The Leadership Conference Supports the Confirmation of Adeel Mangi

Courts Resources 12.11,23

View a PDF of the letter here.

December 11, 2023

SUPPORT THE CONFIRMATION OF ADEEL MANGI TO THE U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT

Dear Senator:

On behalf of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, a coalition of more than 240 national organizations committed to promoting and protecting the civil and human rights of all persons in the United States, we write to express our strong support for the confirmation of Adeel Mangi to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. The Leadership Conference intends to include your position on the confirmation of Mr. Mangi in our voting record for the 118th Congress.

Mr. Mangi’s impressive career makes him a wonderful choice for this position. Currently, Mr. Mangi is a partner with Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler LLP, where he also served as a counsel and an associate. He is a graduate of the University of Oxford, The City University London Inns of Court School of Law, and Harvard University. Mr. Mangi is very involved in his community. For example, he is a current member of the advisory board for Alliance of Families for Justice, which provides incarcerated people and their families with services and resources to help them navigate the criminal-legal system.[1] Both the breadth and depth of Mr. Mangi’s experience has prepared him well to be a federal judge.

Throughout his time in private practice, Mr. Mangi has maintained a significant pro bono practice spanning many issue areas. To illustrate, after a zoning board ultimately refused to approve a local Muslim group’s application to build a mosque — despite the majority of commissioners voting to approve the application — Mr. Mangi successfully brought suit and secured a large monetary settlement and permission for the mosque to be built.[2] In another case, he represented the family of Karl Taylor, an incarcerated man who was killed by corrections officers.[3] After a lengthy trial, Mr. Mangi ultimately settled the case out of court, and Mr. Taylor’s family received the largest settlement in New York state’s history for the death of an incarcerated person.[4] In addition to his extensive litigation load, Mr. Mangi wrote many amicus briefs on behalf of religious communities on various civil rights matters. Some issues include unlawful surveillance of religious communities,[5] protecting LGBTQ workers from sex discrimination,[6] the repeal of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program,[7] government funding for border wall construction,[8] and the Muslim ban on travel from certain countries.[9] Throughout his career, Mr. Mangi has shown a dedication to civil rights, and this experience is greatly needed for our federal judiciary.

Mr. Mangi’s confirmation to this position would mark a significantly overdue and extremely important milestone for our federal judiciary. If confirmed, Mr. Mangi would become the first Muslim judge to ever sit on a federal appellate court.[10] Further, if confirmed, he would become only the third Muslim judge to ever be confirmed to a lifetime appointment on any of our federal courts.[11] There are an estimated 3.45 million Muslim people in the United States,[12] yet until 2021, there had never been a lifetime-appointed Muslim federal judge in our nation’s history.[13] Public trust in our judiciary is vital to its function, and when our courts better represent the many communities they serve, this trust is strengthened.[14] This diversity of personal and professional experiences also helps to improve judicial decision-making.[15] The confirmation of Mr. Mangi would be a meaningful step towards ensuring that our federal courts reflect and represent the diversity of our nation.

Mr. Mangi is an excellent choice for this position, and we strongly urge the Senate to confirm him to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. If you would like to discuss this matter further, please contact Lena Zwarensteyn, senior director of the fair courts program, at (202) 466-3311. Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

Maya Wiley
President & CEO

Jesselyn McCurdy
Executive Vice President of Government Affairs

[1] About, Alliance of Families for Justice (2023).

[2] Bayonne Muslims et al. v. City of Bayonne et al., No. 2:17-cv-03731 (2018, D.N.J.).

[3] Ramsay-Nobles et al. v. Keyser et al., No. 1:16-cv-05778 (2020, S.D.N.Y.).

[4] Tom Robbins, Karl Taylor Died in a New York Prison. Now the State Has Agreed to Pay Millions., The Marshall Project (February 28, 2020).

[5] Federal Bureau of Investigation v. Fazaga, 595 U.S. 344 (2022).

[6] Bostock v. Clayton County, Ga., 140 S. Ct. 1731 (2020).

[7] Department of Homeland Security v. Regents of the University of California, 140 S. Ct. 1891 (2020).

[8] Trump v. Sierra Club, 141 S. Ct. 618 (2020).

[9] Trump v. Hawaii, 138 S. Ct. 2392 (2018).

[10] Azi Paybarah, Biden nominee would be first Muslim on federal appellate court in U.S. history, The Washington Post (November 15, 2023).

[11] Lola Fadulu, First Muslim Woman to Be Federal Judge Confirmed by Senate, The New York Times (June 16, 2023).

[12] Besheer Mohamed, New estimates show U.S. Muslim population continues to grow, Pew Research Center (January 3, 2018).

[13] Azi Paybarah, U.S. Senate Confirms First Muslim Federal District Judge, The New York Times (June 11, 2021).

[14] Maya Sen, Diversity, Qualifications, and Ideology: How Female and Minority Judges Have Changed, or Not Changed, Over Time, 2017 Wis. L. Rev. 367 (2017).

[15] Kate Berry, Building a Diverse Bench: Selecting Federal Magistrate and Bankruptcy Judges, Brennan Center For Justice At Nyu School Of Law And American Bar Association Judicial Division (2017).