Ida Chen is the first Asian-American woman to become a judge of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania

She understands discrimination because she teas experienced it herself.

    Soft-spoken and eminently dignified, judge Ida Chen prefers hearing about a new acquaintance rather than talking about herself. She wants to know about career plans, hopes, dreams, fears. She gives unsolicited advice as well as encouragement. She instills confidence.
   Her father once hoped that she would become a professor. And she would have also made an outstanding social worker or guidance counselor. The truth is that Chen wears the caps of all these professions as a Family Court judge of the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County, as a participant in public advocacy for minorities, and as a particularly sensitive caring person
   She understands discrimination because she has experienced it herself. As en elementary school student Chen tried to join the local Brownie troop. “You can’t be a member,” she was told. “Only American girls are in the Brownies.”
   Originally Intent upon a career as a journalist she selected Temple University because of its outstanding journalism department and affordable tuition. Independence being a personal need, she paid for her tuition by working for Temple’s Department of Criminal Justice. There she had her first encounter with the legal world and it turned her career plans in a new direction—law school.
   Through meticulous planning, Chen was able to earn her undergraduate degree in two and a half years, and she continued to work three jobs. But when she began her first semester as a Temple law student in the fall of 1973, she was barely able to stay awake. Her teacher Lynne Abraham now a Common Pleas Court judge herself, couldn’t help but notice Chen yawning in the back of the class and when she determined that this student was not a party animal but a workhorse, she arranged a teaching assistant’s job for Chen on campus.
   After graduating from Temple Law School in 1976, Chen worked for the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission where she was a litigator on behalf of plaintiffs who experienced discrimination in the workplace and then moved on to become the first Asian-American to serve on the Philadelphia Commission on Human Relations.
   Appointed by Mayor Wilson Goode, Chen worked with community leaders to resolve racial and ethnic tensions and also made time to contribute free legal counsel to a variety of activist groups.
   The Help Wanted section of the newspaper contained an entry that aroused Chen’s curiosity — an ad for judge’s position Her application resulted in her selection by a state judicial committee to fill a seat in the state court. And in July of 1988 she officially became a judge of the Court of Common Pleas. Running as both Republican and Democratic candidate, her position was secured when she won her seat on the bench at last November’s election.
   At Family Court Chen presides over criminal and civil cases which include adult sex crimes domestic violence juvenile delinquency custody divorce and support. Not a pretty picture. Chen recalls her first day as judge hearing a juvenile dependency case—“it was a horrifying experience. I broke down because the cases were so depressing,” she remembers.
   Outside of the courtroom Chen has made a name for herself in resolving interracial conflicts while glorying in her Chinese-American identity. In a 1986 incident involving the desecration of Korean street signs in a Philadelphia neighborhood, Chen called for meeting with the leaders of that community to help resolve the conflict. Chen’s interest in community advocacy is not limited to Asian communities. She has been involved in Hispanic, Jewish, and Black issues and because of her participation in the Ethnic Affairs Committee of the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith. Chen was one of 10 women nationwide selected to take part in a mission to Israel.
   With her recently won mandate to judicate in the affairs of Pennsylvania’s citizens, Chen has pledged to work tirelessly to defend the rights of its people and contribute to the improvement of human welfare. She would have made a fabulous Brownie

Jessica Schultz