News
Biden Appoints 40 Black Women as Federal Judges, Breaking Record
In the final days of his presidency, Biden has made good on a campaign promise to diversify the federal judiciary, by appointing a record-breaking 40 Black women as judges. All together, Biden has appointed 63 Black judges.
As he approaches his final weeks in the Oval Office, political pundits are offering appraisals of his presidency’s impact on the Black community.
The Biden administration’s efforts to expand funding for historically Black colleges and universities, bolster gun violence intervention programs, and create the first-ever executive orders promoting equity and racial justice stand as examples of policies during a presidency that historians, analysts, and political scientists say was nothing if not consequential.
His Black judicial appointments, experts say, are also important because they may play a crucial role in serving as a judicial check on the second presidency of Trump, who has vowed to dismantle government agencies such as the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division — a move that is likely to face a stiff legal challenge.
Having the Black woman’s experience on the federal bench is “extremely important” because “there is a different kind of voice that can come from the Black female from the bench,” said Delores Jones-Brown, a professor emeritus at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York who studies judicial appointments.
Lena Zwarensteyn, who studies legal issues at the Leadership Conference on Civil and Humans Rights, said the move also signals a very specific ideological intent on the part of the president. Biden populated the bench with Black judges who may often be on the front lines of weighing some of the most significant issues facing the Black community, including health care access, equity in education, fair hiring practices, abortion, and voting rights.
“Those very district court judges are usually the first ones to hear cases, and they hear many, many, many more than our circuit courts,” added Zwarensteyn, whose group is a coalition of roughly 240 national civil and human rights groups. “Those decisions are often, at times, the very final decisions because very few cases actually get heard by the U.S. Supreme Court.”
Biden’s appointments largely deliver on a pledge made during his presidential campaign to promote equity in the judicial system by diversifying the bench. The appointments come in addition to Biden’s most high-profile-judicial nominee, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first Black woman ever appointed to the Supreme Court.
“Even if it means going against their colleagues”
Before Biden’s appointments, only eight Black women had ever served at the appellate court level of the federal judiciary, according to data compiled by Zwarensteyn’s group. The only other president who comes close to the pace of Biden’s appointment of Black judges was Carter at 37, but that included only seven Black women.
Out of the 234 lifetime judicial appointments during Donald Trump’s first term, only two were Black women. Seven of those judges were Black men.
“It’s astonishing,” Zwarensteyn said of the makeup of Trump’s appointments.
So far, Biden has made over 230 lifetime judicial appointments as of Dec. 9 when Tiffany Johnson was confirmed as the 40th Black woman judge, said Patrick McNeil, a spokesman for the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.
Holding a lifetime appointment could empower a judge to issue rulings without fear that they may suffer political consequences, such as losing their seats on the bench, because of their decisions.
Jones-Brown said she was pleasantly surprised by the number of Black women who have received lifetime appointments. She said she expects those judges, in particular, to embrace the challenges that the next president’s term might bring.
“I think many of the Black women will understand that their role is to provide justice in places where it has not been,” Jones-Brown told Capital B. “Even if it means going against their colleagues, even interpreting the law in a way that others may not.”
Through their rulings, Jones-Brown said, those women judges can draw on their lived experiences to play a vital role in promoting fairness, particularly in cases on the bench that concern issues of race or gender.
And they provide “a sort of different kind of cultural presence that” Black women have, she said.
The cultural presence means that some judges are entering federal jurisdictions where few, if any, people of color have served on the bench before.
“There are still courts in the Southern states that still don’t look like … the people they serve because Republican senators have blocked all kinds of diverse nominees, or any nominee from the Democratic president,” said Carolyn Leary Bobb, vice president of communications for Alliance for Justice, a progressive group that advocates for judicial diversity.
Nancy G. Abudu, a Biden appointee who was confirmed by the U.S. Senate in May 2023, is the first Black woman to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, which is based in Atlanta and considers cases in Florida, Alabama, and Georgia.
- OMG: Trump just signed executive order ending birthright citizenship - January 20, 2025
- Trump’s Day One: Mark Milley’s Portrait Removed from Pentagon Hallway - January 20, 2025
- Sharpton announces boycott of companies ending DEI - January 20, 2025
President Donald Trump signed an executive order Monday that seeks to withhold U.S. citizenship from the children of undocumented immigrants born in the United States — seeking to end a right that the U.S. Constitution has guaranteed for more than 150 years.
