HRC urges the full U.S. Senate to reject Steven Menashi, Trump’s nominee for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

“Steven Menashi has made a career of promoting anti-LGBTQ rhetoric, and has used whatever platform he’s handed -- from his college newspaper, to legal publications, to a seat at the table at the White House -- to undermine our community’s fight for equality,” said HRC President Alphonso David. “As a federal judge, Menashi will have the opportunity to rule on numerous cases addressing some of the most critical questions regarding equality, fundamental rights and access to justice. Such a position must be filled by a neutral arbiter with a demonstrated commitment to fairness, equality and the preservation of human dignity for all people. Steven Menashi falls far short of this basic threshold. Menashi is not neutral, nor fit to be an arbiter and he has no place deciding the fates of people whose very personhood he will not protect.”

Menashi’s troubling writings beginning in college include a piece promoting a gross mischaracterization of advocacy efforts in support of the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act. In other writings, he has mocked and dismissed efforts at sexual health awareness, abortion rights and reproductive health care, compared affirmative action policies to laws implemented by Nazi Germany, defended campus parties in which white students mocked those of other races and ethnicities and described efforts to promote cultural awareness on college campuses as “leftist multiculturalism.”

He also played a role in Trump’s White House Immigration Strategic Working Group, which has been responsible for developing the administration’s most draconian approaches to immigration, including the family separation policy.