The U.S. Senate today confirmed President Joe Biden’s nomination of Zahid N. Quraishi as the first Muslin American to serve as a U.S. District Court Judge.
Quaraishi, who was recommended for the bench by U.S. Senators Bob Menendez and Cory Booker, was confirmed by an 81-16 vote, with 32 Republican senators voting in support of his nomination.
Quraishi served an U.S. Army JAG Corps officer and was deployed to Iraq in 2004 and 2006. He was an Assistant U.S. Attorney and Riker Danzig partner before being named U.S. Magistrate Court Judge in 2019. He grew up in Fanwood and is a Pakistani American.
He is also the first Asian American to serve as a federal judge in New Jersey.
“Judge Quraishi has devoted his career to serving our country, and his story embodies both the rich diversity of New Jersey and the promise of America as a place where anything is possible,” said Menendez. “Zahid Quraishi is a man of integrity, a consummate public servant, and a trailblazer for Asian Americans and Muslim Americans across this country who dream of one day presiding over a court of their own. We should all draw inspiration from his story because it is a story that could only take place in the United States of America.”
Booker celebrated the breaking of a national glass ceiling by the confirmation Quaraishi and praised Republicans for making the vote an overwhelmingly bi-partisan one, calling attention “not just to the gravity of this historic moment – not just to a man’s religion – but to the man himself, the core of who he is.”
“Another barrier has been broken, and it has been broken in New Jersey,” said Gov. Phil Murphy.
The U.S. Senate confirmed another New Jerseyan to the U.S. District Court, Julien X. Neals, on Tuesday.
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