The executive order, which would apply to any babies born after February 19, is expected to be quickly challenged in court given that it would constitute an extraordinary departure from the historic interpretation of the Constitution’s 14th Amendment, which states that “all persons born” in the United States “are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”
Trump’s attempt to end birthright citizenship could leave an untold number of newborn babies in legal limbo while their undocumented parents, including newly postpartum women, are left to navigate a complicated new landscape that threatens their own deportation.
The order, “Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship,” was signed just hours after Trump took office. “That’s a big one,” Trump said as he signed the order from the Oval Office, adding that he believes his administration has “very good grounds” on which to defend the policy. “People have been wanting to do this for decades.”
The incoming administration will make the case that a reinterpretation of the 14th Amendment will allow the administration to exclude two categories of infants from the right to U.S. citizenship: Infants born to a mother who is unlawfully in the country and a father who is not a citizen or permanent resident, and infants born to a mother who is authorized to be in the country for a temporary period of time and a father who is not a U.S. citizen or permanent resident.
The latter group includes people in the United States with a work, student or tourist visa.
The order does not address queer or nonbinary couples, defining mother and father as male and female “biological progenitors.”
The administration could bar the Social Security Administration from issuing Social Security numbers and cards to these babies. Parents typically request these documents upon their babies’ birth at the hospital, along with the application for a birth certificate, which is issued by the state where the birth happened. Without U.S. citizenship, these babies would not qualify for passports, leaving them without access to another form of identification and also unable to travel.
The birthright citizenship order was among several other new immigration policies rolled out Monday designed to deliver on Trump’s promises to reduce immigration and deport millions of immigrants.
Wendy Cervantes, an immigration policy expert at the Center for Law and Social Policy, a nonprofit that advocates to reduce poverty, said ahead of Trump taking office that an attempt to end birthright citizenship could have lasting harm on infants and create chaos for all families welcoming new babies.
“Any attempt to undermine birthright citizenship through executive order would be unprecedented and even if stopped by the courts, would still harm newborn babies, denying them access to the health care and supports that are so critical in the early years,” Cervantes said in a call with reporters last week. “A repeal of birthright citizenship would ultimately make it harder for every family, including non-immigrants, to establish their new baby’s citizenship.”
- OMG: Trump just signed executive order ending birthright citizenship - January 20, 2025
- Trump’s Day One: Mark Milley’s Portrait Removed from Pentagon Hallway - January 20, 2025
- Sharpton announces boycott of companies ending DEI - January 20, 2025
Retired Gen. Mark Milley’s official portrait as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was taken down Monday afternoon from the Pentagon hallway where all of the paintings of the previous chairmen are located.
Two U.S. officials confirmed that the portrait of Milley, whom President Donald Trump suggested could be executed for treason on Truth Social in 2023, had been taken down from that hallway, and one of the officials said the whereabouts of the Milley portrait is currently unknown.
USAF/Sgt. Jack Sanders – PHOTO: Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III hosts the unveiling of former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Ret. U.S. Army Gen. Mark A. Milley’s portrait at the Pentagon, Washington, Jan. 10, 2025.
The portrait was unveiled on Friday, Jan. 10, at a ceremony in that hallway, with both Milley and then-Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin present. The portrait’s disappearance was first noted by reporters at the Pentagon who observed the empty space where the portrait hung just a few hours before. It is not clear why the portrait was removed from the hallway, but ABC News has reached out to the White House for comment.
Milley, who was preemptively pardoned on Monday by then-President Joe Biden as part of a last-minute slate of pardons, retired as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 2023. Appointed by Trump during is first administration in July 2018, Milley drew ire from Republican officials following the United States’ military withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021.
“My family and I are deeply grateful for the President’s action today,” he said. “After forty-three years of faithful service in uniform to our Nation, protecting and defending the Constitution, I do not wish to spend whatever remaining time the Lord grants me fighting those who unjustly might seek retribution for perceived slights. I do not want to put my family, my friends, and those with whom I served through the resulting distraction, expense, and anxiety.
“It has been an honor and a privilege to serve our great country in uniform for over four decades, and I will continue to keep faith and loyalty to our nation and Constitution until my dying breath,” Milley added.
At the time of his appointment, Trump called Milley a “great gentleman” and a “great soldier.”
However, their relationship began to sour in the summer of 2020, after Milley expressed regret for having accompanied Trump to St. John’s Episcopal Church in Washington hours after Lafayette Square was cleared by police and the National Guard of protesters. Months later, after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, Trump reportedly felt betrayed that Milley had called his Chinese counterpart , Gen. Li Zuocheng, to assure him the U.S. was “100 percent steady.”
