Judge Stephanie Gallagher
Maryland U.S. District Court
Stephanie Agli Gallagher was born in 1972 in Rockville, Connecticut. She earned an undergraduate degree from Georgetown University and received a Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School. She clerked at the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, before entering the private practice of law. She served four years as an Assistant United States Attorney in the Criminal Division of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Maryland before returning to private practice.
Gallagher served eight years as a United States Magistrate Judge in the District of Maryland. She was nominated by President Barack Obama to be a U.S. District Judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, but her nomination expired in January 2017 with the end of the 114th Congress.
President Donald Trump nominated her once again for the same position. Once again the nomination expired, but President Trump renominated her. She was confirmed by a voice vote of the Senate and received her judicial commission in September 2019.
In the News…
U.S. District Judge Stephanie Gallagher ruled that Maryland unlawfully discriminated against a Christian school due to its traditional views on marriage and gender identity when the state denied it access to a voucher program.
The judge ruled that state officials violated the First Amendment rights of the school when they excluded the school from the Broadening Options and Opportunities for Students Today (BOOST) voucher program.
She said the state failed to put forth evidence that the school’s policies have “denied a single prospective applicant from applying for admission” or that the school “has ever denied admission, expelled, or disciplined a student on the basis of sexual orientation.”
In her ruling she wrote, “The First Amendment, which is applicable to the states via the Fourteenth Amendment, bars laws that restrict the freedom of speech.” She concluded that ‘the First Amendment prevents [the state] from attempting to use BOOST funding as leverage to compel recipients to express views that [the state] finds more palatable.”
Contact this Leader…
Did you pray for Judge Gallagher today? You can let her know at:
The Honorable Stephanie Gallagher
U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland
101 West Lombard Street
Baltimore, MD 21201
