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One more mini-thread on #JudgeDamonKeith. In my early scholarship I examined how Black judges were targeted w/recusal motions filed by white litigants in race discrimination cases. Keith was among those Black judges who decisively rejected efforts to remove him from race cases.
Baker v. Detroit in 1978 was a prime example. In my article Jydging the Judges in the Boston College Law Review, I described Judge Keith’s unequivocal response to the effort of white police officers to recuse him from hearing their challenge to affirmative action in hiring. 
Judge A.Leon Higginbogham, Gabrielle Kirk McDonald, and of course, the Hon. Constance Baker Motley all bear back similar challenges. This is part of the long history of presuming that Black judges lack the same impartiality that is automatically assumed for white judges.
Judges of color owe a debt to Judge Keith and his colleagues who had to take on the presumption that they could not be impartial and directly and decisively reject these recusal efforts.
When President Trump made his indefensible remarks challenging the impartiality of Judge Curiel, he tapped into this shameful history.
