Deborah Lynn Boardman was born in 1974 in Silver Spring, Maryland, and grew up in Frederick, Maryland. Her father was a native New Yorker who served in the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War and then went on to become a successful businessman. Her mother — a beautician by trade — was born in Ramallah, a Palestinian city in the West Bank, and immigrated to the United States as a teenager in the 1950s with her parents and eight siblings.
In part because of her mother’s Palestinian heritage, Deborah Boardman from an early age developed a fascination with Middle East-related issues. In 1996 she graduated from Villanova University with degrees in Economics and History, and a concentration in Arab and Islamic Studies. During her junior year, Boardman traveled to Cairo, Egypt, to participate in the International Model Arab League. After graduating from Villanova, she spent a year (1996-1997) in Amman, Jordan, on a Fulbright Scholarship.
Next, Boardman attended the University of Virginia School of Law, where she worked on The Virginia Law Review. After obtaining her J.D. degree in 2000, she clerked for Judge James C. Cacheris of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia (2000-2001).
Boardman then spent nearly seven years (2001-2008) employed as an associate at the Washington, D.C.-based law firm of Hogan & Hartson LLP, where she practiced commercial litigation and served as a senior associate in the firm’s pro bono department.
A committed Democrat, Boardman donated money to the 2008 presidential campaigns of both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, who competed for their party’s nomination during the 2007-2008 primary season.
In 2008 as well, Boardman embarked on an eleven-year stint with the Federal Public Defender’s Office for the District of Maryland, where she represented clients in the Greenbelt and Baltimore court systems.
From 2019 to 2021, Boardman served as a U.S. Magistrate Judge for the District of Maryland.
In April 2021, President Joe Biden nominated Boardman to the United States District Court for the District of Maryland. The Senate confirmed her for that post with a 52-48 vote on June 23, 2021, and she was officially commissioned two days later.
Opposing Parents’ Rights Regarding Schoolchildren’s Exposure to LGBT Books
Boardman was involved in a controversy over an array of at least 22 LGBT-themed storybooks that the Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) of Maryland – as part of a diversity initiative — introduced into their pre-K through eighth-grade classrooms in 2022. The books in question featured homosexual, bisexual, and transgender characters as well as references to things like Pride parades, gender transition, and pronoun preferences – thereby sparking protests and challenges from parents of many of the children in the district. The use of these books was not mandatory in the 2022-2023 school year, but by 2023-2024 the books were included in the “Recommended Readings” list of the school district’s English Language Arts curricula. To view a list of some of the offending titles, along with synopses of their content, see Footnote #1 at the end of this profile.[1]
In March 2023, MCPS announced that they would not — “for any reason” — permit students to opt out from language-arts instruction that involved the aforementioned storybooks. In response to that decision, more than 1,000 parents signed a petition requesting that the local school board: (a) notify them whenever such books were newly incorporated into the curriculum, and (b) give them an opportunity to have their children opt out of lessons involving those materials.
In May 2023, a group of Muslim and Christian families issued those same two requests in a lawsuit they filed against MCPS, claiming that the use of the storybooks in question was forcing parents to have to choose between (a) honoring their sincerely held religious beliefs, and (b) withdrawing their children from the public school system. The case was heard by Judge Boardman on August 9, 2023, in the United States District Court for the District of Maryland.
Sixteen days later, on August 25, 2023, Boardman released a 60-page ruling in which she denied the parents’ requests. In her decision, the judge wrote that:
Eric Baxter, vice president and senior counsel at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty — the nonprofit public-interest law firm representing the plaintiff families — said that Boardman’s ruling “flies in the face of parental freedom, childhood innocence, and basic human decency.” Her decision was “wrong on multiple levels,” Baxter added, explaining that courts have traditionally recognized that “indirect pressure on parents or students to abandon their religious beliefs is sufficient to trigger the First Amendment.” Moreover, the Becket Fund said in a separate statement: “The court’s [Boardman’s] decision is an assault on children’s right to be guided by their parents on complex and sensitive issues regarding human sexuality. The School Board should let kids be kids and let parents decide how and when to best educate their own children consistent with their religious beliefs.”
