11. When Sixth Circuit Judge Smith Hickenlooper died in late 1933, many influential feminists, including Maud Wood Park and Frances Perkins, campaigned on Judge Allen's behalf, writing letters in support of her nomination. Tuve, supra note [5], at 108-09. In fact, one woman, Carrie Chapman Catt, sent a letter to the head of the Democratic Party's Women's Division three days after Judge Hickenlooper's death, recommending Judge Allen for the vacancy. Her close friend and campaign manager, Susan Rebhan, helped to coordinate these efforts. Even her colleagues on the Ohio Supreme Court put in a good word for her, saying she was a "good scout." Woman Named As U.S. Judge; First in History: Judge Allen Called a 'Good Scout,' Chicago Daily Tribune, Mar. 7, 1934, at 4.

The loudest opposition to her nomination came from the Cleveland and Cincinnati chapters of the NAACP. In her 1928 campaign for re-election to the state supreme court, Judge Allen had won the NAACP's support and was herself a member of the organization. In law school, she had refused to join a sorority when it would not admit a Jewish member. But when her name came up for confirmation, the local NAACP chapters spoke against her for her concurring vote in the case Weaver v. Board of Trustees of Ohio State. In that decision, Doris Weaver, an African-American woman, sued Ohio State University when it did not place her in the same residence as white students in a housing arrangement/clinical course for the Home Economics major. The school offered her "similar, adequate facilities" apart from the white students and said that because students chose their own roommates, the school could not force the white women to live with a black woman against their will. The court agreed with the school, quoting Plessy v. Ferguson for support and noting that Weaver "has only been denied the social provilege [sic] of residing with white girl students and partaking in their family or communal life; of rooming, dining and sharing their common bathroom and toilet facilities." "Scores Rule on Racial Issue." New York Times, Mar. 14, 1934, at 11. State ex rel. Weaver v. Board of Trustees of Ohio State Univ., 126 Ohio St. 290, at 296-97 (1933).

The NAACP objected to this decision, although media such as the New York Times dedicated very little space to its complaints.In the end, Judge Allen was confirmed unanimously by the Senate, although the head of Judiciary Committee forwarded her nomination to the floor "without enthusiasm." According to Attorney General Homer Cummings, "Florence Allen was not appointed because she was a woman. All we did was to see that she was not rejected because she was a woman." Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum, "Women on the Federal Bench." 73 Boston University Law Review 39, at 45 (1993). The New York Times commented that, "[f]or better or for worse, woman is taking her place alongside of man in American public life." Editorial, "Place Aux Dames." New York Times, March 8, 1934, at 18. An editorial in the Washington Post commended President Roosevelt for choosing a woman who qualified on the merits but then went on to express concern about "one of the most amazing and socially undesirable developments" in recent times "the phenomenon of voting or appointing women because they were women." Editorial, "Judge Allen." Washington Post, March 8, 1934, at 8.

Her reception by her new colleagues on the Sixth Circuit was somewhat chilly. One judge "took to his sickbed for two days" in protest of her appointment. The male judges also frequently dined at clubs that would not admit women. Ginsburg, supra note [41], at 283. Even the building itself was hostile to a woman's presence: Judge Allen had to travel a long distance to use the women's restroom in the public area of the courthouse, and each chair in the conference room were equipped with "[c]ommodious spittoons." Tuve, supra note [5], at 115. Judge Allen persevered, nonetheless.