Appellate Judge and Roman Catholic Lay Leader. She wrote the landmark 1975 majority opinion that ordered the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association to provide women with equal access to school sports programs under federal Title IX (Educational Amendments of 1972). She ruled that Pennsylvania interscholastic sports could no longer discriminate on the basis of sex. She was a member of the Board of Managers for the 41st International Eucharistic Congress (1976) in Philadelphia. For her church work she received three papal honors, the Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice award, investiture as a Knight of St Gregory the Great and designation as a Dame Grand Cross in the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem. She was a delegate to every Democratic National Convention from 1932 to 1972. At the 1936 Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia she was the first delegate to vote to re-nominate Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Considered the “First Lady of Pennsylvania Politics,” she was active in the public sector for over 50 years. She was secretary of the State Democratic Committee from 1948-1971. She was the first woman elected to a Pennsylvania statewide political office and the first woman appellate judge on Pennsylvania’s Commonwealth Court. A native of East Brady, Pennsylvania, she obtained a bachelor's degree in economics (1933), a master's degree (1934) and a law degree (1937) from the University of Pittsburgh. In 1947 she was among the founders of Americans for Democratic Action (ADA). As Assistant Solicitor for the City of Pittsburgh in the 1940s, she drafted their first smokestack ordinance to protect the environment. She was named a Distinguished Daughter of Pennsylvania in 1956. Elected as State Secretary of Internal Affairs for three consecutive terms, beginning in 1954. In 1972, Gov. Milton J. Shapp appointed her to the Commonwealth Court, the state's appeals court. She won election on her own the next year, and was re-elected in 1983 to a second 10-year term. She retired from the bench in 1993 as a Senior Judge. She was active in support of the canonization of Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton (1975) and Saint John Neumann (1977). Eye-catching hats, often flowered, were part of her personal style, giving rise to the phrase “Blatt with a hat.”