“You are White-Presenting”: Texas Judge Ordered to Undergo Psychiatric Testing After Bar Complaint

Judge Ada Brown of the Northern District of Texas has been suspended pending psychiatric testing and the resolution of a bar complaint after a bizarre hearing in April 2026. In the hearing, Brown, a Trump appointee, went on a racial diatribe against a lawyer, Ezra Young, over his race. Young was accused of being White. When Young informed her that he is Hispanic, Judge Brown went on to say that he is “white-presenting” in continuing her racial browbeating.

Judge Brown was also accused of abandoning her work, but the hearing has caused the most chatter among lawyers.

Young filed a complaint against Brown following the hearing in Dallas. In the hearing, Brown, a Black woman with Native American ancestry, accused Young of mistreating Black attorneys. She barred Young from practicing in her courtroom after an unhinged tongue-lashing.

It appears Young, a Columbia Law School graduate and solo practitioner, has had previous run-ins with Judge Brown.  At the hearing, Brown accused Young of “racial bullying” toward Black attorneys in the case.

Judge Brown apparently had an axe to grind over an article that appeared in an earlier case involving a black professor. Brown referenced an article that quoted a brief filed by Young that referenced another law professor apparently comparing what happened in the tenure denial to a “lynching.”

She accused Young of making up the quote to “get a headline”: “And so when I read a headline — a sensationalized, very racialized headline that says, ‘it’s like I’ve been lynched,’ and it’s literally got no connection to this case, I have to ask you, Mr. Social Media, Main Character Chad, White Hero, Savior, Loves to Help Black People Be An Ally, where the lynching in this case came from?”

According to the transcript, she observed, “I think what’s happening here, quite candidly, is you are very intimidated for some reason, Mr. Young, with Black excellence, in light of your White mediocrity. Yeah. Right?… You should write that down. I mean, you — I’m — you look like a White man, right?”

Young tried to stop the unfolding disaster: “I’m not White, Your Honor.”

Judge Brown snapped back, “Well, you are White-presenting; is that fair to say?” She added that he is “fair-skinned” and evidenced “White privilege”:  “You’re the White savior, come to save all the stupid Black lawyers in Texas who need your help, from New York.”

Judge Brown is reportedly suffering from a “mental condition that interferes with her ability to perform the responsibilities of her office.”

It is likely the sad end to a distinguished career.  Brown graduated magna cum laude from Spelman College in 1996, then earned a law degree from Emory University School of Law in 1999 and later a Master of Laws from Duke University School of Law.