Tiana Headley

Journalist

United States

Tiana is an award-winning reporter at Bloomberg Law, where she covers the federal judicial appointment process and judicial diversity. Her reporting ventures span all three branches of government, including exclusive interviews with US senators, White House officials, and sitting federal judges.

Her work has garnered multiple awards, including a Dateline Award from the Society of Professional Journalists for her reporting on federal district courts that have never had a non-white judge.

She began her journalism career with internships at her hometown paper, the Miami Herald, and Bloomberg Law. She also covered politics, criminal justice, and grassroots movements for outlets in New York's Hudson Valley.

She graduated from Vassar College with a degree in Political Science. There, she served as senior editor of the college's student newspaper, The Miscellany News, and won a Society of Professional Journalists Mark of Excellence finalist award for her coverage of area school district resource disparities.

Tiana grew up in South Florida and currently lives in Washington, DC.

Portfolio

Bloomberg Law

Bloomberg Law
12/16/2024
Muslim Judge Pick Mangi Blasts 'Swamp' That Sunk Nomination (1)

Adeel Mangi decried the "farcical attacks" he faced as a nominee to be the first Muslim federal circuit court judge, following a Senate deal that scuttled chances of a confirmation vote, according to a letter obtained by Bloomberg Law.

Bloomberg Law
12/03/2024
Transgender Judges Remain Rare Despite Biden Diversity Push

Chase Strangio will make history Wednesday as the first openly transgender lawyer to argue before the Supreme Court, but no similar trailblazer is likely to follow anytime soon on the federal bench. Bloomberg Law spoke with three transgender state court judges about the importance of that representation on the bench.

Bloomberg Law
11/06/2024
Second Trump Term Opens Door to Even More Conservative Judges

The incoming president will rely less heavily on establishment Federalist Society conservatives as he seeks judges who will rule in his favor. He appointed 234 judges in his first term, a significant achievement for Republicans, but some proved a disappointment to Trump after blocking efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.

Bloomberg Law
09/18/2024
Senate Judiciary Clash Tests Respect for Black Women Politicians

A one-sided clash between conservative senators and interim California Democrat Laphonza Butler at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing raises the question of whether it was the usual partisan theater, or a confrontation that encompassed her identity as a Black gay woman.

Bloomberglaw
06/05/2024
More Black Women Ascend to Appellate Courts, While Men Stall (1)

The presence of Black men serving as active judges on the federal appellate courts has stalled in the past 10 years, even as President Joe Biden has prioritized demographic diversity in his judicial nominations and almost doubled the number of Black women on the circuit courts.

Bloomberg Law
08/12/2024
Biden Public Defenders Turned Judges Begin to Make Mark on Bench

The unprecedented influx of judges with public defender experience appointed by President Joe Biden is beginning to put a stamp on the federal bench. Those judges bring to the bench a determination to treat criminal defendants with dignity, respect, and fairness, while also weighing public safety and accountability, according to six interviews with Biden and Barack Obama appointees and seven federal public defenders who’ve appeared before them.

Bloomberg Law
02/28/2024
Senator Kennedy's Judicial Pop Quizzes Trip Up Nervous Nominees

Senator John Kennedy (R-La.) likes to quiz nominees at their confirmation hearings about legal doctrines and courtroom procedure. He says demonstrating basic legal knowledge is important for a judgeship, while others call the exercise arbitrary.

Bloomberg Law
09/05/2023
Color of Justice: All-White Benches Persist in US District Courts

Of the 94 federal district courts, 25 have never had a non-White judge, according to a Bloomberg Law analysis of federal court records. It's not just an issue in the South: A dozen states in the Northeast and Midwest have courts on the list.

Bloomberg News
10/29/2022
Ivy-Educated Thomas and Sotomayor Divide on Affirmative Action

Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Clarence Thomas overcame humble beginnings and racial discrimination before earning elite educations, but they bring very different views about race-conscious college admissions to the Supreme Court as it weighs affirmative action challenges.

Media Appearances

Bloomberg Law
11/14/2024
Trump Judge Picks Could Move Courts Further Right, Cement Legacy (Podcast)

President-elect Donald Trump is poised to appoint more judges, and the stage is set for nominees that are more conservative than those appointed in his first term. On this episode of On The Merits, Bloomberg Law reporters Tiana Headley and Suzanne Monyak, along with Bloomberg Law columnist and Above the Law founder David Lat, discuss judge selection, possible nominees, and what this means for litigators.

Bloomberglaw
09/05/2023
Many Federal Courts Have Never Had a Black Judge (Podcast)

On this episode of On The Merits, we hear about the lack of diversity on federal trial courts and one district in Georgia specifically, where prominent Black lawyers have been passed over for seats on the court.

The River Newsroom/Chronogram Magazine

Chronogram
05/07/2020
Hudson Valley College Town Economies Struggle to Adapt During Students’ Absence

Since higher education institutions transitioned to distance learning amid the coronavirus pandemic, students are hundreds or thousands of miles away from campus and the retail businesses they help keep in business. Without students spending money, villages like New Paltz are reeling from the economic hit.

College Media

The Miscellany News
02/06/2021
Meet the College Students Redistributing Thousands in Reparations

The summer of 2020 fixed a magnifying glass over two crises: racial injustice and widening economic inequality. Vassar students launched the Vassar Political Education Wealth Redistribution (VPEWR) to distribute wealth to communities most impacted by policing and police brutality.

The Miscellany News
11/20/2020
Jessica Segal becomes first Democrat, second woman elected County Court Judge

On the last day of early voting leading up to Nov. 3, Democrat Jessica Segal voiced that the status quo in Dutchess County Court just wasn't working anymore. The defense attorney and former Dutchess Senior Assistant District Attorney has now unseated Republican incumbent Peter Forman—one of two justices on the county court bench.

Soundbox (Podcast)
08/26/2020
Soundbox: A New Roadmap for the Postindustrial Queen City

For years, Poughkeepsie watched as the waves of renewal and reinvestment washed over the Hudson Valley, not yet reaching its own shores. Like many other cities in the region, the hard-hit postindustrial city lost its stride in the 20th century as factories shuttered, jobs disappeared and residents left in droves. On this episode, Tiana Headley speaks with Joshua Simons about Poughkeepsie’s efforts to develop a new comprehensive plan amid the $1 billion in development underway in the city.

The Miscellany News
07/08/2020
The Right to Know Act and beyond: Community members envision police reform in Poughkeepsie

The Right to Know Act requires City of Poughkeepsie police officers to identify themselves, state the reason for a stop and provide a business card at the end of the encounter. While advocates and residents say the legislation's passage—three years—is a long time coming, they also voice that much more is needed to reform the police department.

The Miscellany News
03/17/2020
Historical women's college meme page coordinates coronavirus aid

The admin of the historicallywomens.c0m Instagram page didn’t set out to quell the anxieties of uncertain times when she created the account. When the pandemic hit, she found herself coordinating a support network for students whose schools closed due to the COVID-19 outbreak.

Miscellanynews
01/30/2020
Cash bail reforms complicate local criminal justice systems

A new law, entitled NYS Senate Bill 1509C, which passed in April 2019 and went into effect Jan. 1 2020, has curtailed cash bail for nearly 90 percent of cases across New York State. While advocates for the law—including Governor Andrew Cuomo (D-NY)—see the reforms as a step toward a fairer criminal justice system, some think the law goes too far.

Miami Herald