President Donald Trump has nominated constitutional lawyer and Hillsdale College alumnus Thomas Farr ‘76 for a position on the bench of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina. The U.S. Senate must approve Farr before he can take the bench.
Nominations to the post have faced scrutiny in the past, leaving the seat vacant for more than a decade. Trump’s nomination of Farr in July is no exception, though Hillsdale professors defended Farr’s character and merits.
“He’s a good Christian man,” said John Willson, history professor emeritus at Hillsdale College and a friend of Farr. “To him, it’s a very simple thing to live this life as well as you can and as hard as you can and to be as fearless as you can in defending those things. He’s a good man, he’s humble, and he really is fearless in his defense of things he considers to be true and right and good.”
Farr graduated from Hillsdale co-salutatorian with a degree in history and political economy. While at Hillsdale, he served as The Collegian’s sports editor in 1975. He then received a Masters of Laws from Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. and a Juris Doctor from Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. Farr currently serves as a shareholder in Ogletree, Deakins, Nash, Smoak & Stewart, P.C., one of the largest labor and employment law firms in the country.
The NAACP, some Democrats, and the Congressional Black Caucus actively have opposed Farr’s nomination for his involvement North Carolina’s voter ID laws and previous political affiliations.
“To our dismay, Thomas Farr, a nominee with ties to segregation and voter suppression, eased his way through the Senate Judiciary Committee on a vote along party lines and now stands a Senate vote away from a lifetime judicial appointment to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina,” Derrick Johnson, president and CEO of the NAACP, said in an opinion piece published by The Hill in December 2017.
Farr declined to comment to The Collegian. The White House and Justice Department have asked that he not do interviews at this time.
President George W. Bush in 2006 and 2007 also nominated Farr to the bench in North Carolina’s Eastern District. The Senate Judiciary Committee, however, did not take action on the nomination, and he did not receive a hearing.
For years, the Eastern District of North Carolina has received criticism for its representation. Blacks account for nearly 27 percent of the district population, though the U.S. Senate has not approved a black judge for the position.
Former President Barack Obama nominated a black judge in 2016. Republican Sen. Richard Burr from North Carolina, however, blocked the nomination by refusing to submit the “blue slip” required from the home state’s senator to get a judicial nomination on the Senate floor. Burr at the time claimed he made a deal with Obama in regards to judicial appointments that was not upheld. Burr has defended Farr against the allegations.
Farr’s opponents criticize him for his involvement in passage of the voter ID laws in North Carolina. He also served as the legal counsel to then-Sen. Jesse Helms, R-North Carolina. Under President George H.W. Bush, the Justice Department filed voting-rights charges against the Helms campaign when more than 100,000 postcards were mailed to mostly black voters, indicating that they were ineligible to vote and might be subject to arrest if they attempted to do so.
Willson said Farr had nothing to do with the postcards or the strategy that was behind it.
“He did not know until well after the fact that any of it had happened, and when he found out, he was horrified,” Willson said. “There is no direct evidence of any kind, not written, not spoken, no credible charges, nothing that connects Tom Farr with them.”
Willson said he believes Farr’s record speaks for itself. He added that Farr received the highest recommendation from the American Bar Association, as well as the highest possible recommendations from every legal organization that has evaluated his work.
“There is no question about his legal integrity, there is no question about his ability, it never has been,” Willson said. “No one argues that.”
College President Larry Arnn agreed with Willson: “I know that Tom is a gentleman, a distinguished attorney, and a devout Christian. I have never heard him say anything remotely to imply racism or dishonesty. Such charges are common in political debate.”