In unscripted remarks in Emancipation Hall following his inaugural address on Monday, Trump questioned why Biden pardoned Milley, as well as former Rep. Liz Cheney and Dr. Anthony Fauci.
“Why are we doing this? Why are we trying to help a guy like Milley?” he said. “Why are we doing Milley? He was pardoned. What he said — terrible, what he said.”
Biden expressed concerns about political retribution in his defense of the slate of preemptive pardons.
“These are exceptional circumstances, and I cannot in good conscience do nothing,” he said in a statement . “Baseless and politically motivated investigations wreak havoc on the lives, safety, and financial security of targeted individuals and their families.
“That is why I am exercising my authority under the Constitution to pardon General Mark A. Milley, Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the Members of Congress and staff who served on the Select Committee, and the U.S. Capitol and D.C. Metropolitan police officers who testified before the Select Committee,” he added. “The issuance of these pardons should not be mistaken as an acknowledgment that any individual engaged in any wrongdoing, nor should acceptance be misconstrued as an admission of guilt for any offense. Our nation owes these public servants a debt of gratitude for their tireless commitment to our country.”
- OMG: Trump just signed executive order ending birthright citizenship - January 20, 2025
- Trump’s Day One: Mark Milley’s Portrait Removed from Pentagon Hallway - January 20, 2025
- Sharpton announces boycott of companies ending DEI - January 20, 2025
Rev. Al Sharpton on Monday announced a boycott of companies eliminating diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs, saying the effort will be in the spirit of the late civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr.
Speaking from the Metropolitan AME Church, Sharpton said his organization, the National Action Network, is calling upon all Americans, regardless of their race or gender, to boycott companies that will no longer support DEI.
“Why do we have DEI? We have DEI because you denied us diversity, you denied us equity, you denied us inclusion. DEI was a remedy to the racial institutionalized bigotry practice in academia and in these corporations. Now, if you want to put us back in the back of the bus, we gonna do the Dr. King-Rosa Parks on you,” Sharpton said as those gathered cheered.
“You must have forgot who we are,” Sharpton added. “We are the ones that you took everything and we still here.”
According to Sharpton, a council will engage in a 90-day study of what companies have given up on DEI and what their margins of profit are. After that, two companies will specifically be targeted in the boycott.
Meanwhile, Sharpton added, he’ll be supporting companies that have doubled down on DEI, like Costco.
Sharpton’s announcement was part of a larger ceremony at the church honoring the slain civil rights leader on the same day President Trump was sworn into office. The church – where abolitionist Frederick Douglass’s funeral was held and Rosa Parks’s casket was brought – was packed with supporters.
Trump intends to end DEI practices in the federal government through an executive order on his first day office, incoming White House officials said.
The order will ask the Office of Management and Budget and the Office of Personnel Management to coordinate with agencies to terminate what it deems as “all discriminatory programs” in the agencies, those officials said.
Sharpton in his remarks also painted a stark difference between those gathered at the church and those gathered to support Trump on Monday.
“We want people to see the tale of two cities in one district,” said Sharpton. “On this side of town, Martin Luther King Jr. gave his life to open up America for everybody: Blacks, whites, gays, straights, it didn’t matter. We are with Dr. King.”
But Trump, Sharpton said, was on the side of violence. He pointed to Trump’s promise to pardon Jan. 6, 2021 insurrectionists.
“How are you Mr. Trump, on Martin Luther King Day, going to pardon folks that beat up police officers? How are you Mr. Trump on a federal holiday of a prince of peace and nonviolence going to excuse those that caused the death of a Capitol police officer in the nation’s capital?”
Monday was only the third time in history that Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Inauguration Day collided.
In 1997, former President Clinton took the oath for the second time on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and in 2013 former President Obama did the same.
But with Trump’s history of racially charged comments, the Kings say this year’s MLK Day feels different.
“As we observe the inauguration, the hope is that the climate can be created so that the President will do things that bring us closer together,” Martin Luther King III told The Switch Up podcast.
“He obviously does not have a history of doing that, and that kind of leadership is needed now more than ever because of the tremendous division in our nation … if we continue to go down the road of division, hostility and what appears to be hatred, that is not sustainable.”
- OMG: Trump just signed executive order ending birthright citizenship - January 20, 2025
- Trump’s Day One: Mark Milley’s Portrait Removed from Pentagon Hallway - January 20, 2025
- Sharpton announces boycott of companies ending DEI - January 20, 2025
OMG: Trump just signed executive order ending birthright citizenship
Trump’s Day One: Mark Milley’s Portrait Removed from Pentagon Hallway
Sharpton announces boycott of companies ending DEI
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