Students at a Washington state high school Monday staged a walk-out in solidarity with a trans student, who was beaten in the school’s hallways the week before.
The walk-out prompted a threat by another student “to aim a machine gun” at the rallying students, according to Kalama police. The Kalama Middle and High Schools, which share a campus, were put into lockdown.
Last week, a transgender student was assaulted in the school’s halls just as students were leaving for the day.
Witnesses say another student repeatedly kicked the transgender student, who is a boy, with steel-toe boots, while yelling homophobic and transphobic slurs.
“The student had been on the ground, begging him to stop and he just kept going,” said Katrina Rick-Mertens, a sophomore at the school and rally organizer.
The victim was subsequently treated in hospital and has returned to class, according to the school district.
At Monday’s walkout, the boy threatening “to aim a machine gun” at protesters made the comment to another student not affiliated with the protest. That student, who says he didn’t see a gun, reported the comments to school officials.
Police say they located the student and took him into custody.
The attack, walkout, and subsequent threats followed reported inaction by the school against what students say is the growing influence of hate groups. Students have posted Nazi imagery in the school, which is just across the state border from Portland, and on social media.
According to parent Melissa Cierley, bullying at the high school is endemic.
“There’s a certain population that seems to be able to get away with whatever they want,” she said.
Her daughter Lillie says she’s been the victim of sexually harassing insults and threats, and things thrown at her like books, staplers, or “anything they can get their hands on.”
Cierley and Rick-Martens say while they tell school administrators about the bullying, they’re never told about anything being done about the incidents, only to see the bullying continue.
“It’s just really heartbreaking to not be taken seriously,” Cierley says.
“You’d think that after so many students go to them about hate speech and going to them that we need these bullies to stop, that they would do something. We shouldn’t have to come to this point to rally together for them to listen to us,” Rick-Mertens said.
“If students are saying that they feel like this, they feel like there is a problem, then there is truth to that,” Kalama School District Communications Manager Nick Shanmac said. “As a school, as a district, we need to be listening.”
Rick-Mertens posted on Instagram after the rally: “Remember, staying silent only helps the oppressor and never the victim. Use your voice for good.”
In Birmingham, Alabama, families, and friends of students of Magic City Acceptance Academy attended the charter school’s inaugural graduation ceremony. MCAA is a charter school that promises an “LGBTQ-affirming learning environment” for students who “have dropped out, are not thriving at traditional schools.”
Although the classes are small, 12 seniors graduated this year, the hearts of the school’s community remain large as crowds of families cheered on the graduates with lots of pride, appreciation, and love.
In its early stages, MCAA overcame three rejections from the Alabama Public Charter School Commission. However, the school won its approval and opened its doors in 2021 in the Birmingham suburb of Homewood with 250 students in grades six through 12.
Mike Wilson, the school’s principal, noted that when students first arrived at MCAA, they were “wrapped up in their trauma.” The students came from environments where they’d been bullied and marginalized. At the Academy, the staff and faculty worked to educate and empower their students.
One graduating senior, Clover, said it wasn’t until they came to the Academy that they saw their grades improve. Along with good grades, Clover has also created strong bonds with other students that they never thought they’d have.
Clover’s mother, Rachel, said that from the beginning of the school year she’s seen a change in her child. Previously, Clover was “miserable” in school, and there weren’t many options. But when Rachel discovered MCAA, she thought it could be a solution. And she was right.
MCAA creates an environment that focuses on both the mental and social development of students by creating a trauma-informed space. Trauma-informed care helps professionals change their focus away from asking questions like “what’s wrong with you?” and instead asks questions like “what happened to you?”
Along with trauma-informed care, MCAA also focuses on social justice initiatives, restorative justice, and social and emotional learning, while also providing strong academics.
MCAA has already seen the payoff of these focus areas during both the graduation ceremony and an eighth graders’ promotion ceremony where students seemed full of joy as they played with friends and went to teachers to offer them heartfelt goodbyes and handwritten letters.
The Academy has been a beacon of support within the community, already amassing its target enrollment of 350 students. The school plans on adding more staff in the future to meet the needs of more students.
MCAA comes at a time when bullying in schools have reached the need for intervention. The ACLU has stated it’s illegal under federal law for public schools to ignore anti-LGBTQ harassment of students.
