US courts of Western NC have had only white male judges for 150 years. Is that changing?

This month, President Joe Biden and the U.S. Senate made Supreme Court history. Now it may be the Western District of North Carolina’s turn. The 150-year-old federal court district, which stretches from east of Charlotte to the Tennessee and Virginia state lines, has never had a woman or a person of color serve as a trial judge. While other federal court districts in North Carolina and across the Southeast have added racial and gender diversity to their benches, the Western District’s “Article III” judges have remained exclusively white and male dating back to 1872. Biden now has an opportunit...