William Alsup (California)

William Alsup

Nonpartisan

United States District Court for the Northern District of California (senior status)

Tenure

2021 - Present

Years in position

4

Prior offices

United States District Court for the Northern District of California

Successor: Jacqueline Scott Corley

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Education

Bachelor's

Mississippi State University, 1967

Graduate

Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government, 1971

Law

Harvard University, 1971

Personal

Birthplace

Jackson, Miss.

Contact

Official website

William Alsup is a federal judge on senior status with the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. He joined the court in 1999 after being nominated by President Bill Clinton (D). He assumed senior status on January 21, 2021.

Early life and education

Born in Jackson, Mississippi, Alsup graduated from Mississippi State University with his bachelor's degree in 1967 and received his J.D. degree from Harvard University in 1971. Alsup also earned a Master's in Public Policy from Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government.

Professional career

Alsup began his legal career as a law clerk for Associate Justice William Douglas at the Supreme Court of the United States from 1971 to 1972. Alsup was a private practice attorney in San Francisco, California, from 1972 to 1978 and again from 1980 to 1998. He served as an assistant solicitor general for the U.S. Solicitor General in the Department of Justice (DOJ) from 1978 to 1980. Alsup was special counsel in the antitrust division of the DOJ in 1998.

Judicial career

Northern District of California

On the recommendation of Senator Barbara Boxer, Alsup was nominated to the United States District Court for the Northern District of California by President Bill Clinton on March 24, 1999, to a seat vacated by Thelton Henderson as Henderson assumed senior status. Alsup was confirmed by the Senate on July 30, 1999, on a voice vote and received commission on August 17, 1999. He assumed senior status on January 21, 2021.

Noteworthy cases

Supreme Court vacates judge's order to Donald Trump (R) administration to rehire certain probationary employees (2025)

See also: Supreme Court emergency orders related to the Trump administration, 2025

Judge William Alsup issued an order in American Federation Of Government Employees, AFL-CIO v. United States Office of Personnel Management on March 13, 2025, saying the federal government under President Donald Trump (R) had to re-hire all fired probationary employees in the Defense, Treasury, Energy, Interior, Agriculture, and Veterans Affairs departments. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt responded to the ruling in a statement, "If a federal district court judge would like executive powers, they can try and run for President themselves. The Trump Administration will immediately fight back against this absurd and unconstitutional order."

Several federal employee unions filed the lawsuit in February 2025, after the Office of Personnel Management fired tens of thousands of probationary federal government employees. The unions argued the federal government's actions violated the constitution and the Administrative Procedure Act.

Politico's Josh Gerstein and Kyle Cheney wrote that, "Alsup [was] the first federal judge to order the administration to broadly unwind the firing spree that has roiled the federal workforce during Trump’s first two months in office."

On April 8, 2025, the Supreme Court issued a 7-2 emergency ruling pausing Alsup's order. SCOTUSBlog's Amy Howe wrote that the court "put the order by Senior U.S. District Judge William Alsup on hold while the challenge to the firings continues, explaining that the nonprofits do not have a legal right, known as standing, to challenge the terminations."

Judge dismisses case against oil companies (2018)

See also: United States District Court for the Northern District of California (City of Oakland and the People of the State of California v. BP P.L.C, Chevron Corporation, ConocoPhillips, Exxon Mobil Corporation, Royal Dutch Shell PLC, and DOES, No. 3:17-cv-06011-WHA)

Judge Alsup dismissed two lawsuits brought by Oakland and San Francisco against oil companies including Chevron, Exxon Mobil, and BP. The cities had asked the court to order the oil companies to help pay for the cost of rising sea levels.

In his concluding remarks, Judge Alsup wrote that he accepted the science behind climate change and that the "dangers raised in the complaints are very real." He dismissed the case on the grounds that the "dangers are worldwide. Their causes are worldwide," and said the problem was best addressed by the federal government, rather than by a district judge or jury.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the cases were the first of several throughout the nation attempting to make oil companies pay for responses to problems that the cities say resulted from climate change.

Following Alsup's ruling, John Coté, a spokesman for the San Francisco City Attorney's Office, said, "Our belief remains that these companies are liable for the harm they’ve caused." The National Association of Manufacturers, which represented the oil companies, supported the judge's decision, "From the moment these baseless lawsuits were filed, we have argued that the courtroom was not the proper venue to address this global challenge."

DACA program (2018)

See also: United States District Court for the Northern District of California (The Regents of the University Of California And Janet Napolitano v. United States Department Of Homeland Security and Kirstjen Nielsen, No. 3:17-cv-05211-WHA)

On January 9, 2018, Alsup ordered the Trump administration to continue processing renewal applications from individuals who had been granted deferred status under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. He also ruled that the administration did not have to accept new applications for deferred status from people who had never before received the protected status. Alsup wrote, “DACA gave them a more tolerable set of choices, including joining the mainstream workforce. Now, absent an injunction, they will slide back to the pre-DACA era and associated hardship.”

Alsup wrote that the decision of the Trump administration to end DACA was arbitrary and that Attorney General Jeff Sessions' conclusion that the program was illegal appeared to be "based on a flawed legal premise."

DACA allowed individuals who were brought to the United States as children to receive relief from being deported for a period of time if they meet certain criteria. The program did not grant lawful status.

Noteworthy events

Judge orders climate change tutorial ahead of court case

On March 21, 2018, prior to a trial date being set, the parties in California v. Chevron, a civil action case brought by cities and counties in California, met by order of Judge Alsup to hold what was described as a climate change tutorial. Legal observers told CBS News, that this hearing was the first time a court held a tutorial on climate change. The plaintiffs in the case allege that the defendants create a public nuisance by, in their view, contributing to climate change and conspiring to cover up it up. Grist, an advocacy outlet that according to its site focuses on climate change and sustainability issues, likened the pre-trial tutorial to the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial.

Judge Alsup used the hearing to ask questions of witnesses and lawyers from both parties in an attempt to educate himself about the topic. The session was not favorable to the plaintiffs, according to The Wall Street Journal. Writing for the paper, journalist Phelim McAleer reported that "accounts of two apocalyptic climate events that occurred naturally came from a witness for plaintiffs looking to prove American oil companies are responsible for small changes in present-day climate." Judge Alsup's was also described as displaying skepticism over the conspiracy claims made by the plaintiffs: "The plaintiffs alleged that the oil companies were in possession of “smoking gun” documents that would prove their liability; Mr. Boutrous [attorney for the defendants] said this was simply an internal summary of the publicly available 1995 [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] report." McAleer called the plaintiffs "ill-prepared for their first court outings with tough questions from an informed and inquisitive judge."

See also

• United States District Court for the Northern District of California

External links

• Search Google News for this topic
• Judge William Alsup's Biography at the Federal Judicial Center

Footnotes

Political offices
Preceded by: Thelton Henderson	Northern District of California 1999–2021 Seat #6	Succeeded by: TBD