“Public schools that fail to adequately protect LGBTQ students from severe bullying and harassment can be held liable under Title IX and the Equal Protection Clause. Cases thathave found school districts are liable for anti–LGBTQ bullying as a result of their deliberate indifference have led to damages awards and settlements as high as $1.1 million for students whose schools failed to protect them from anti–LGBTQ harassment,” an open letter to schools states.
It looks like MCAA is solving that problem and is a leader in education when it comes to anti-LGBTQ bullying initiatives.
Health officials on Wednesday recommended that men in Florida who have sex with other men get a meningococcal vaccine following what the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention called “one of the worst outbreaks of meningococcal disease among gay and bisexual men in U.S. history.”
The CDC said in a statement that there have been at least 24 cases and seven deaths among gay and bisexual men caused by the bacteria in Florida recently. The CDC also recommended that gay and bisexual men traveling to Florida should ask their health care provider about getting the vaccine.
Students and alumni at Seattle Pacific University have been staging a sit-in for weeks, protesting the private Christian university’s policy banning employees from being gay.
The protest culminated with students handing rainbow flags to SPU President Pete Menjares in exchange for their diplomas at their graduation ceremony.
The protests came in response to a decision by SPU’s board of trustees in May not to change the school’s “Employee Lifestyle Expectations,” which bar employees from engaging in “sexual behavior that is inconsistent with the University’s understanding of Biblical standards.”
According to the policy, that includes same-sex sexual activity.
“Employees who engage in any of these activities may face disciplinary action up to and including termination of employment with the University,” the policy states.
“The board made a decision that it believed was most in line with the university’s mission and statement of faith and chose to have SPU remain in communion with its founding denomination, the Free Methodist Church USA, as a core part of its historical identity as a Christian university,” SPU board chair Cedric Davis said in a statement last month. The Free Methodist Church USA, which according to The Guardian has contributed $324,000 to the university, had threatened to cut ties with the school if the policy was changed.
SPU has not filed for a religious exemption under Title IX, the federal education law barring discrimination based on sex, or Title VII, the law prohibiting employment discrimination based on sex, according to The Guardian. The Supreme Court ruled in Bostock v. Clayton Co.in 2020 that Title VII’s ban on discrimination based on sex outlaws anti-LGBTQ job discrimination as well, and President Joe Biden issued an executive order saying that Title IX’s protections include LGBTQ people as well.
A 2021 lawsuit brought by an SPU professor claiming the school had denied him tenure because he is gay was settled out of court. SPU’s faculty senate subsequently passed a vote of no confidence in the school’s board of trustees, which had upheld the anti-gay policy. In early June, the faculty senate passed a resolution in support of changing the policy to allow same-sex sexual activity within the context of marriage.
Summing up the protesters’ outrage, 22-year-old Leah Duff posed a question for SPU’s administration: “You’re going to charge me thousands of dollars every quarter to come here and to get an education, but you’re not going to provide me the education that I deserve as a queer person by having queer staff and faculty?” The Guardian reports. “You talk about being ecumenical, being so diverse. And it’s like, where is it?”
SPU student government president Laur Lugos says students plan to continue the sit-in well after graduation. As Lugos tellsThe Seattle Times, “Students have organized it and have been the ones putting it together, but the entire community is backing this and supporting this.”
Two transgender journalists are pulling out of the Guardian’s Pride special coverage due to the paper’s alleged “ingrained prejudice against trans women.”
In a letter to the U.K. newspaper’s bosses, freelance journalists Freddy McConnell and Vic Parsons said they were declining all future work with The Guardian. They were commissioned to write pieces about their experiences of being transgender for the paper’s upcoming Pride special.
The pair say they have a “moral duty to stand in absolute solidarity” with transgender women and trans feminine people who are receiving negative attention from the paper, adding they will “no longer write for The Guardian until it changes its trans-hostile and exclusionary stance.”
The letter continues: “For far too long, the UK’s supposedly most progressive mainstream media outlet has routinely monstered trans women, undermined non-binary people, and misrepresented our desire to simply live in peace and safety.”
“It has amplified conspiracy theories about trans healthcare and trans and gender non-conforming children and has contributed to attempts to smear those working to support trans people. On social media, it’s even worse, with prominent writers routinely amplifying and generating misinformation about trans women, trans men, and nonbinary people.”