Claiming that the prohibition against opting out of the lessons and activities which were centered around the offending materials constituted a violation of the First and Fourteenth Amendments, the plaintiffs next brought their case to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. Finding insufficient evidence that the MCPS policy had compelled any families to change or violate their religious beliefs, this appellate court upheld Judge Boardman’s District Court decision in a 2-1 ruling on May 14, 2024.
The petitioners next appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which in January 2025 agreed to hear their case (known as Mahmoud v. Taylor). The lead plaintiffs, Tamer Mahmoud and Enas Barakat, were Muslims who had a son in elementary school. Additional plaintiffs included a Roman Catholic couple with two elementary-age children, and a Roman Catholic / Ukrainian Orthodox couple with an elementary-age son. Oral arguments in the case began on April 22, 2025.
On June 27, 2025, the Supreme Court — asserting that any policy requiring children to participate in instruction contrary to their families’ religious beliefs constitutes an infringement on the parents’ religious exercise — rendered a 6-3 decision that overturned Judge Boardman’s original ruling.
Supporting a Lawsuit by Anti-Fossil-Fuel Environmentalists
In August 2024, Judge Boardman sided with environmentalists from the Sierra Club, the Center for Biological Diversity, Friends of the Earth, and the Turtle Island Restoration Network who filed a lawsuit aiming to vacate a key environmental review — known as a biological opinion (BiOp) — that the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) had issued in 2020 under the first Trump administration. Boardman agreed with the plaintiffs’ claim that the BiOp in question violated the Endangered Species Act and the Administrative Procedures Act by underestimating the risks and potentially catastrophic environmental results of oil spills in the Gulf of Mexico. Characterizing the BiOp as “arbitrary and capricious,” the judge vacated it — a measure that, as EnergyCentral.com explains, had enormous implications: “Oil and gas activities cannot go forward easily without a favorable biological opinion. A valid BiOp is required for the U.S. Interior Department to issue permits for new drilling.”
According to David Blackmon, a 40-year veteran of the oil and gas industry: “The revocation of a duly issued permit such as this on such specious grounds by a single judge places all other duly issued permits in the areas occupied by this endangered and other endangered or threatened species in jeopardy. Operators now will have to consider whether they’re willing to risk millions of dollars in capital in projects only to find their own permits being revoked on the whims of a judge sympathetic to the radical climate lobby.”
Because her decision had the potential to entirely derail the offshore oil- and gas-drilling industry in the Gulf of Mexico, Boardman granted NMFS four months to revise its BiOp, with a deadline of December 20, 2024. Then, on October 22, 2024, she extended that deadline by five additional months, to May 21, 2025.
Ruling Against DOGE’s Collection of Americans’ Personal Information
On February 12, 2025, a coalition of labor unions led by the American Federation of Teachers filed a lawsuit against the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), a Trump administration creation designed to eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse from federal expenditures. The defendants named in the suit were DOGE overseer and presidential adviser Elon Musk, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), the Department of the Treasury, and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. These defendants were charged with having violated federal law by providing Musk and the DOGE project with access to personal and financial information — e.g., Social Security numbers, birth dates, banking and income data, physical addresses, marital status, and disability status — of people whose names were contained in government databases administered by the Social Security Administration, the OPM, and the Treasury Department.
On March 24, 2025, Judge Boardman ruled that DOGE had no right under federal law to access the aforementioned information about individual Americans. The federal agencies, she said, had likely violated the Administrative Procedure Act and the Privacy Act by allowing DOGE to access such data without the consent of the people involved.
“They trusted the federal government to safeguard their information,” Boardman wrote in her opinion. “That public trust likely has been breached.” To address this matter, Boardman on March 24, 2025 issued a preliminary injunction specifically barring the Education Department, Treasury Department, and OPM from sharing sensitive data about the plaintiffs with DOGE associates.
