Susan Oki Mollway

Susan Oki Mollway (born November 6, 1950) is a senior United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Hawaii and the first East Asian woman and Japanese-American woman ever appointed to a life-time position on the federal bench.

Born in Honolulu, Hawaii, Susan Oki Mollway earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English literature from the University of Hawaiʻi in 1971 and a Master of Arts degree in English literature from the University of Hawaiʻi in 1973.

Before pursuing law, she taught both English literature and language at University of Hawaii and Takushoku University in Tokyo from 1973 to 1976. She graduated cum laude from Harvard Law School with a Juris Doctor in 1981, where she was the editor in chief of the Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review In 2020, Mollway received her Master of Laws in judicial studies from Duke University School of Law.

She married Daniel Mollway and they had a son named Dylan Marcus.

Mollway taught English and worked at an English-language publisher in Tokyo from 1975 to 1977.

From 1981 until 1989, she worked at Cades Schutte Fleming & Wright, a private legal practice, in Honolulu and became a partner for the law firm in 1986.

From 1988 to 1989, she was an adjunct professor of law at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa in the William S. Richardson School of Law.

She is also a contributing author towards the biography collection Called from Within: Early Women Lawyers of Hawai'i (1992) which tells the early stories of the women lawyers admitted to Hawaii's bar before its statehood.

Mollway is a current member and director of multiple professional associations including:

Mollway never perceived herself as disadvantaged due to Hawaii's multicultural environment.

On June 20, 1994, Mollway successfully argued for the respondent, Norris, who was fired as an aircraft mechanic at Hawaiian Airlines due to his refusal to sign a maintenance record for a plane he deemed unsafe.

The case was brought to the State Court as a violation of public policy expressed in federal statues, but it was later dismissed under the Railway Labor Act.

However, the State Supreme Court reversed this claim in a unanimous decision.

Mollway's argument affirmed the judgement that the Railway Labor Act does not preempt state law causes of action.

Mollway is the author of The First Fifteen: How Asian Women Became Federal Judges (Rutgers University Press 2021) which details the stories of the first fifteen Asian American women judges to be appointed to lifetime federal, judicial positions in autobiographical and biographical styles.

In December 1995, President Bill Clinton nominated Mollway to serve on the United States District Court for the District of Hawaii as a Democratic nominee following the death of Judge Harold Michael Fong.

In addition, the aftermath within the Senate, due to the 1996 presidential election, further prolonged her nomination and confirmation.

The difficulty of Mollway's confirmation process affected her private practice due to the pending nature of her nomination which made the number of clients willing to hire her shrink.

In 1996, the United States Senate lapsed her nomination.

She wasn't renominated to the same seat until January 7, 1997.

However, she only learned that she was the first Asian-American women to serve as an Article III federal judge after her nomination to the federal bench in 1998.

The process preceding Mollway's nomination to federal judgeship pended for two-and-a-half years and was a result of Mollway's identity, associations, and environment of the time.

Following the announcement of her nomination, she received considerable scrutiny for her position on Hawai'i's American Civil Liberties Union Board, which openly and strongly supported the legalization of same-sex marriage, despite having never voted on a position the ACLU should take.

T

There was also pushback and ideological hazing from the Republican Senate at the time.

In the last three months, they had only allowed one woman to be confirmed to the bench while confirming fifteen men.

Mollway was not alone in the delay of her nomination as many other women and minority nominees faced delay by the Senate.

The Senate confirmed Mollway on June 22, 1998, and she received her commission on June 23, 1998.

The Senate vote was 56 in favor of her appointment and 34 opposed.

In 2006, Mollway was the presiding judge over United States v. Lee, the largest trafficking prosecution case.

The case was a result of a 22 count indictment against five defendants.

They were charged for trafficking and subjecting workers in Samoa to involuntary servitude.

In 2007, Mollway reinstated a previously dismissed lawsuit against the Office of Hawaiian Affairs by native Hawaiians.

Six plaintiffs without native Hawaiian ancestry but high blood quantum filed a motion to intervene, aiming to safeguard the rights of a million Hawaiian residents to share in the ceded lands trust.

She served as Chief Judge from 2009 to 2015.

She assumed senior status and retired from active service on November 6, 2015.

Mollway served on the Ninth Circuit Pacific Islands Committee and the Ninth Circuit Conference Executive Committee.

Mollway was the chairperson of the 9th Circuit Jury Instructions Committee.

Mollway helped to oversee the $121-million renovation of the federal district court facilities in Honolulu and worked on creating a Re-Entry program in the United States District Court, District of Hawaii.

Throughout her career, she authored over 112 opinions and was assigned or referred around 1,100 cases.