WASHINGTON, D.C. – Allison Jones Rushing, 38, is one of five women on President Donald Trump’s short list to become a Supreme Court Justice.
She is a native of Hendersonville and was confirmed 18 months ago to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond. If elevated to the Supreme Court, she would be the youngest justice confirmed since the early 1800s.
Rushing graduated from Wake Forest University before attending Duke University, where she earned her law degree in 2007. She then clerked for future Justice Neil Gorsuch, who was then an appeals court judge, as well as at the Supreme Court for Justice Clarence Thomas.
As an appellate specialist while in private practice at the Williams & Connolly law firm in Washington, Rushing filed scores of briefs with the Supreme Court. But her comparatively short legal career included prior work with a conservative Christian legal group that is sure to stoke Democrats and their allies to fight her nomination.
While in law school in 2005, Rushing interned at Alliance Defending Freedom, a group known for its work defending religious liberty. That has led Democrats to cast Rushing as an “a young, ideological extremist.”
Rushing is married to Blake Rushing. The couple have a young son.
