Judge Roy Altman of the Southern District of Florida maintains a side gig using his chambers to hop on podcasts with anti-Islam groups to refer to a keffiyeh as a “terror scarf,” and peddle conspiracy theories about Muslims taking over the media. Now there’s a judicial complaint filed with the Judicial Council of the Eleventh Circuit over it.
The judge is certainly free to have opinions about the Middle East. He’s written a book called Israel on Trial with Simon & Schuster, so he’s got a lot to say. In that book, he purports to apply the American judicial system’s standards of evidence and truth testing to allegations against the Israeli government. That’s an entirely appropriate academic exercise as far as it goes.
But there’s a difference between taking a side on a geopolitical question and using a federal office to traffic in religious prejudices and bigoted rhetoric. Once a federal judge starts leveraging their title and using taxpayer resources to declare an entire religion a threat to civilization, it raises serious questions of impartiality and undermines the integrity of the federal courts.
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As the complaint seen by Above the Law notes:
In particular, Judge Altman referred to a Palestinian keffiyeh, a scarf that bears significant distinction in the Palestinian and Arab cultures, in addition to the Muslim world, as “terror scarf” and “terrorism scarf” on several occasions, including during his April 21, 2026 in-person talk at Florida International University and during his live broadcast with anti-Muslim group Middle East Forum
It really should go without saying that branding the keffiyeh as a terrorist accessory is an attempt to slur an entire ethnic identity. In the Middle East Forum video, he’s specifically referring to college students adopting this dress, and he’d probably say that random students wearing these as part of a protest sends a signal of support beyond what an Arab student wearing traditional garb would. The problem with leaning on this distinction is (a) he absolutely is not operating with that level of nuance and (b) it doesn’t matter. Merely making the comparison should make us very skeptical that he’s going to give a fair shake to a litigant wearing a shemagh. This is more than enough to undermine “public confidence in the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary,” which is the applicable standard.
There are Jewish people getting attacked in this country by people who think yarmulkes are the Netanyahu version of a Make America Great Again hat. Stop generalizing ethnic clothing as political statements.
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At the FIU talk, he also reportedly repeated the claim that Hamas beheaded 40 babies. That story collapsed years ago — the IDF never confirmed it, the images never surfaced, and Israel’s own government press office eventually told Le Monde flatly that it didn’t happen. The thing is… you don’t actually need to stretch to find Hamas war crimes on October 7. But this uniquely heinous claim manages to poison the well in a way that the clearly established horrific attacks don’t. When this happens to Jewish people it’s characterized as yet another twist on medieval blood libel.
Remember, this is the guy whose entire book’s argument is that we should rigorously apply the truth-testing rules and customs of the American judicial system. If he raised this claim and the next words weren’t “which did not happen,” then how are we supposed to have faith that he understands the rules he’s supposed to apply as a judge?
Whenever someone unironically talks about “the West,” you know they’re a loon.
Claiming Muslims are part of a global conspiracy orchestrated by hostile foreign adversaries to control the schools and the media is just the same anti-Semitic bullshit that people always accuse Jews of doing. It doesn’t magically become less of a racist conspiracy theory just because he swaps in another religion.
The perfect distillation of a cycle of dehumanization is when people stop denying bigoted tropes and instead just paste them on the other side. It becomes easier to adopt the superstructure of prejudice than try to break out. In example after example, Judge Altman just lifts a shameful attack on Jewish people and retools it against Muslims.
Looking up his appearances, he seems to love doing all his hits from chambers. Fox News, CBN, Dana Loesch… always the same backdrop. It sure looks as though he’s leveraging the trappings of his federal judgeship as part of his argument. Whether a federal judge should ever be taping segments over the chyron “Fact-Checking the Woke Reich’s Claims,” he definitely shouldn’t be doing it from chambers. Canon 4(G) says a judge “should not to any substantial degree use judicial chambers, resources, or staff to engage in extrajudicial activities.” He’ll probably claim it’s a minor imposition on resources to tape a hit, but looking at all these screencaps together one wonders when he even has time to manage his docket.
At least he’s getting some stuff taken off his docket! Until this week, Judge Altman presided over Trump v. British Broadcasting Corporation, the president’s $10 billion defamation suit, currently set for trial in February 2027. In the middle of that assignment, he told CBN that the campaign against Israel’s legitimacy runs “through the tentacles of Al Jazeera, through the AP and Reuters.” No one has said exactly why the case got transferred away from Altman, but the judge having gone on record to describe news services as vectors in a coordinated propaganda operation feels like as good a potential reason as any!
This is the Eleventh Circuit, the same august body that issued Judge Eleanor Ross a private reprimand and otherwise shrugged, so the over/under on a meaningful response to a judicial complaint is not encouraging. But a public reprimand isn’t a heavy lift. Telling the judge to knock off the prejudicial rhetoric may not change his views, but it conveys to the public that the courts overseeing him understand the gravity of this issue and that has value.
We’ve written before about lawyers celebrating Hamas’s terror attacks and why contributing to the cycle of dehumanization is unbecoming of a lawyer. It doesn’t change when it’s running the other way and it’s absolutely worse when it involves a judge.
Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter or Bluesky if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news.