1994—By a vote of 87 to 9, the Senate confirms President Clinton’s nomination of First Circuit chief judge (and Teddy Kennedy’s former chief counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee) Stephen G. Breyer to the Supreme Court. Breyer replaces retiring Justice Harry A. Blackmun.
Breyer’s path to the Supreme Court began when President Jimmy Carter nominated him to a newly created seat on the First Circuit on November 13, 1980—after Carter had lost his bid for re-election and after Republicans had won control of the Senate to be formed in January 1981. Less than one month later, on December 9, 1980, the Senate confirmed Breyer to the First Circuit.
2003—Senate Democrats force a third cloture vote on their filibuster of President Bush’s nomination of Texas supreme court justice Priscilla Owen to the Fifth Circuit. With only two Senate Democrats voting yes, the cloture vote fails. Owen, first nominated in May 2001, is ultimately confirmed in May 2005.
2024—A divided panel of the Sixth Circuit rules (in Parents Defending Education v. Olentangy School District) that parents and students challenging a school district’s policies against the use of what the majority calls “non-preferred pronouns” are not entitled to injunctive relief on their First Amendment claim. Among its conclusions, the majority (opinion by Judge Jane Stranch, joined by Judge Stephanie Dawkins Davis) determines that the policies do not discriminate on the basis of viewpoint because they “proscribe harassment, misconduct, and other disruptive speech across a variety of categories” and allow students to “communicate their belief that sex is immutable through means other than the use of nonpreferred pronouns.”
But as Judge Alice Batchelder explains in dissent, the plaintiffs’ position is that “gender transition” is “a made-up thing, imaginary or make believe.” The school district is imposing the viewpoint that “gender transition is a real thing” and is forcing students to “conform their own expression around that viewpoint.”