The U.S Court of Appeals has just tapped the first Black woman to sit on its Eleventh Circuit.
Nancy Abudu was confirmed by Senate 49-47 Thursday despite criticism from the Republican party about her work at the Southern Poverty Law Center, where she served as deputy legal director and interim director for strategic litigation.
It took over a year for her confirmation partly due to Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s amid health reasons. The civil rights attorney was opposed by Sen. Joe Manchin in an unusual Democratic absconding against one of President Joe Biden’s judicial nominees.
The 48-year-old’s litigation experience includes working on voting rights cases nationally for the SPLC and the American Civil Liberties Union. She is known to be a staunch challenger of felon disenfranchisement, voter ID and proof of citizenship laws, and advocated for increased enforcement of federal voting-related laws.
Abudu’s confirmation comes on the heels of Biden’s push to diversify the judiciary. A first-generation American born to Ghanaian parents, she is only the fourth Black woman to be nominated to serve on a federal appeals court in which a Black woman has never served.
Abudu will “bring a much needed perspective” to the bench “as the child of immigrants, as a Black woman, and as someone who has been knee-deep in complex issues of justice,” Jennifer Ramo, who studied at Tulane Law School with Abudu told Bloomberg.
Terrica Ganzy, president of the Georgia Association of Black Women Attorneys and colleague of Abudu said that her appointment is historic, specifically for Black legal professionals in the South.
“She used to bring her little girl to our political action committee meetings,” Ganzy said. “Getting to watch her ascent feels like we’re fulfilling our mission.”
Abudi was born and raised in Virginia and was inspired by her father’s work in anti-apartheid activism and voting rights.
“So when I came of age, I cast my ballot,” she said at Mercersburg Academy in 2021.
She would later graduate from Columbia University and Tulane Law School before beginning work at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom. Following her work at the firm, she would become a staff attorney at the Eleventh Circuit before being appointed to serve on the court.
