Democrats Are Caving to Islamophobia on This Crucial Judicial Nomination

A 6-year-old Palestinian American boy, murdered in his Chicago home for being Muslim. Three Palestinian American college students, shot at in Vermont while out for a walk. An Arab American student hit by a car, while wearing a T-shirt with Arabic writing on it at Stanford University in California.

Since Oct. 7, when Hamas led a violent attack against civilians in Israel, there’s been a surge in reports of Islamophobic bias—the largest uptick since Donald Trump announced his Muslim ban in December 2015, according to Corey Saylor, director of research and advocacy at the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

Islamophobia tends to spike when there’s “any media exposure to Muslim-related issues,” according to one 2016 study by the University of Texas at Austin—and that’s been the case in the U.S. since the Israel-Hamas war began, leaving American Muslims afraid for their safety at home as they’re grieving the bloodshed abroad. (The war in Gaza has since killed upwards of 30,000 Palestinian civilians and left many more hungry as famine grips the enclave.)

This is the kind of time when you might expect Democrats—the party that has in recent decades identified themselves with equity and social justice—to recommit to fighting Islamophobia. Instead, they’re allowing Islamophobia to sabotage the judicial nomination of a highly qualified candidate: Adeel Mangi, an attorney from New Jersey, who, if confirmed, would become the first-ever Muslim attorney to sit on a federal appeals court.

In December, at Mangi’s confirmation hearing, GOP senators fired off leading questions laced with racism without a single reference to the nominee’s actual judicial experience. Adding insult to injury, Democratic Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto and Jacky Rosen of Nevada, along with West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, in recent weeks have all publicly said they would vote “no” on confirming Mangi, knowing full well their party’s razor-thin Senate majority means any defections will surely sink his nomination.

Confirming Mangi would add some sorely needed diversity to our nation’s courts—the federal bench is currently 66 percent white—and a check on biases. A study by the Center for American Progress found that judges belonging to different racial, ethnic, and religious groups use their unique backgrounds and life experiences to shape their rulings, and that it overall has a net positive impact on our judiciary. “Women judges and judges of color have spoken out about gender and racial bias on the courts and led calls for reforms,” said CAP, noting that judges of different backgrounds also enhance the courtroom experience for defendants and lawyers, regardless of their case’s outcome.

And the seat Mangi has been nominated to, the 3^rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, is an especially important bench. It covers Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, states where banks and other corporations tend to have a big presence. (Over 50 percent of publicly traded companies are incorporated in Delaware.) Currently, the 3^rd Circuit has a 7–6 conservative majority, and Mangi’s confirmation would bring some much needed balance.

The Democrats who have vowed to vote “no” on Mangi’s confirmation are openly giving credence to Islamophobia, calling into question what the party actually stands for.

At a dark time for American Muslims, Mangi’s historic nomination feels like a rare bright spot. He represents the best of the immigrant struggle—coming into a new country, seeking a better life while adapting to a new culture. Mangi became a civil servant here in the U.S., fighting for democracy on behalf of vulnerable Americans, and it’s made our country better. Mangi, born and raised in Pakistan, studied law at Oxford University, then immigrated to the U.S. at 22 years old to attend Harvard University. He began practicing law in the U.S. and became the youngest associate to make partner at the New York law firm Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler LLP. He worked on historic cases, including a landmark wrongful death lawsuit of a mentally ill Black man at a New York maximum security prison, which led to a $5 million payout to the victim’s family and required cameras and microphones to be installed throughout the prison.

Mangi also successfully fought for mosques to be built in New Jersey after their permits were denied, a case that earned a $3.25 million settlement and involved Donald Trump’s Justice Department. Mangi has also been a fierce advocate for immigrants, joining a coalition of different faith groups in advocating for keeping DACA, and the LQBTQ+ community, writing an amicus brief defending Title VII.

But Republicans have made Mangi the target of a baseless smear campaign that accuses him of antisemitism over a Rutgers University event he was once tangentially involved with.

Mangi was an advisory board member for Rutgers Law School’s Center for Security, Race and Rights, from 2019 to 2023. In 2021 the center co-sponsored a panel discussion, which was hosted by the People’s Forum, in honor of the 20^th anniversary of 9/11.* Sami Al-Arian was a featured speaker, a Florida professor who pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges related to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (a group the U.S. considers a terrorist organization) and was sentenced to prison. However, CSRR did not have a hand in picking Al-Arian has the event’s speaker.

Mangi also testified that he served as an adviser to Rutgers Law School, meeting just once a year to offer advice on the university’s academic issues. He was not aware of that 9/11 anniversary event happening, let alone did he have a say in which speakers were selected. Yet, Republican Sen. John Kennedy challenged that assertion, asking Mangi, “Is this the way you celebrate 9/11?”

