ON THE BENCH

First Muslim Federal Judge in U.S. History Confirmed

Quraishi was confirmed by the Senate on Thursday to be a judge for the District of New Jersey.

Zahid Quraishi has officially become the United States’s first ever Muslim American federal judge. Quraishi was confirmed by the Senate on Thursday to be a judge for the District of New Jersey. He was a U.S. magistrate judge in the state before his confirmation and is the first Asian-American to serve at the federal level there, according to CNN. When President Joe Biden first announced that he would be nominating Quraishi, he pointed out that the judge “served as a military prosecutor and achieved the rank of Captain in the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General’s Corps, deploying to Iraq in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2004 and 2006.” After Quraishi’s confirmation vote, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) vowed to continue expanding both “geographic and professional diversity” on the federal bench.