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Wisconsin Watch partners with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. Read our methodology to learn how we check claims.

No.

As of June 2, 2023, President Joe Biden had nominated 127 people to federal judgeships, including 13 white men, that were confirmed by the Senate.

According to searches of a database of the Federal Judicial Center, a government office, the 127 judges include the following white men: Robert Ballou, Matthew Brookman, Daniel Calabretta, Michael Farbiarz, Gordon Gallagher, Toby Heytens, Anthony Johnstone, Robert Kirsch, Stephen Locher, John Murphy, Michael Nachmanoff, Andrew Schopler and Leonard Stark.

Including the Supreme Court, 46% of the federal judiciary’s judges were white men as of January 2023, according to The 19th, a nonprofit newsroom.

In December 2022, Bloomberg News reported Biden had appointed 97 judges including five white men, in his first two years. That list included Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. Republican U.S. Rep. Glenn Grothman, who represents parts of northeastern Wisconsin, cited those figures — now outdated — in House floor remarks on May 25, 2023.

This Fact Brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.

Sources

DocumentCloud Search Results Number of judges matching the search criteria: 127

Federal Judicial Center Biographical Directory of Article III Federal Judges, 1789-present

Bloomberg Law Biden Builds Judicial Legacy With Diversified Federal Courts

The 19th Two years in, Biden has prioritized nominating women of color as judges

C-SPAN (4:54:55) U.S. House of Representatives House Session, Part 2

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Tom Kertscher joined as a Wisconsin Watch fact checker in January 2023 and contributes to our collaboration with the The Gigafact Project to fight misinformation online. Kertscher is a former longtime newspaper reporter, including at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, who has worked as a self-employed journalist since 2019. His gigs include contributing writer for PolitiFact and sports freelancer for The Associated Press.