“President Trump has nominated Damien M. Schiff, senior attorney at the Pacific Legal Foundation, for a seat on the US Court of Federal Claims. Schiff is well known for disparaging members of the bench and labeled Justice Anthony Kennedy a ‘judicial prostitute’ for his swing votes on various cases. In addition to his personal rants against those with whom he disagrees, on his own blog and elsewhere, he opposes equal rights for LGBTQ persons, argues for personhood rights of fetuses, and lambastes environmental regulations.

“Among other things, Schiff wrote an anonymous 2009 piece entitled “Teaching ‘gayness’ in public schools,” where he railed against the anti-bullying lesson plan of a California school district. He has argued vociferously against the application of Title IX in high schools, on the basis that there is no proof of “sexual discrimination going on in high schools.” And in a 2008 blog posting, he equated abortion with slavery.

“Anyone who takes the oath to uphold the Constitution must have demonstrated that he or she possesses the judicial temperament for the job, as well as a basic respect for the judicial system, existing federal judges, and most especially justices of the Supreme Court. While the Court of Claims is less well known and not of general interest, the nomination could well serve as a stepping stone to a more powerful seat elsewhere on the bench. By the time that happens, Schiff supporters undoubtedly hope that he will have been sanitized by a period of forced silence as a sitting judge, and common memory will have been cleansed of his more odious utterances.

“Damien Schiff must not be elevated to the federal bench, one day an extreme partisan and the next cloaked in the respectability of judicial office. NCJW opposes his nomination.”

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