President Biden has recently released his list of judicial nominees, bringing the total count of nominations to 203. Through these choices, the president has again shown his desire to “ensure that the nation’s courts reflect the diversity that is one of our greatest assets as a country.”
These eight judicial nominees are Nicole G. Berner, Adeel A. Mangi, Judge Amy M. Baggio, Judge Cristal C. Brisco, Judge Gretchen S. Lund, Judge Sherri Beatty-Arthur, Erin C. Johnston, and Ray D. McKenzie. The first two, Berner and Mangi, will be nominated to federal circuit court. The next three, Baggio, Brisco, and Lund, are recommended for federal district courts. Finally, the last three, Beatty-Arthur, Johnston, and McKenzie, are proposed for the District of Columbia Supreme Court. A federal district court is known as the trial court, while the federal circuit court is the first level of appeal. Many of these eight individuals will be the first of a minority to do so.
For example, if the Senate confirms Adeel A. Mangi, he will become the first Muslim American judge to work on the federal circuit court. Some propose that Mangi’s nomination was influenced by the growing pressure on Biden to address increasing Islamophobia. In fact, Mangi was engaged in a legal dispute fighting discrimination against Muslims. He “began his legal career [at Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler LLP] as an associate in 2000, became counsel in 2009, and was elevated to partnership in 2010.” He has graduated from the Harvard Law School and received his First Class Degree from Oxford.
Furthermore, Judge Cristal C. Brisco, if confirmed, will also be another first: the first woman of color and the first Black woman to ever be in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Indiana. Brisco’s resume includes receiving “her J.D. from the University of Notre Dame Law School in 2006 and her B.A., cum laude, from Valparaiso University in 2002.” Brisco has more than four years of experience as part of the Corporation Counsel for the City of South Bend and Chief Legal Counsel for Mayor Pete Buttigieg. She is currently also a part of the Notre Dame Law School Association Board.
This group of nominations is President Biden’s forty-second round of recommendations, and with such diversity represented, it is clear that he aims to build a more professionally and personally varied justice system.