Jane Bolin was born in Poughkeepsie, New York. She was the youngest of four children. Bolin attended Wellesley College, graduating with honors in 1928. Her trajectory toward the bench was a turbulent one. She faced racism and sexism when applying to New York City firms following law school. When she was rejected, she practiced law with her husband, and then went on to the Corporation Counsels’ office in New York, which was responsible for the city’s legal affairs.
In 1931, she was the first Black woman to attend Yale Law School, becoming the first Black woman to graduate from Yale. Eight years later, on July 22, 1939, at the New York World's Fair, Mayor of New York City Fiorello La Guardia appointed 31-year-old Bolin as a judge of the Domestic Relations Court, becoming the first Black woman judge in the United States. For twenty years, she was the only Black female judge in the country. Bolin devoted much of her life to community activities, serving on the boards of the Child Welfare League of America, the local and national branches of the NAACP, the Neighborhood Children’s Center, and similar groups.
Her other areas of involvement were the Committee against Discrimination in Housing, Committee on Children of New York City, Scholarship and Service Fund for Negro Students, and the Urban League of Greater New York. For nearly four decades, Bolin fought racial discrimination. She worked to end segregation in child placement facilities, helped to create a racially integrated treatment center for delinquent boys, and ended assignments of probation officers based on race.
Bolin’s experiences of racial discrimination at Wellesley College and during her career in the New York City inspired a lifelong fight against social problems and racial injustice. She was a legal advisor to the National Council of Negro Women. She served on the boards of the NAACP, the National Urban League, the City-Wide Citizens' Committee on Harlem, and the Child Welfare League. Though she resigned from the NAACP due to its response to McCarthyism, she remained active in the Civil Rights Movement.
Bolin also sought to combat racial discrimination from religious groups by helping to open a special school for Black boys in New York City. During her tenure as a judge, Bolin achieved two legal landmarks:
- She eliminated the assignments of probation officers based on ethnicity
- She mandatory made private child-care agencies, which ran on public funds, to help children regardless of their background.
Jane Bolin has received honorary degrees from Tuskegee Institute, Williams College, Hampton University, Western College for Women and Morgan State University. In January 1979, when Judge Bolin had reluctantly retired after 40 years as a judge, Constance Baker Motley, the first Black woman federal judge, called her a role model. In her speech, Judge Motley said, “When I thereafter met you, I then knew how a lady judge should comport herself.”