Neomi Rao
Neomi Rao began her legal career clerking for far-right extremist Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Throughout her legal career, Rao has proudly expressed harmful, biased, and repugnant views across a broad range of issue areas. From blaming sexual assault survivors for attacks against them, to labeling the greenhouse effect as a “controversial theory,” to belittling diversity initiatives as “silly little games,” Rao has vocally pushed a worldview guided by bigotry, paranoia, and delusion.
Indeed, Rao’s record as a judge on the D.C. Circuit and as the administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (“OIRA”) revealed similarly disturbing patterns. She bragged about OIRA’s unprecedented rollback of public protections, describing it as “an unprecedented advance against the regulatory state.” As OIRA administrator, she also led efforts to roll back pay equity for women in the workplace. While on the D.C. Circuit, she has consistently ruled in favor of granting the Trump administration unprecedented executive powers.
- Holds and Advocates for Deeply Misogynistic Views. Rao’s writings contain deeply offensive viewpoints regarding sexual assault, women’s rights, and gender equality. In one article, Rao attacked the idea of sexual consent, suggesting that sexual assault survivors may be accusing their attackers due to regret and low self-esteem. Rao further defended controversial academic Camille Paglia’s view that women should bear a large amount of the responsibility for date rape and also suggests that sexual assault survivors should be more aware of “the powerful effects of their sexuality.”
Rao has also disgracefully suggested that women are less capable than men. Given such deeply misogynistic views, it is no surprise that as OIRA administrator, she led and supported efforts to undo protections for women’s health care and sexual assault survivors on college campuses.
- Used Racist Language and Attacked Academics of Color. Rao has also consistently attacked multiculturism and those who promote diversity, characterizing efforts like affirmative action as an “anointed dragon of liberal excess.” Rao has also disparaged prominent Black academics like Henry Louis Gates and Cornel West, barely hiding her racism.
- Led Trump’s OIRA Efforts to Roll Back Public Protections. As OIRA administrator, Rao led efforts to seriously harm the marginalized communities she had openly disparaged for so long. Under the Trump administration, Rao’s OIRA undid a series of protections for the LGBTQ+ community: eliminating protections against discrimination for LGBTQ+ patients accessing health care; supporting the expansion of Title IX religious exemptions; failing to collect data about LGBTQ+ individuals in the census; and removing a sexual orientation question from a crucial elderly survey.
Rao’s office also held up proposed guidance from the EEOC aimed at providing employers with additional information on how to handle sexual harassment. She also approved numerous rollbacks of protections for women’s health care, including: allowing employers to refuse to cover birth control by claiming religious or moral objections; overseeing a proposed domestic gag rule under which Title X health care providers would be prohibited from referring or supporting abortion care services for patients accessing family planning; and engaging in a process to eliminate anti-discrimination protections under the Affordable Care Act for women who have terminated a pregnancy.
