President Donald Trump constantly reminds United States citizens about the myriad circuit and district court appointments that his White House is making to the federal judiciary. Last September, Trump proposed the seventh “wave,” which included three people of color among sixteen judicial nominees. This wave permitted the administration to triple the number of ethnic minority picks whom it had selected, which means that the Executive Branch has proffered ten persons of color in 113 appeals court and district court submissions, yet none is a lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT) individual. Nevertheless, a problematic pattern, which implicates a stunning lack of ethnic-minority, LGBT, and female nominees rather swiftly arose, even though the administration is relatively nascent. Because when Trump captured the White House he pledged to serve as the President of all U.S. citizens, because diversity has great significance, and because the 140 current lower court vacancies provide an exceptionally rare opportunity, the striking paucity of minority representation in Trump’s federal court nominees deserves evaluation.
The initial section of this piece surveys why increased diversity is essential, detecting that improved minority representation enhances the quality of court opinions, confines ethnic, sexual-preference, and gender biases which undermine justice and expands public confidence in the judiciary. The segment also reviews how modern Presidents have addressed diversity when nominating and confirming jurists. The second part considers the record which the Trump White House has assembled, finding that it compiled the weakest one since President Ronald Reagan served when substantially fewer people of color, LGBT individuals or women were practicing lawyers. The third section analyzes the record’s consequences. Because the Trump presidency only commenced in 2017 and the executive has considerable time for treating this dearth, the final segment provides recommendations which might help place numerous minority, LGBT, and female jurists on the federal courts.

The constitutional-doubt canon instructs that statutes should be interpreted in a way that avoids placing their constitutionality in doubt. This canon is often said to rest on the presumption that Congress does not intend to exceed its constitutional authority. That presumption, however, is inconsistent with the notion that government actors tend to exceed their lawful authority—a notion that motivates our constitutional structure, and in particular the series of checks and balances that the Constitution creates. This tension between the constitutional-doubt canon and the Constitution’s structure would be acceptable if the canon accurately reflected the manner in which the public understands legislative enactments. But it doesn’t. Thus, the only possible justification for the constitutional-doubt canon is stare decisis.

Next term, in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, the Supreme Court will consider whether a baker’s religious objection to same-sex marriage justifies his violation of Colorado’s public accommodation law in refusing to bake a cake for a same-sex wedding. At the centerpiece of Masterpiece Cakeshop is a clash between the First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause and the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause or, more precisely, the principles of equality in commercial life as grounded in Colorado’s public accommodation law. In exploring the purpose inherent in regulating private conduct through public accommodation laws, this Essay suggests that the reconciliation of these seemingly irreconcilable interests is rooted in their common intrinsic value: maintaining the social order. Ultimately, Masterpiece Cakeshop provides an opportunity for the Court to reclaim the grounding principles inherent in public accommodation laws that recognize the civic duty in “serving the public” and hold that free exercise must bow to equal protection when necessary to maintain the social order.