Opposing Trump’s Position on Birthright Citizenship
On January 20, 2025 — the first day of his second term in office — President Trump signed an executive order titled “Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship,” whose purpose was to end the practice of conferring birthright citizenship on children born in the United States to parents who are illegal aliens or temporary visitors. Traditionally, advocates of unconstrained birthright citizenship have justified the concept by citing the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment, which says that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” The Trump administration, however, maintained that the phrase “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” means it does not apply to people residing in the country illegally.
On February 5, 2025, Judge Boardman, via the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, issued a nationwide preliminary injunction blocking the implementation of Trump’s executive order, saying: “The executive order conflicts with the plain language of the 14th Amendment, contradicts 125-year-old binding Supreme Court precedent, and runs counter to our nation’s 250-year history of citizenship by birth.” Emphasizing that “citizenship is a most precious right” guaranteed by the 14th Amendment, Boardman said the executive order, if implemented, would cause “irreparable harm” to many of the people affected by it.
The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit subsequently denied President Trump’s motion to stay the injunction issued by Boardman.
Shortly after 1:00 a.m. on June 8, 2022, a 26-year-old California man named Nicholas John Roske arrived at the Maryland home of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh with plans to murder him. At the time, Roske was carrying a Glock 17 pistol, ammunition, lock picks, duct tape, pepper spray, a hammer, a screwdriver, a nail punch, a crow bar, a pistol light, and a variety of other burglary tools. He was prevented from attempting to physically enter Kavanaugh’s house that day only by the presence of U.S. Marshals in its immediate vicinity. Roske would later tell police that he was angry about Kavanaugh’s contribution to the recently announced Dobbs v. Jackson Supreme Court decision which was slated to overturn the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling on abortion rights. The would-be assassin also told investigators that: (a) he was further motivated to kill the judge by his expectation that Kavanaugh might eventually help the Court loosen restrictions on Second Amendment gun rights, and (b) he was ultimately hoping to kill two additional conservative justices as well.
Judge Boardman presided over Roske’s case in the United States District Court for the District of Maryland. On April 8, 2025 — two months prior to his scheduled trial date of June 9, 2025 — the defendant pleaded guilty to a charge of attempted murder. Then, in September 2025, he suddenly claimed to identify as a transgender female named “Sophie” Roske. The government’s sentencing memo of September 19, 2025 emphasized the importance of imposing a harsh punishment on Roske: “The defendant’s criminal conduct — the Attempted Assassination of a Justice of the United States [—] required extensive premeditation. The defendant researched; planned; procured the tools for the planned killings; traveled across the entirety of the country with those tools, including a gun; and attempted to delete online evidence of motive and intent. The defendant’s objective — to target and kill judges to seek to alter a court’s ruling — is an abhorrent form of terrorism and strikes at the core of the United States Constitution and our prescribed system of government.” In light of these facts, prosecutors exhorted Boardman to follow federal sentencing guidelines and sentence Roske to “no fewer than 30 years to life imprisonment.”
But on October 3, 2025, Boardman sentenced Roske to a mere eight-years-plus-one-month in prison. When referencing the gunman in her communications, the judge used the female pronouns consistent with Roske’s new self-identification: “Though she got far too close to executing her plans, the fact of the matter is she abandoned them,” Boardman said in a subtle defense of Roske. Boardman also factored appeals from Roske’s family into her sentencing calculations, as well as the fact that Roske had: (a) surrendered compliantly to law-enforcement officials at the scene of the planned homicide; (b) been forthcoming with information about his criminal plot and the motives behind it; and (c) later apologized to the Kavanaugh family for his actions. City Journal reported that “in her sentencing remarks,” Boardman “cited Roske’s mental-health struggles and his alleged transgender status as mitigating factors, noting that one of President Trump’s executive orders would affect Roske’s ability to receive gender-transition medical care.” “I take into consideration the conditions of pre-trial confinement and the fact that she [Roske] is a transgender woman and will be sent to a male-only [Bureau of Prisons] facility,” Boardman said as well.
