Celebrity Friday: Oxy Alum Jacqueline Nguyen Joins 9th Circuit

Wow, this is good news! On Monday May 7th, 2012 the United States Senate voted 91-3 to approve President Obama's nomination of Jacqueline (Hong-Noc Thi) Nguyen to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Nguyen becomes just the second Asian-American on the federal appellate circuit (one level below the U.S. Supreme Court), after Denny Chin, who is on the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals (in New York).

Previously, Nguyen had made history as the first Vietnamese-American federal judge when she was approved by the United States Senate on December 1, 2009 by a vote of 97-0. Nguyen graduated with a degree in English literature from Occidental College in 1987, followed by a degree from UCLA Law School in 1991. Barack Obama attended Occidental College as well from 1979-1981 before transferring to Columbia University.

The muted debate over the approval of the Nguyen nomination is in stark contrast to the protracted and vituperative debate over the nomination of U.C. Berkeley Law Professor Goodwin Liu to the same bench last year, which ultimately ended in Liu asking the President to withdraw his nomination to the 9th Circuit after a successful Republican-led filibuster and subsequent nomination and confirmation to the California Supreme Court.

It should be noted that there are no Americans of Asian or Pacific Islander descent on the U.S. Supreme Court, despite the fact they make up 5.6% of the population, according to the 2010 Census. All but one of the nine current members of the Court were a federal appellate judge prior to their elevation to the nation's highest court.