Trump loyalist Allison Jones Rushing uses her power to enable authoritarian policies, harms those seeking justice, and makes it harder for basic rights to be vindicated through the judicial system.
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Rushing graduated from Duke University School of Law in 2007. During law school, Rushing interned for the Alliance Defending Freedom, a right-wing, conservative Christian nonprofit organization that the Southern Poverty Law Center has identified as an anti-LGBTQ+ hate group. Rushing wrote several amicus briefs and spoke at a number of ADF events.
Legal Experience
After graduation, Rushing served as a law clerk for then-Judge Neil Gorsuch of the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit from 2007 to 2008. She went on to clerk for Judge David Sentelle on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit from 2008 to 2009. From 2009 to 2010, she returned to Williams & Connolly, where she had previously worked as a summer associate. She left after one year to clerk for Justice Clarence Thomas on the Supreme Court from 2010 to 2011. After this clerkship, she returned to Williams & Connolly and eventually became partner. She continued her work at the firm until she was appointed to the Fourth Circuit in 2018.
Since joining the bench in 2018, Rushing has penned a number of concerning opinions which reveal how she would rule if elevated to the highest bench in our country. In several of her decisions, Rushing goes out of her way to make legal arguments that defend Trump’s authoritarian policies.
- Maryland v. USDA – executive power to terminate probationary employees
Rushing entered an order staying an injunction from the lower court, which argued that the government violated federal law by terminating thousands of probationary employees without following procedures for a reduction in force, including providing notice to the states. Rushing’s decision ensured that the states, who were suing the federal government, were unable to seek accountability for its residents who had been harmed by this Trump policy.
- Nat’l Ass’n of Diversity Officers in Higher Educ. v. Donald J. Trump – executive power
In this case, the Fourth Circuit granted the government’s request for a stay pending appeal of a nationwide injunction that banned the government from enforcing two of Trump’s DEI-related executive orders. In her concurrence, Rushing chided the district court judge for “overreaching,” and emphasized that a judge’s personal opinion on DEI programs should play no part in deciding a case. - Rhode Island Office of Gen. Treasurer v. The Boeing Co – increases barriers to successful class actions
This case made it more difficult for two pension funds, that had tried to join their cases together, to hold Boeing accountable for repeatedly misrepresenting its commitment to safety and artificially inflating their stock price prior to the January 2024 mid-air cabin panel blowout on one their planes. The decision reversed a lower court decision and blocked two pension funds from joining their cases together. The court’s decision also imposes onerous new requirements on shareholder plaintiffs, forcing them to provide extensive details on how they would calculate damages and tie those calculations to their theory of liability. This position creates new hurdles for holding huge corporations accountable when they lie to and harm the public and could easily be applied outside the securities fraud context. Additionally, this decision stands in stark contrast with the approaches taken by several district courts across the county and creates the foundation for a circuit split that could be taken up by a Supreme Court that has a history of siding with corporations over people.
These three cases are just two exemplars in a key area that allow a peak into Rushing’s judicial philosophy. Rushing has also authored opinions that reveal her hesitation to allow employees to find justice in the face of plausible discrimination and retaliation, that reduce the ability of people in prison to have access to public media, and that make it more difficult for everyday people’s votes to count in elections. If confirmed to a position with more power, she will inevitably carry out an even more damaging legacy.