NAML Congratulates Judge Nusrat Choudhury on Historic Confirmation to New York District Court

(WASHINGTON, DC - 6/16/2023) The National Association of Muslim Lawyers (NAML) today congratulated attorney Nussrat Choudhury after the U.S. Senate confirmed her historic appointment to serve as a federal district court judge for the Eastern District of New York.

Choudhury, the outgoing legal director of the ACLU of Illinois, is the first Muslim woman confirmed to serve as a federal judge. She is also only the second Muslim confirmed by the Senate to serve in the federal judiciary after Federal District Court Judge Zahid Quraishi of New Jersey.

In a statement, NAML President Edward Ahmed Mitchell said:

"We congratulate Judge Choudhury on her historic appointment to the federal judiciary. As an accomplished civil rights attorney and an American Muslim woman of color, Judge Choudhury brings unique professional and personal experiences that can enrich the federal judiciary. We pray that God empowers Judge Choudhury to uphold justice in her historic new role."

According to her biography, "Nusrat Choudhury has more than a decade of experience in advancing reform in the criminal legal system and policing. She has led litigation to protect immigrants from dangerous detention conditions and serves as counsel for community organizations enforcing a federal consent decree to reform Chicago police patterns of excessive force.

"Prior to joining the ACLU of Illinois, Nusrat served as Deputy Director of the national ACLU Racial Justice Program, a staff attorney in the ACLU National Security Project, and a Marvin M. Karpatkin Fellow.

"At the ACLU, Nusrat led efforts to challenge racial profiling and unlawful stop-and-frisk, the targeting of people of color for surveillance without evidence of wrongdoing, and practices that disproportionately punish people for being poor. Her work against practices that disproportionately punish people for poverty without prior court hearings, consideration of ability to pay, or legal representation changed practices in Georgia, Mississippi, Washington, and South Carolina, and helped secure national guidance from the American Bar Association and other entities to promote fairness and equal treatment of rich and poor in courts.

"Nusrat helped secure the first federal court ruling striking down the U.S. government’s No Fly List procedures for violating due process. She filed litigation to challenge the NYPD’s unjustified and discriminatory profiling of Muslims for surveillance, which resulted in a court-ordered settlement agreement, and to secure public records about the FBI’s racial and ethnic mapping program.

"Nusrat clerked for Judge Barrington D. Parker in the Second Circuit Court of Appeals and for Judge Denise Cote in the Southern District of New York. She is a recipient of the South Asian Bar Association of New York Access to Justice Award and the Edward Bullard Distinguished Alumnus Award of Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. 

"Nusrat is a graduate of Columbia University, Princeton University, and Yale Law School."

The National Association of Muslim Lawyers (NAML) is the nation's largest association of Muslim lawyers and legal professionals in the United States.