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More than a year into his second term, President Donald Trump has appointed 27 judges to the federal bench — and the makeup of those appointments is drawing renewed scrutiny.
Of the judges confirmed so far, 17 — about 63 percent — are White men. Seven are women, accounting for roughly 25 percent. None are women of color, according to reporting by The 19th.
While the imbalance mirrors Trump’s first term, legal experts say the broader political climate surrounding these confirmations is notable. When Trump left office in 2021, White men made up 64 percent of his judicial appointments, White women accounted for 19 percent, and women of color represented just under 5 percent. This time, critics say, the administration has been more explicit in framing diversity as a liability and judicial independence as disloyalty.
Trump has repeatedly praised judges who rule in his favor, condemned those who rule against him, and moved to dismantle diversity initiatives across the federal government.
“If he’s just choosing judges on the basis of who he thinks will be politically loyal to him, it turns out that a lot of them are White dudes,” Josh Orton, president of the progressive judicial advocacy group Demand Justice, told The 19th.
The gap between Trump’s picks and the current judiciary is stark. According to the Federal Judicial Center, about 40 percent of the nation’s 831 active federal judges are women, and roughly 17 percent are women of color — highlighting how narrow Trump’s second-term selections have been.
Judicial scholars say representation matters not just symbolically, but functionally. Rachael K. Hinkle, a political science professor at the University at Buffalo, has found that women judges — particularly women of color — often take on less visible work, such as writing unpublished opinions that carry limited policymaking power. Her research also shows that decisions authored by women or judges of color are more likely to be challenged by attorneys.
“People have a perception of competence that’s linked to those demographic characteristics,” Hinkle told The 19th.
The stakes are highest in the federal appellate courts, which decide roughly 40,000 cases a year, compared to fewer than 100 heard annually by the U.S. Supreme Court. While the Supreme Court currently includes three women — two of them women of color — the appellate courts shape the vast majority of federal law.
Experts caution it will take years to fully assess the long-term impact of Trump’s judicial appointments. Still, they note that his administration has increasingly linked race and gender diversity to professional incompetence — a theme reflected in policy goals aligned with Project 2025, a far-right blueprint for restructuring the federal government.
Though Trump has publicly denied ties to Project 2025, analyses cited by The 19th indicate that roughly half of its objectives — including rolling back diversity initiatives and narrowing how race and gender can be addressed in public institutions — have already been implemented during his second term.
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