Biden Nominates Second LGBTQ Woman for U.S. Court of Appeals

Alison Nathan has served for 10 years in the Southern District of New York.

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President Biden has nominated a second LGBTQ woman to serve on the Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals.

The U.S. Senate on November 1 confirmed Beth Robinson, Biden’s first lesbian nominee to the Second Circuit, which includes Vermont, New York, and Connecticut. That confirmation marked the first time an openly queer woman had been appointed to a federal appeals circuit seat.

The White House on November 17 announced that the president is nominating current U.S. District Court Judge Alison Nathan, who identifies as a lesbian and has served 10 years in the Southern District of New York, to the Second Circuit.

Nathan was an associate counsel to President Obama, and then special counsel to New York State Solicitor General Barbara Underwood. President Obama appointed her, in 2011, to the federal district court in Manhattan. The Senate vote in 2011 was 48 to 44, and several Republicans who opposed her then are still prominent in the Senate. Among them is Senator Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) who said Nathan was too inexperienced. (She was 39 at the time.)

A native of Philadelphia, Nathan attended Cornell University for both her bachelor’s and law degree. She clerked at the Ninth Circuit and for U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens. She entered private practice with the large corporate law firm of Wilmer, Cutler, Pickering, Hale and Dorr. In 2004, she served on the campaign of then Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry.

According to the New York Times, Nathan has been presiding over the trial of sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein’s associate, Ghislaine Maxwell, on sex trafficking charges. Reuters reported that the trial requires Nathan to question more than 200 prospective jurors.

Nathan is married to a New York University Law School professor, Meg Satterthwaite, and they have two children. U.S. Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) recommended Nathan for the nomination.

Robinson, who is expected to be sworn in soon, was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on a 51 to 45 vote. Although there was no floor debate, Republican senators posed a long series of challenging questions to the nominee through behind-the-scenes questionnaires. Among other things, they asked Robinson, “How many biological sexes do you believe there are?” and “Do you think it is appropriate for an individual to threaten a six-year-old girl with a box cutter by telling her that he would kill her in her sleep?” In Robinson’s televised confirmation hearing, Republicans claimed the nominee exhibited “marked hostility toward religious liberty,” although they offered no evidence of such hostility.