McConnell and Parsons say they believed a recent opinion piece was “misleading and discriminatory” about cisgender lesbians dating transgender women and said it was “the final straw” for them.
The opinion piece was published in The Guardian’s sister paper The Observer and online on The Guardian’s website. The article has been criticized as anti-trans, with the author of the article repeatedly calling transgender women “biologically male” and labeling transgender campaigners working for transgender equality as pushing “gender ideology.”
McConnell said that he was “disgusted” by the article, “I was like, oh God, here we go again. I’m still shocked that the Guardian is putting out pieces that are so obviously incorrect, inaccurate, and offensive. What is going on?”
In their letter to newspaper bosses, the writers claim the article “contravenes The Guardian’s editorial code on fairness, verification, accuracy, and discrimination,” as well as going against the paper’s “foundational values.”
“This decision was not reached quickly or easily,” they write, adding, “since 2017, trans writers, staffers, and allies have been working politely and tirelessly to help editors understand the harm that misinformed hostility to trans equality is doing, both to trans people and to the paper itself.”
“When I saw that opinion piece I was just like – why? Not again. I was sent it by multiple people and it’s exactly why I’ve had to stop reading the news for the past few months,” Parsons said. “It was impossible for me to go ahead and write something for the Pride edition, knowing that the organization had supported that article.”
The two journalists call on other writers, especially LGBTQ writers, to end their working relationships with The Guardian “until it stops attacking trans women and trans equality,” they say that all of the newspaper’s transgender staff have already left.
“The Guardian can no longer point to trans staffers as evidence of not having a transphobia problem because they’ve all left, either wholly or partly due to said transphobia,” the letter claims.
McConnell and Parsons have several demands within their letter. They want The Guardianto change how it approaches transgender people. They also ask for a change in the editorial stance to reflect that transgender women having rights does not disadvantage cisgender women.
Both writers don’t have any regrets when it comes to leaving The Guardian. When asked if leaving could lead to transgender people being silenced, or more anti-transgender negativity in the newspaper, both McConnell and Parsons said “no.”
“We’re not included in the debate at this point anyway, and certainly not by The Guardian,” Parsons said. “This is a statement against the continued exclusion of our voices from the debate – not us removing ourselves from a debate that we were included in.”
They added: “If you call yourself a trans ally, this is the moment for you to do something. Yes, it might come at a financial cost to not have a working relationship with The Guardian, as it does for me and Freddy, but sometimes you have to do what’s right.”
At least three LGBTQ events were targeted by white nationalist groups last weekend, but organizers of Pride parades and festivals say they won’t give in to fear.
On Saturday, police arrested 31 people affiliated with the white nationalist group Patriot Front on suspicion of conspiracy to riot after they showed up near an annual “Pride in the Park” event in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, with gas masks and shields, police said.
Then, on Sunday — the six-year anniversary of the shooting at Pulse, an LGBTQ nightclub in Orlando, Florida — five men whom witnesses described as members of the Proud Boys disrupted a “Drag Queen Story Hour” at the San Lorenzo Library in California. On the same day, in Texas, about 30 protesters gathered outside a venue that hosted an adults-only drag brunch show to benefit two charities, the Star-Telegram reported.
Last week, police also arrested a Canadian who allegedly threatened to shoot people at a West Palm Beach “Pride on the Block” event.
Organizers of Pride events across the country have said that, though the increase in harassment and threats have shaken them some, they will continue with their festivals and parades as planned. They anticipate leaning into safety and security protocols, which many say they’ve already beefed up as a result of the national climate surrounding the LGBTQ community.
North America’s biggest pride parade, the NYC Pride March, will return on June 26 — the first time it will be held in person since 2019, when it attracted an estimated 5 million attendees.
Dan Dimant, media director for Heritage of Pride, the group behind NYC Pride, said that based on the group’s safety guidelines it does not plan to make changes to the march.
“We are always in close coordination with local and federal authorities,” he said in a statement to NBC News. “This year our private security has a larger footprint than in previous years so that all of our attendees can enjoy a safe, fun, and memorable return to in-person Pride.”
Dimant also noted that the group’s staff and executive board undergo active shooter training annually.
Meanwhile, Chicago will hold a number of Pride events from June 18 to June 26. Following the incident in Coeur d’Alene, Chicago Police Superintendent David Brown “put those who might be planning something on notice” during a news conference Monday, according to NBC affiliate WMAQ-TV.
Police in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho detain people pulled on June 11, 2022, from a U-Haul truck near the city’s Pride celebration. Georji Brown
Brown said officers on a Joint Terrorism Task Force were working with the FBI and other federal agencies to gather intelligence ahead of the June 26 Pride parade.
“We are going to be vigilant to ensure that this event, as well as others, go off safely,” he said, according to WMAQ-TV. “And we’ll hold you accountable if you’re planning [and] if you’re doing anything to jeopardize the safety of others.”
Organizers of events in smaller, more conservative areas have also made preparations ahead of their events, though many of them said it’s common for them to have protesters.
Myndie VanHorn, the founder of LGBTQ group Chroma, in Lewiston, Idaho, about two hours south of Coeur d’Alene, said the group will hold its Celebrate Love event for the first time since 2019 on July 9.
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“I’m a little apprehensive if I’m being honest,” she said.
VanHorn said the first Celebrate Love event, in 2016, was created as a response to the shooting at Pulse nightclub. She and other community members put it together in just eight days, so it wasn’t very big.
“I still received some death threats at that time,” VanHorn said. “I haven’t in the years following received anything like that, but this year feels a little different, especially with Coeur d’Alene and the 31 people arrested up there, so I’m a little apprehensive about it.”
She said she plans to sit down with a police chief at the Lewiston Police Department this week to talk about security, and that the department, as well as some state patrol officers, have attended all of the past events.
VanHorn said she was hesitant to speak about the event, which has drawn up to 800 people in the past, because she didn’t want to accidentally “invite hate,” but at the same time, “I don’t want to hide,” she said.
Michael Barnard, president and festival coordinator of Augusta Pride, in Augusta, Georgia, said he didn’t feel comfortable disclosing the details of the event’s security plan. He said that the group has prepared for every worst case scenario ahead of the Pride parade and festival on June 25, which in past years has attracted nearly 14,000 people.
“We have had protesters in the past — that’s common at any LGBT festival, especially in the South,” he said. “But for the most part, we’ve never had any incidents at our festival, and that’s 12 years running now.”
Participants look at a Born This Way sign as they browse a booth selling Pride items during the Pride Festival at the Augusta Commons on June 28, 2014, in Augusta, Ga.Sara Caldwell / The Augusta Chronicle via AP file
Eric Ward, extremism expert and executive director of the Western States Center, a nonprofit that advocates for inclusive democracy, said there are a few things that event organizers can do to help prevent harassment and violence, particularly from white nationalist groups that have recently targeted LGBTQ events. For example, they can pay attention to rhetoric online and be in touch with local human rights organizations who may monitor far-right groups in the area more closely.
But he said that preventing similar incidents to the one in Coeur d’Alene would require the federal government, including the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security, to invest more resources into monitoring online criminal activity.
“I think the lessons of Charlottesville still apply,” Ward said. “When we see heavy internet and social media rhetoric leading up to an event being organized by white nationalists, it should send signals to community leaders and national leaders that there is the potential for violence. When these individuals are organizing across state lines to assemble, that should be another one.”
But, beyond a warning, Ward had a message for the LGBTQ community: He said white nationalists don’t target the LGBTQ community because they see it as “weak or powerless.”
“It is targeted because that community has brought inclusion into America,” Ward said. “It has opened the space around equity and what it means to be an America that moves forward together across lines of difference. That is what frightens the Patriot Front, Proud Boys and other alt-right organizations.”
In line with that message, Barnard said that Augusta Pride will continue as planned because he’s seen the importance of having a place where people can go and feel accepted. At past festivals, he said the group hung a banner that attendees could sign, and one year he saw that someone wrote, “I came out today because of pride.”
“Remember, this is the one time that that one person that may not be out of the closet yet, that doesn’t know their place right now, can find the resources that they need,” he said. “So I hope that people are not scared and trust that we have our plans in place.”
A 14-year-old transgender girl was kicked out of a faith-based summer camp that she volunteered at because of her “life choice.” But the camp is now saying that they’re not transphobic, they were just worried about the girl’s safety.
Elizabeth Clark went to the first two days of a week-long session of Connect Camps in Cordele, Georgia, when her family got texts telling her not to come back.
“Our team was advised that Elizabeth had made a life choice that unfortunately is causing some distraction at camp,” the text message said. “We have agreed it would be best that Elizabeth not return, allowing us the opportunity to meet our promise of a remarkable for the campers.”
“I was surprised that people who were just preaching about love and accepting everybody to come out and tell me it was best that I not return,” Clark said.
She said she was particularly hurt that the text used the word “choice,” since she doesn’t experience her gender as a choice but instead as a fact.
“If it was a choice, I wouldn’t choose to be a part of the LGBTQ community or be trans because I wouldn’t want to put myself through the struggles that other people don’t have to go through,” she said.
The counselor who sent the message – Connie Bivens – talked to WALB and said that the real issue was safety. She had heard some of the girls at the camp talking badly about Clark, so she talked about it with other counselors and they agreed that they couldn’t assure Clark’s safety so they told her to stay home for the rest of the week.
“Our choice, our decision was based on ‘can we keep her safe and can she have a wonderful time at camp,’” Bivens said. “We felt we couldn’t do that, and it had nothing to do with Lizzie being transgender,” she said.
Bivens said that the girls who were speaking badly about Clark were sent home as well, so it’s unclear why she was still worried about the teen’s safety. She said that Clark could come back to camp, but not as a volunteer in a leadership position, just as a camper.
Clark decided not to go back for the rest of the week.
“I know that we’re seen as outcasts and different,” she said. “I hope that people will open their eyes and realize we’re just the same as everybody else. We bleed red and we’re all human We deserve the same treatment as anybody else.”
HIV-positive 21-year-old Thokozani Shiri died in prison after officials neglected him and failed to provide life-saving medication, an inquest has found.
The inquest into Shiri’s death, which took place at Essex Coroners Court, concluded on Wednesday (8 June).
During both periods of time, the prison’s healthcare provider, Essex Partnership University Trust (EPUT), was aware that he was HIV-positive.
However during his first stretch at the prison, Shiri was not seen at an HIV clinic until six days before his release, and was not provided with any antiretroviral medication, a life-saving treatment which suppresses the virus and makes it untransmittable.
During his second stay at HMP Chelmsford, the prison again failed to provide him with the vital medication for months, he was only given it 19 days before he died.
Shiri tragically passed away from an HIV-related infection at Broomfield Hospital on 14 April 2019.
The inquest heard that before his death, Shiri told a prison officer that he “couldn’t breathe” and needed to go to a hospital, but an ambulance was not called until five days later. The prison officer he spoke to has still not been identified.
Shiri’s consultant, who had been treating him outside of prison, told the inquest: “HIV is very treatable. It shouldn’t have happened.”
The jury found that “five separate failings” had caused Shiri’s death, including the failure to provide his medication during both periods of imprisonment, and the failure to refer him to an HIV clinic.
When Shiri was finally taken to hospital, he was put into an induced coma before his mother was able to see him, and remained that way until his death. Despite being in the induced coma, he was kept in handcuffs and chained to his hospital bed.
In a damning report, the Prison and Probation Ombudsman Sue McAllister described Shiri’s care as “unacceptably poor”, and added: “This is a case in which a young man died a preventable death as a result of what I can only describe as neglect by healthcare staff, and whose mother was then treated with gross insensitivity by prison staff.”
The prison is in the process of completing a list of recommendations laid out in the ombudsman’s report.
Shiri’s family said in a statement provided by law firm Leigh Day: “Thoko was just like any young man – he loved life, his friends and family.
“He was exploring what the world had to offer him, but he ended up on the wrong side of the law, culminating in a short-term custodial sentence. As a family we had great hopes that this would allow him to reflect and look to a brighter future.
“This was not to be, as a short-term prison sentence turned into a death sentence. Thoko was denied very basic care that would have enabled him to live his life despite his long-term condition.
“We are saddened as we know that people with his condition do not have a reduced life expectancy and that, with basic management, his condition was not fatal.”
Deborah Gold, chief executive of National AIDS Trust, added: “Thoko’s death was heartbreaking and completely avoidable. This jury conclusion underlines how many crucial opportunities were missed leading to his entirely preventable death.
“It is shocking that a young man died whilst in the care of the state from a condition that is entirely treatable. Most people with HIV in the UK live long healthy lives.
“It is absolutely essential that all state places of detention including prisons and immigration detention centres, have robust systems in place to identify, treat and support detained people living with HIV.
