Legal experts say there is no excuse for Bush's Failure to Appoint Black Judges

President George W. Bush has received sharp criticism over the last four years for nominating men and women to federal judgeships that some fear will turn the clock back on civil rights enforcement, laws protecting women's reproductive choice, and access to justice for the poor. Another point of contention is the paucity of black nominations to the federal bench all together. Of Bush's 200 judicial appointments overall, only 15 or 7.5% were African American-four on circuit courts and 11 on district courts (Click here for list). This is in sharp contrast to his predecessor President Bill Clinton's record, who named 61 black federal judges among his 373 judicial appointments. "With the ample pool of African American attorneys and state court judges throughout the country, there is no excuse for so few appointments by Bush," says Leslie Proll, assistant counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund in Washington, D.C., which monitors African American representation on the federal bench. Bush's record on black judicial appointments is worse in the South where most African Americans live. According to information compiled by the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, of President George W. Bush's 56 confirmed federal district court nominees in the 11 states of the Old Confederacy, only one was an African American-Marcia Cooke from Florida.  [more]