Xenophobic gatekeeping and the battle for the bench

Quick recap: Charles E. Pell is currently challenging the incumbent Judge Ami S. Sagel for a seat on the Orange County Superior Court. Shortly after entering the race, Pell filed a petition for writ of mandate seeking to compel Judge Sagel to appear on the ballot as "Ami Sheth Sagel" instead of "Ami S. Sagel." He argued that her use of a middle initial was misleading. The court ultimately rejected Pell's claims in their entirety, finding no evidence of voter confusion, no improper name change and no violation of the elections code.

While the petition was properly denied, the challenge itself remains quite unsettling. It reflects a tactic that moves beyond legitimate concerns and into territory that is difficult to characterize as anything other than xenophobic, an apparent effort to emphasize a candidate's ethnic name to carry an implicit appeal to bias rather than merit.

This sort of conduct is not isolated. This is tragically reminiscent of the 2006 race for the bench, when Judge Dzintra Ileana Janavs, a highly respected Los Angeles judge who had sat for 20 years, was defeated by Lynn Diane Olson, who had reportedly practiced law about four years before leaving practice and running a bagel shop. The legal community has long recognized a pattern in which candidates with ethnically identifiable or "foreign-sounding" names are treated as strategic vulnerabilities. Organizations such as the California Asian Pacific American Judges Association have documented this dynamic and filed an amicus brief in this instance addressing the weaponization of ethnic names.

This legal challenge is not just a dispute over election technicalities. It is a discouraging example of xenophobic gatekeeping. By attempting to mandate the othering of a sitting judge by highlighting a foreign-sounding name, the litigation reveals a strategy rooted in the age-old targeting of identity. The logic is as exhausting as it is old. It relies on the hope that voters will be swayed by bias rather than merit. In a county as diverse as Orange County, this attempt to weaponize a candidate's heritage is a disappointing insult to the intelligence of the electorate and a strain on the integrity of the judicial process.

Even beyond the walls of the courthouse, this strategy sends a distressing signal to the community at large. It suggests that participation in civic leadership is still contingent upon cultural assimilation. When a judicial candidate is targeted for the foreignness of her name, it implies to the public that there is a specific and narrow aesthetic required for authority.

When foreignness is treated as a tactical vulnerability, it sends a chilling message to every minority practitioner that one's identity may be used as an unwitting adversary against them. It suggests that no matter how many years of service or how many rulings a judge has under one's belt, a surname remains a defect that can be exploited for gain. This is precisely why diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives remain vital. While these programs are increasingly and intentionally mischaracterized as lowering standards or imposing quotas, at its core, DEI is about ensuring that evaluation is grounded in merit by removing the distortions created by bias, unfamiliarity and structural barriers. It does not seek to dilute standards. It reinforces them by ensuring that qualified candidates are not discounted for reasons unrelated to their ability.

When Pell asked the court to force Judge Sagel to use a different name, they asked the law to validate the idea that an ethnic name is something that must be exposed to the public as if it were a scandal. This conduct has no place in our industry. The legal profession is built on the foundation of the rule of law, which demands that individuals be judged on their qualifications.

The legal profession should be unequivocal in rejecting this, not just in Pell's disappointing endeavor, but in all aspects of the law. The 2023 revelation of thousands of emails containing misogynistic and bigoted language exchanged by the senior partners at Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard & Smith LLP serves as a stark reminder that these biases are not merely historical, but remain a persistent reality within our profession. The California State Bar, legal employers and practitioners at every level should call such conduct out directly and consistently.

For the thousands of first-generation and second-generation citizens who look to the bench as a symbol of objective fairness, seeing a judge's lineage treated as a misleading defect erodes the very trust that DEI seeks to build. It reinforces the notion that rather than teaching one's neighbors how to pronounce a name, one should be forced to pick a generic English name to be taken seriously.

The challenge against Judge Sagel underscores another concern: judicial elections are notoriously low-information contests in which voters often know little about a candidate's record and instead rely on a name and a brief ballot designation. In such an environment, the current electoral system can inadvertently encourage appeals to bias, creating fertile ground for opponents who treat an ethnic name as a "strategic vulnerability" to exploit. It is a sad irony that such tactics are employed in pursuit of an office that demands absolute impartiality, while the public's trust in the judiciary is rooted in a bench that reflects the diversity of its community. In a profession charged with safeguarding the democratic process, allowing these practices to go unchallenged calls into question whether justice is as blind as we claim. Our profession must hold itself to a higher standard by reinforcing a culture in which qualifications, not identity, determine outcomes, so that we can credibly uphold the principles of fairness and justice we are sworn to protect.