Trump Court Pick Once Called For Bringing Back Literacy Tests In Elections
- In 2025, President Donald Trump nominated Josh Divine to serve as a federal judge with lifetime tenure on both the Eastern and Western District Courts of Missouri.
- Divine previously wrote a 2010 college opinion piece advocating state-administered literacy tests as a voting requirement that should apply to all Americans.
- Literacy tests, historically used to disenfranchise Black voters and banned by the Voting Rights Act of 1965, were a tool for racial discrimination and trick questions.
- Divine stated, "People who aren’t informed about issues or platforms have no business voting," and claimed literacy tests themselves are not bad, proposing state administration.
- Divine's nomination raises concerns due to his youth, limited legal experience, and controversial past writings, which critics see as undermining democratic voting rights and enabling voter suppression.
11 Articles
11 Articles
Op-Ed: Trump's New Nominee For Federal Judgeship Advocated For Literacy Tests For Voters Despite Racist History
Source: SDI Productions / Getty In today’s episode of The President Sure Can Pick’em! President Donald Trump has nominated to a federal judgeship a man who, in college, believed Americans should be required to take literacy tests in order to vote, despite the history of literacy tests being used historically to prevent Black people from engaging in the nation’s electoral process. Meet Josh Divine, the solicitor general of Missouri and director o…

Op-Ed: Trump’s New Nominee For Federal Judgeship Advocated For Literacy Tests For Voters Despite Racist History
Source: SDI Productions / Getty In today’s episode of The President Sure Can Pick’em! President Donald Trump has nominated to a federal judgeship a man who, in college, believed Americans should be required to take literacy tests in order to vote, despite the history of literacy tests being used historically to prevent Black people from engaging in the nation’s electoral process. Meet Josh Divine, the solicitor general of Missouri and director o…
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