Obama’s Appointed Diverse Judges, They Don’t Get Confirmed

I was happy this morning to hear a story on NPR reporting that the Obama Administration has made historic gains when it comes to appointing judges from all types of diverse backgrounds. With a total of 900 federal judges, the bulk still tend to be white, straight men.

Then, of course, there was the inevitable let down when it came to light that, despite the appointments, many of them are not getting confirmed. Major sad face. Here’s what NPR reported:

The White House says almost half of the 97 candidates who have won confirmation during Obama’s presidency are women; about a quarter are black. And Obama has nominated four openly gay people, more than any other president. He’s also doubled the number of Asian-American judges on the bench.

Obama continued that pattern earlier this week when he nominated Adalberto Jose Jordan to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11^th Circuit and Miranda Du, an Asian American who lived in a refugee camp in Malaysia for almost a year as a child before coming to the U.S., for the district court in Nevada.

I think this is super awesome. The truth is, our country is much more diverse than white, straight men, so we should represent this fact in our legal system. But why aren’t they getting confirmed?

NPR tried to explain away the fact that gay, non-white or female nominees weren’t getting confirmed by saying that the Obama Administration took forever to nominate them, but c’mon, I think there’s probably another reason, don’t you? (Suppose it couldn’t have anything to do with Congress being composed overwhelmingly of white males?)

Follow Sara Inés Calderón on Twitter @SaraChicaD