[3] She earned her undergraduate degree at Ohio State University,[2] and later studied at the Sorbonne and the Alliance Francaise in Paris, France.
[2][6] In February 1975, when Murphy was sworn in to serve as the first woman to chair the National Labor Relations Board, President Gerald Ford said he chose her as "the most qualified and best respected person" for the job and not because of her sex.
[9] Harking back to her journalism career, she cast the only vote against a 1976 decision regarding the rights of newspaper employees to form unions, noting her dissent that the skills required to be a reporter were "the essence of professionalism".
[10] She was succeeded as NLRB chairman by John H. Fanning in 1977 and served on the board until 1979 when she turned down an interim appointment by President Jimmy Carter.
She received Presidential appointments to serve on the Commission on the Bicentennial of the United States Constitution and the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes.