Neomi Rao, '99: Confirmed by the US Senate to the DC Circuit Court of Appeals
Senate sends Michigan native Rao to federal bench
The U.S. Senate voted Wednesday to confirm the controversial nomination of Michigan native Neomi Rao to serve on a powerful federal appeals court in Washington.
Rao, 45, becomes the first South Asian woman to serve on a federal appeals court, the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
The vote broke down along party lines, 53-46, with Michigan Sens. Debbie Stabenow and Gary Peters and other Democrats opposing Rao's nomination.
President Donald Trump nominated Rao in November for the seat left vacant when Brett Kavanaugh last year joined the U.S. Supreme Court.
She is on leave as a professor at George Mason University’s law school, where she taught for more than a decade.
Rao was born in 1973 in Detroit to two physicians who immigrated from India the previous year.
She graduated from Detroit Country Day School and went on to Yale University and the University of Chicago Law School, later clerking for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.
Read more at The Detroit News