by First Liberty Institute • 5 min read
President Biden continues a fast-paced approach to “restore balance” to the federal courts. With his most recent rounds of nominees, Biden has put forth more than 80 total nominees. He’s also had more than 40 judges confirmed to the judiciary—a record-breaking figure during a president’s first year in office.
In its announcement, the Biden administration—and the media coverage—heavily emphasized the nominees’ race, religion and gender. But focusing solely on identity politics isn’t helping Americans understand the type of judges who could soon sit on the bench for life.
Instead, the discussion should explore their legal record—especially what their history and experience suggest about their judicial philosophy—and how they’ll treat cases and rule on fundamental issues such as religious liberty.
Looking beyond the headlines, it’s clear the President is nominating alarming candidates. And there is a common theme in their resumes: radical, Left-wing organizations.
His judicial picks continue to come from groups claiming to be advocates of liberty, but that have been exposed as the opposite—ideological, political activists pushing anti-freedom agendas.
Political Activists or Impartial Jurists?
Among Biden’s most recent nominees is Nusrat Jahan Choudhury, selected to fill a district court seat in New York.
Choudhury currently serves as the legal director of the Illinois chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). She previously worked in various capacities at the organization, including as deputy director of the ACLU’s racial justice program in New York.
The ACLU often serves as a vehicle for woke, Left-wing political priorities. In fact, it’s frequently litigating and working against religious freedom in many cases.
As the Heritage Foundation summarized it:
“By now, the ACLU’s retreat from the First Amendment is well documented. It will not defend the First Amendment rights of pro-life pregnancy centers or small religious businesses. It no longer defends religious freedom, although it once did. And in a leaked internal memo, the ACLU takes the position that free speech denigrating ‘marginalized groups’ should not be defended.”
Choudhury isn’t the only Biden nominee tied to this group. Dale Ho, also nominated for a district court seat in New York, has been at the ACLU since 2013, where he is the director of its Voting Rights Project. Ho has already advanced through the committee process and is awaiting a final confirmation vote by the Senate.
For the more powerful appellate courts, Biden picked Nancy Abudu for the Eleventh Circuit. She previously worked as senior staff counsel with the ACLU. More recently, Abudu’s legal experience comes from the Southern Poverty Law Center, an infamous organization known for labeling political opponents as “hate groups” or “extremists.”
Abudu’s nomination raised serious red flags. A diverse coalition of more than 50 individuals and organizations—including multiple faith-based groups—sent a letter to Senate Judiciary Committee leaders expressing opposition:
“Ms. Abudu works for a disreputable organization that has no business being a feeder for positions to any judicial office—not even of a traffic court—let alone the second highest court system in the United States. She is a political activist not a jurist and is unfit to serve at the federal appellate level.”
Americans—whether religious or not—should be deeply concerned about Biden’s recent nominees. Their previous legal advocacy for the ACLU and the SPLC indicates they could unconstitutionally advance a liberal policy agenda from the federal bench.
Their work for such radical organizations suggests they’ll operate as activists, instead of being impartial judges committed to the rule of law and the Constitution. If confirmed, they could pose a threat to religious liberty and the rights of people of faith across the country.
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