There's been much shouting about Donald Trump's criticism of Federal Judge Gonzalo Curiel who is presiding over the Trump U. fraud case. It is clear Trump's concerns about a fair trial stemmed not from the judge's ethnicity - Curiel's parents were born in Mexico - but from something the judge chose to do. He chose to be active in a La Raza group doing legal work on behalf of Latin American immigrants.
Being active in the group is within the judge's rights, if not necessarily judicial best practice. It does mean, however, that he should recuse himself if his advocacy for immigrants publicly puts him philosophically in opposition to a defendant before his court who holds well-known positions the judge is on record as opposing.
Appearances matter. The key issue is not whether Judge Curiel would act in a biased way toward Trump, but whether it appears to reasonable outsiders that he might be expected to begin the case with a wish to discriminate. Seen from a substantial distance, that expectation appears reasonable.
The nation's most famous crusader against illegal immigration via Latin America finds an organization to which he lent his name and prestige on trial in the court of a judge on record as favoring immigration of all sorts, particularly from Latin America.
Trump likely did not make this distinction; he is no lawyer and not given to precise, legalistic statements. Not for him questions of the definition of "is." His lapse, if such occurred, was no worse than the judge acting to make himself suspect when dealing with cases which in any peripheral way involve immigration.