“I don’t know any of these people or that event,” said Mangi. “I certainly and unequivocally would condemn any terrorism.”

Other Republicans joined in, incessantly focusing on Mangi’s personal perspective on the Israel-Hamas war, while completely ignoring the experience and skills he would bring to the federal judiciary. “Do you believe that Jews are colonial settlers in Israel?,” asked Republican Sen. Tom Cotton. “Do you condemn the atrocities of the Hamas terrorists?,” asked Republican Sen. Ted Cruz.

Over and over again, Mangi explained that international policy matters were not something he could weigh in on. “I have no basis as a judicial nominee to cast views on the Middle East,” said Mangi, when responding to a question about whether he believes Israel is a violent settler colonial state from Republican Sen. Josh Hawley. However, Mangi made clear that he believes “the events of Oct. 7 were a horror involving the deaths of innocent civilians,” and that he had “no patience—none—for any attempts to justify or defend those events.”

This kind of racism has become commonplace for the GOP. Consider when TikTok CEO Shou Chew was called to testify before Congress, and Republicans continuously insisted he was affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party, despite Chew confirming he is a citizen of Singapore—which bans dual citizenship. And there’s Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who, when calling to censure one of only three Muslim members of Congress, said “Representative Ilhan Omar of Somalia—I mean Minnesota.”

Donald Trump, the presumptive GOP nominee for president and the Republican Party’s standard bearer of extremism, told a crowd of supporters in December that immigrants coming into the U.S. are “poisoning the blood of our country.” Democrats are well aware of these bigoted tactics and recognize that the GOP has “concluded that racism might be bad morals but it’s good politics,” as New York Rep. Ritchie Torres put it to the New York Times.

Nevertheless, Cortez Masto was the first Democrat to publicly announce she would not vote for Mangi because of his affiliation with the Alliance of Families for Justice, a criminal justice reform group. She was quickly joined by fellow Nevada Sen. Jacky Rosen, who said she could not vote for Mangi because of “concerns I’ve heard from law enforcement in Nevada,” without offering more specific details. (Rosen’s decision ignores the other five law enforcement agencies that endorsed Mangi as someone who “demonstrated commitment to upholding the highest ethics and fair administration of the law.”)

Unsurprisingly, Manchin, who is officially retiring from Congress after his current term ends this year, also said he won’t vote for Mangi unless he can earn at least one vote from Republicans.

Since Rosen is up for reelection in a swing state this year, she’s probably taking note of what’s happening in other swing states, like Pennsylvania. The Judicial Crisis Network, an ultra-right-wing group focused on confirming conservative judges across the country, is funding ads smearing Mangi by declaring him antisemitic. The ads are also running in Montana in a pressure campaign to force the state’s sole Democratic lawmaker, Sen. Jon Tester, to vote “no” on Mangi.

In response to Republicans’ accusations of antisemitism, 15 Jewish advocacy groups that collectively represent more than 1 million Americans came together to offer a glowing endorsement of Mangi. And the American Jewish Committee not only endorsed him but went so far as to encourage senators to “disregard the untoward implications underlying that unnecessary and unhelpful line of questioning.” They were joined by the Anti-Defamation League—the most prominent Jewish advocacy group in the world—which also fully endorsed Mangi and suggested the way in which senators questioned him “appear to have been motivated by bias towards his religion.”

Illinois Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which is responsible for confirming judicial nominees, defended Mangi and called out Republican Sen. John Kennedy, who asked the nominee how he celebrated 9/11. “Think about that for a second. Because [Mangi] is Muslim, the senator thought it was appropriate to ask him if it was appropriate to celebrate 9/11 in his home,” said Durbin. “He of course said ‘no.’ He was a resident of New York and thought it was a tragedy that occurred to our nation, and that he had friends and family who were affected by that tragedy.” Durbin urged his colleagues to dismiss Republicans’ smear campaign and evaluate Mangi on his record.

The White House has also tried damage control measures, demanding Cruz, Hawley, and Cotton apologize to Mangi. “He represents the best of America, and when confirmed, Mr. Mangi will not only make history—he will make an outstanding judge,” White House spokesman Andrew Bates told NBC News.

In this current climate, simply chiding the Republicans who harassed Mangi and urging Democrats to vote for him isn’t enough. The White House must hold Cortez Masto, Rosen, and Manchin accountable for the party’s vow to condemn “the decades-long campaign to demonize and dehumanize the Muslim faith community”—because if they don’t stand against Islamophobia at a moment like this, what do they stand for in the first place?