Norton to Lead CBC Forum on Lack of Diversity in President Trump’s Judicial Nominees, Tuesday

WASHINGTON, D.C.—Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC), chair of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) Judicial Nominations Working Group, will lead a CBC forum on the lack of diversity and, in some cases, lack of qualifications, of President Trump's nominees for the federal bench on Tuesday, January 9, 2018, at 3:30 p.m., in 2253 Rayburn House Office Building. Trump is nominating judges at a much faster rate than his predecessors, and more than 90 percent of his nominees have been white.

Experts who will testify and answer questions from CBC Members are Kristen Clarke, President and Executive Director, Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law; Vanita Gupta, President and Chief Executive Officer, Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights; Todd Cox, Director of Policy, NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund; and Louis Michael Seidman, Carmack Waterhouse Professor of Constitutional Law, Georgetown University Law Center.

"Because African Americans have always been disproportionately affected by federal court decisions, the Congressional Black Caucus is virtually obligated to investigate the fairness of the federal judiciary, no matter who is president," Norton said. "These lifetime appointments will have monumental impacts on the future of the nation and on all Americans, none more so than on African Americans and others seeking an equal place in our country."

A Congressional Research Service analysis of the last three presidents' nominees for the federal bench through the end of the first year of their first terms shows a particularly concerning lack of diversity among President Trump's nominees. While President Clinton's nominees were 72.3% white, President George W. Bush's were 86.2% white and President Obama's were 48.5% white, President Trump's nominees were a staggering 91.2% white.