President Donald Trump’s pick to fill Brett Kavanaugh’s former seat on the D.C. Circuit wrote a string of inflammatory op-eds on topics including race, date rape, and LGBT rights. In op-edsthat Neomi Rao wrote between 1994 and 1996—she graduated from Yale University in 1995—she described race as a “hot, money-making issue,” affirmative action as the “anointed dragon of liberal excess,” welfare as being “for the indigent and lazy,” and LGBT issues as part of “trendy” political movements, BuzzFeed News reports. On date rape, Rao wrote that if a woman “drinks to the point where she can no longer choose, well, getting to that point was part of her choice.” Rao is nominated for a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit—an influential court sometimes referred to as the second most important court in the United States. The court is the main forum for big fights over government and executive power. Rao, who has never been a judge, is also reportedly a contender for the U.S. Supreme Court.
