first U.S. job as a secretary for Occidental Life Insurance. Wilhemine (who was stuck in a menial restaurant job) stayed behind so that her daughter would always have a home, but died of lung cancer in 1968.

Wilhemine's last gift to her daughter was a bequest of $5,000 she had carefully saved up over the years. This money, on top of Kennard's own savings (and additional income from continuing to work part-time while in school), enabled Kennard to finally pursue her long-deferred dream of going to college. In 1970, she received an A.A. from Pasadena City College. In 1971, she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts with Phi Beta Kappa and magna cum laude honors in German from the University of Southern California. She continued her studies at USC, where she would go on to graduate in 1974 with both a Master of Public Administration from USC Sol Price School of Public Policy and a Juris Doctor from the USC Gould School of Law.

Legal and judicial career

In December 1974, Kennard was admitted to the State Bar of California, and from 1975 to 1979 she practiced as a Deputy Attorney General with the California Department of Justice. She then became a Senior Attorney for Associate Justice Edwin F. Beach of the California Court of Appeal, Second District, in Los Angeles.

Kennard's rise within the California courts is often described as "meteoric." Appointed to the Los Angeles Municipal Court in 1986, Kennard was elevated to the Los Angeles County Superior Court in 1987. The next year, she was elevated again to the California Court of Appeal, Second District, Division Five. Finally, in 1989, Governor George Deukmejian appointed her to the California Supreme Court. Upon taking her oath, Kennard became the second woman and the first Asian American to serve as a justice on the Court.

During her time on the bench, Kennard has authored numerous high-profile opinions, the best-known of which is Kasky v. Nike (2002) In that case, the California Supreme Court held that Nike could not claim a First Amendment "commercial free speech" defense when charged with lying about sweatshop conditions in its overseas manufacturing plants. The U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari, but ultimately the Court declined to render an opinion, instead letting the California Supreme Court's decision stand. Harvard Professor Laurence Tribe, who had criticized the California Supreme Court's decision, represented Nike.

Kennard had a reputation for aggressive questioning during oral argument. She did not hesitate to ask long and complicated questions—often speaking for minutes at a time before prompting an attorney to respond, and often asked the first question in a given case.

on April 5, 2014, Kennard retired from the court after 25 years of service.

Personal life

On May 17, 1976, she married Robert Samuel Kennard in Clark County, Nevada.