Trump heavily favors white men for lifetime judicial appointments

Supreme Court Associate Judge Neil Gorsuch, with President Trump and Anthony Kenedy.

(Image credit: Getty Images)

It has been almost 30 years since a president's judicial picks were as overwhelmingly white and male as President Trump's have been, The Associated Press reports. Three of every four of Trump's picks are white men, while overall 91 percent are white and 81 percent male.

Trump's choices will shape America's federal courts for decades to come because they are lifetime appointments. Of his 58 nominees so far, 53 are white, three are Asian-American, one is Hispanic, and one is African-American, AP reports. Eleven are women. By comparison, under former President Barack Obama, nearly 42 percent of appointed judges were women and only 37 percent were white men.

Thirteen of Trump's nominees have been approved by the Senate so far. As Trump put it in a Cabinet meeting recently: "A big percentage of the court will be changed by this administration over a very short period of time." For The Week, Ryan Cooper calls the president's speedy appointments and Republicans' eyebrow-raising confirmations "a political lesson for Democrats … The point is to get your people in place, and a scandal or two is well worth enduring."

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Jeva Lange was the executive editor at TheWeek.com. She formerly served as The Week's deputy editor and culture critic. She is also a contributor to Screen Slate, and her writing has appeared in The New York Daily News, The Awl, Vice, and Gothamist, among other publications. Jeva lives in New York City. Follow her on Twitter.