Trump considering Tulane Law alumnus for Supreme Court nomination

William Holcombe “Bill” Pryor Jr. is reported to be at the top of Trump’s consideration list for a Supreme Court nomination and he’s a Tulane alum.

Bill Pryor graduated from Tulane University Law School in 1987 with his Juris Doctorate and was editor in chief of the Tulane Law Review while attending the University.

Bill Pryor is most well known for being the only judge appointed to the Eleventh Circuit by President George W. Bush, though that was no easy task. In fact, Pryor was nominated to the Eleventh Circuit in replacement of William H. Steele’s withdrawn nomination caused by protests from African-Americans citizens over certain Civil Rights voting decisions Steele made, but encountered difficulty when the Senate decreed a filibuster of his nomination.

The hearing which followed the announcement of Pryor’s confirmation decried Pryor’s past urging of a Texas court to uphold the criminalization of sodomy saying that acknowledging a constitutional right to sodomy would “logically extend [to activities such as] prostitution, adultery, necrophilia, bestiality, incest, and pedophilia.”

The hearing further recognized a statement by Pryor in which he proclaimed the decision made in Roe v. Wade was “the worst abomination in the history of constitutional law.”

However, in contradiction to Pryor’s oppositions to abortion access and the decriminalizing of sodomy, he has supported the opinion that anti-trans discrimination is equal to sex discrimination, and as such, unacceptable in a court of law.

On May 16, 2016 then-presidential candidate Donald Trump released a list of eleven candidates he would choose from for the Supreme Court nomination and at a Republican primary debate in South Carolina said that “we could have a Diane Sykes or you could have a Bill Pryor, we have some fantastic people”. In mid-December it was reported that Trump had narrowed nomination possibilities to his top three to four choices, with Pryor being in the top two, and Trump is expected to announce his nomination for Supreme Court soon after January 20th.

It looks like Tulane could have their first Supreme Court appointed judge since 1929.

Check here for an expanded look at the top five contenders on Trump’s nomination shortlist.