Western Pa. members of Congress should stop slinging mud against Adeel Mangi
Western Pennsylvania Republicans have wandered into the culture war to oppose President Joe Biden’s nomination of Adeel Mangi to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third District, where he would be the first Muslim man to serve on a federal circuit court of appeals.
U.S. Reps. Guy Reschenthaler of Peters, Mike Kelly of Butler and Glenn Thompson of Centre County joined seven other House Republicans in a letter to the president voicing their opposition based on Mr. Mangi’s very tenuous connection to an academic center, as a former member of its advisory board.
The Center for Security, Race and Rights at Rutgers Law School clearly has a point of view. It describes its mission is to work “across racial and religious lines to address the underlying structural and systemic causes of Islamophobia.” The center funds studies about Islamophobia, including regarding Palestine, and has hosted controversial academics.
The advisory board met once a year and had no responsibility for programming. Mr. Mangi had left the board before before the Center sponsored two lecture series with content some considered antisemitic. Somehow, despite his having no continuing connection with the Center, Republicans claimed this proved he was an antisemite.
“I will condemn without equivocation any terrorism, any terrorists, or any act of terrorism, or any defense of any act of terrorism,” Mr. Mangi stated during his nomination hearing last year, in which senators Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley and John Kennedy grilled him about his connection to the Center. “If someone on there is a
terrorist, I condemn them.”
The Center’s work mirrors that of the Anti-Defamation League, the Jewish organization fighting antisemitism. The ADL, recognizing bigotry when they see it, issued a supportive statement after the hearing. The group called the senators’ grilling “an attempt to create controversy where one did not exist.”
The ADL declared that “berating the first American Muslim federal appellate judicial nominee with endless questions that appear to have been motivated by bias towards his religion is profoundly wrong.”
His nomination passed, with votes split down party lines. He will now face the full Senate.
Mr. Mangi seems eminently qualified for the position, with 27 years of experience in federal courtrooms. After his work on a case in which an inmate was beaten to death in a New York prison, the facility installed cameras. Multiple law journals have heralded his litigation and legal expertise.
The Western Pennsylvania’s representatives’ baseless mud-slinging only contributes to division between Americans and to anti-Muslim prejudice in particular. They should retract their statement, and the Senate should approve Adeel Mangi.