By Mattan Berner-Kadish
My mother recently finished her first week as judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. I am so proud of her and happy that her dream has come to fruition. I am unable, however, to fully celebrate her success. Why?
In real time – I am watching another deserving nominee and his family be prevented from feeling the same joy.
What is happening to Adeel Mangi, who was nominated by President Biden to be a Circuit Court of Appeals Judge on the Third Circuit, is a travesty, and when compared to my mother’s process, puts in stark relief how incredible this nation can be, and how incredibly cruel it can be as well.
I first heard of Adeel when he was nominated alongside my mother by President Biden on November 15, 2023. We met briefly before their confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee. What I had heard and read about him was true: This is a kind, sweet, intelligent man who was thoroughly qualified to be a judge in this country – a judgment confirmed by the American Bar Association, which gave him its highest rating.
While Adeel and my mother shared a date in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee, they took separate paths. They told different stories of America, were born in different places, practiced different faiths. Yet, both the American-Israeli Jew and the American-Pakistani Muslim have been considered deserving of the tremendous responsibility that comes with having been nominated to U.S. Circuit Court Judge positions. In today’s political climate, it was not hard to see the meaning and power behind that statement.
Sadly, and predictably, it quickly became clear that the hearing was not going to be about testing the legal acumen and knowledge either of them possessed in their pursuit of the position. What unfolded instead was a brazen display of Islamophobia from Republican senators, who decided their time was best spent accusing Adeel of supporting Hamas and the attacks to our country on 9/11 and questioning his beliefs on Israel’s legal system.
Because of the color of his skin and his religious conviction, the hearing was more insidious. While Adeel repeatedly and emphatically rejected terrorism and Hamas’ attack on October 7th, the truth mattered not at all. The Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee used soundbites from their interrogation as clickbait to fundraise and amplify their Islamophobic fake outrage, and some Democrats have decided that the blowback from the right-wing outrage is not worth spending their political capital.
In the lead up to the hearing, a (perhaps naive) observer might have thought much more of the focus from the GOP would have been on my mother. Adeel is a graduate of Oxford and Harvard, worked for years in a well-regarded corporate law firm, and has no “radical” statements on his record. He resembles the average judge confirmed in practice, ideology, and background in this country’s history, even with President Biden’s efforts to diversify the courts.
In contrast to that, my mother fought for reproductive rights as a Planned Parenthood attorney and for workers’ rights and economic justice at SEIU. She spent her childhood in public school, attended college and law school at public universities, and has given speeches and made statements that most judges would never make. While much of the coverage about her nomination has focused on the historic nature of her confirmation as the first lesbian on the Fourth Circuit, what she chose to be in this life is far more interesting and telling than what was not her decision.
In an era where judicial activism, especially from the Supreme Court, is constant and in clear sight, I have no qualms saying that I hope 1,000 more judges like my mother are confirmed around the country. I don’t mean lesbians, I don’t mean Jews. I mean lawyers who are committed to pursuing public interest careers – lawyers, who like my mom who said they were going to work for big law for a few years to pay off law school debt before going into public interest law, and then actually did it.
I want judges who know what a day of work means for the average American, and how their companies and bosses treat them. I want judges who fought to keep innocent people out of jail. I want judges who worked to protect women’s right to control their own bodies. I want judges who did not remove themself or their children from public schools, and know what education looks like for those who attend them. I want our judges to reflect America’s diversity and experience.
For all of those reasons, Adeel Mangi should be a judge right now. I don’t know if I would agree with all of his rulings, and I doubt he’d be as much of a liberal jurist as I would like. But there is no doubting his qualifications, his professionalism, his fairness, or his judicial temperament. Those aren’t the things keeping him off the bench. Racism and Islamophobia are.
While it seems highly likely that his nomination will die without a vote, I retain hope. Not only for the coming months, but for a brighter future, where we have fought back against fear and panic, elected braver (and more) Democratic senators, and where Adeel Mangi is seated on the 3rd Circuit.
Mattan Berner-Kadish is a union organizer and the son of Nicole Berner, a Judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
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