Attorney General Pam Bondi vowed that the U.S. Justice Department would appeal the “woefully insufficient” sentence that Boardman had meted out to Roske. Republican Senator Ted Cruz stated that Boardman should be impeached because of the light sentence that she imposed.
[1] Pride Puppy, a rhyming alphabet book geared toward preschoolers, centers around a puppy that gets lost at a Pride parade. Featuring a multiracial mix of adults and children, the book shows images of things like rainbow flags; two men holding hands; drag queens; people adorned with tattoos or rainbow-colored clothing; men sporting bizarrely styled purple hair; and a dark-skinned man and a hairy chested white man standing side-by-side with their arms draped around each other. On the copyright page, the book is dedicated to “all the beautiful queerdos.”
Uncle Bobby’s Wedding, geared toward students in kindergarten through 5th grade, is the story of a gay wedding between a bearded white man and a clean-shaven dark-skinned man.
Love, Violet, geared for fourth-graders, is a story about a shy young white girl who develops a crush on a darker-skinned female classmate and contemplates how to create a Valentine’s Day card for her.
My Rainbow, geared for second-graders, is a story about a black mother with a nose ring who fashions a pink-and-blue wig for her transgender daughter, Trinity, who at one point tells the mother: “I can’t be a girl.” “Trinity’s gender was part of what made her a masterpiece,” says the book at one point, “just like her autism and her Black skin.”
Jacob’s Room to Choose is a story about two young transgender students – a biological boy named Sophie and a biological girl named Jacob — who each attempt, with trepidation, to use the bathroom aligned with their gender identity. When they enter their respective rest rooms, however, Jacob is stared at and made to feel unwelcome, while Sophie is chased out of the other bathroom by children therein. Afterward, the teacher – who is sensitive to the emotional pain that these children have just experienced — leads the whole class in making bathroom-door signs that bear affirming slogans like: “Leave kids alone in the bathroom”; “Everybody uses the bathroom”; “Use the bathroom that is comfy 4 U”; and “Bathrooms are for every bunny” (adorned with drawings of rabbits).
IntersectionAllies: We Make Room for All is a rhyming story about a multiracial group of friends. Some noteworthy quotes that convey the overall tenor of the book:
Prince & Knight, geared for third-graders, is a tale about a young prince whose parents set out to find their son a “kind and worthy bride.” But as the story unfolds, it becomes apparent that the prince wishes to have a male life-partner, not a female. Eventually he meets a young knight – his “one true love” — and ends up in his embrace. The narrative reads: “The knight took off his helmet to reveal his handsome face, and as they gazed into each other’s eyes, their hearts began to race.” When the pair eventually get married, the text reads: “And on the two men’s wedding day, the air filled with cheer and laughter, for the prince and his shining knight would live happily ever after.”
Born Ready: The True Story of a Boy Named Penelope, a book geared for fifth-graders, is the story of Penelope, who was born a girl but has now decided: “Inside I’m a boy.” When the child’s mother asks Penelope why she is “so angry,” the child replies: “Because everyone thinks I’m a girl.” When the mother then says “if you feel like a boy, that’s okay,” Penelope emphasizes: “I don’t feel like a boy. I AM a boy.” “Please help me, Mama,” says the child. “Help me be a boy.” The mother, in turn, immediately agrees that she and Penelope together will “tell everyone we love” that “you are a boy,” and the child is overjoyed by the prospect of this. When they tell Penelope’s grandfather, he instantly is very accepting and says that in his native language of Twi, “gender isn’t such a big deal. We don’t use gender pronouns.” Penelope’s friends are similarly accepting of Penelope’s new self-identification as a boy. And when Penelope tells the principal of her school that she is actually a boy, the principal responds: “Well, Penelope, today you’re my teacher.”