President Joe Biden has announced five nominees to federal judgeships, seeking to add to his over 150 judicial selections who have already been confirmed to the bench. This includes the first Muslim-American on any circuit court. Biden has made it a priority to nominate diverse judges, especially from various professional backgrounds, and to do so even in states with Republican senators. The five nominees continue the president’s drive to bring professional and demographic diversity to the federal judiciary and his commitment to working with senators on both sides of the aisle.
Biden’s nominees include several historic firsts for the federal judiciary, with Nicole Berner, the general counsel of the Service Employees International Union, being nominated by the president as the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals’ first openly LGBTQ judge. Adeel Mangi, Biden’s nominee for the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, would be the first Muslim-American circuit court judge if confirmed. In addition, Biden nominated Judge Cristal Brisco to be the first Black woman and the first woman of color to serve as U.S. District Court judge in the Northern District of Indiana. The White House states that President Biden has appointed 154 life-tenured judicial nominees who have been confirmed by the Senate, with two-thirds being women and two-thirds being people of color. Despite the progress, Biden faces the challenge of further appointments, as the process of moving nominations through the Senate has proven to be slow. This poses the possibility that he may struggle to fully match the number of judges appointed by his Republican predecessor, Donald Trump.