“It is now incumbent upon all bodies responsible for the care and treatment of prisoners and detainees to ensure this happens. As Thoko’s death shows, failure to do so has devastating consequences.”
Anti-LGBTQ extremist Republican state Sen. Wendy Rogers (R) of Arizona has found a fellow traveler across state lines in Oklahoma: GOP state senate candidate Jarrin Jackson, who just released a video where he called gay men “the most disgusting, despicable, stupid thing ever.”
It’s a match made in ultra-MAGA heaven.
“I endorse @JarrinJackson for State Senate in Oklahoma,” Rogers tweeted Monday. “Jarrin Jackson is a strong proponent of forensic audits… will secure our borders, protect our guns and defend children from the evil groomers.”
I endorse @JarrinJackson for State Senate in Oklahoma. Oklahoma is a deep red state and needs a fighter like Jarrin in office. Jarrin is a West Point graduate and an Afghanistan combat veteran. As a former infantry officer, he has the mentality for what is needed in (1/3) pic.twitter.com/W9Suq9Oaqp
Jackson, who describes himself as an “American Patriot, saved by the precious blood of Jesus Christ,” recently ranted about Pride Month in a video post: “Straight dudes find it disgusting whenever they see other dudes kissing. It is gross. Being gay is gay. It’s the most disgusting, despicable, stupid thing ever.”
In Arizona, Rogers’ agenda has focused on promoting election conspiracy theories and anti-trans legislation.
The first-term state senator proposed a bill to prohibit medical procedures that affirm gender identity for trans children. Health professionals would face a Class 4 felony mandating prison time. Another bill would require school employees to out transgender youth to their parents and ban health professionals from prescribing puberty blockers for them. A third bill introduced by Rogers would ban transgender girls from participating in school sports.
Rogers has also suggested we start calling Superman “Thooperman” – a gay lisp joke – when Clark Kent’s son was depicted as bisexual in a comic book.
Jackson was quick to celebrate the endorsement.
“Thank you, Senator Rogers. It is a true honor to have your endorsement. Nobody fights harder for #ElectionIntegrity. You inspire me. Amen.”
Jackson grabbed headlines in March when he shot up a printer disguised as a Dominion voting machine for a campaign ad. The machines have been central to election conspiracy theories.
This is Jackson’s third run for office. In 2016 and 2018, he ran in Oklahoma’s 2nd Congressional District for the U.S. House of Representatives, but lost both Republican primaries.
The Army vet and sometime pastor regularly rails against “Godless commies” and says he wants to “shoot them in the face.” Military tribunals should send communists to “burn forever in a lake of fire.”
Oklahoma has produced some of the most vociferously anti-LGBTQ Republican politicians in the nation. Gov. Kevin Stitt (R) signed a law last month that bans transgender girls from participating in school sports while surrounded by cisgender girls as a trans woman stood outside his office protesting.
Stuart Delery, a longtime advocate for LGBTQ rights, will be the first openly LGBTQ person to serve as White House counsel when he assumes the position next month, President Biden announced on Wednesday. Delery current serves as White House deputy counsel.
Delery was appointed acting associate attorney general, the Justice Department’s No. 3 position, in 2012, becoming the highest-ranking LGBTQ official in the department’s history, according to a White House official.
In his seven years at the department, Delery argued against the Defense of Marriage Act, which barred legal recognition of same-sex marriages, and went on to oversee the implementation of the Supreme Court’s landmark decision overturning the law.
Part of an administrative shake-up ahead of the midterms, the appointment is also one of a number of elevations of LGBTQ people to high-profile roles in the Biden administration. In early May, Bidennamed Karine Jean-Pierre as White House press secretary, making her the first openly gay person appointed to the position.
The administration also tapped Admiral Rachel Levine for assistant health secretary. After her confirmation in March 2021, Levine became the first openly transgender person confirmed by the Senate to a federal post.
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The White House counsel, among other responsibilities, plays a major part in presidential appointments to the judiciary.
Dana Remus, who previously held the post, was key to confirming Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court, as well as appointing scores of lower court judges from all sorts of backgrounds.
Don McGahn, who served in the role in the Trump White House, made history at the time by filling appellate court seats at record pace. His efforts were crucial to the confirmations of Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch.
Delery graduated from Yale Law School and clerked for Supreme Court Justices Sandra Day O’Connor and Byron White, according to a White House official. He lives in Washington with his husband and two children.
