When Donald J. Trump was working for president in 2016, he vowed to nominate Supreme Court justices who would vote to overturn Roe v. Wade. Three justices and 6 years later, he made good on that promise.

Mr. Trump additionally made a more general pledge throughout that marketing campaign, about faith. At a Republican debate, a moderator requested whether or not he would “commit to voters tonight that religious liberty will be an absolute litmus test for anyone you appoint, not just to the Supreme Court, but to all courts.”

Mr. Trump stated he would, and a new study has discovered that he largely delivered on that assurance, too. Mr. Trump’s appointees to the decrease federal courts, the examine discovered, voted in favor of claims of non secular liberty most of the time solely Democratic appointees and but additionally judges named by different Republican presidents.

There was an exception: Muslim plaintiffs fared worse earlier than Trump appointees than earlier than different judges.

“There seems to be a very big difference on how these cases come out, depending on the specific religion in question,” stated Stephen J. Choi, a legislation professor at New York University, who carried out the examine with Mitu Gulati of the University of Virginia and Eric A. Posner of the University of Chicago.

Another a part of the examine explored what was distinctive about Mr. Trump’s appointees to the decrease courts, contemplating 807 judges named by seven presidents as of late 2020.

The examine discovered, for example, that judges named by Mr. Trump had “stronger or more numerous religious affiliations” with church buildings and different homes of worship, with spiritual colleges, and with teams like Alliance Defending Freedom and First Liberty, which have received a series of major Supreme Court cases for conservative Christians.

Trump appointees have been additionally more likely to be members of the Federalist Society, the conservative authorized group, than different Republican appointees: 56 % versus 22 %.

For appeals courtroom nominations within the Trump administration, the examine discovered that membership within the group was “virtually required,” with a fee of greater than 88 %, in contrast with 44 % for different Republican appointees.

Mr. Trump made one other pledge at another 2016 debate in regards to the judges he would appoint. “They’ll respect the Second Amendment and what it stands for, what it represents,” he stated.

The new examine didn’t attempt to measure how Mr. Trump’s appointees voted in gun rights instances. But it did discover that greater than 9 % of Trump appointees have been members of the National Rifle Association, in contrast with lower than 2 % of different Republican appointees and fewer than 1 % of Democratic appointees.

“In light of the polarizing nature of gun rights and the N.R.A.’s association with extreme views on gun ownership,” the examine’s authors wrote, “jurists who seek a reputation for impartiality would normally want to avoid membership in the N.R.A.”

The examine did doc how Mr. Trump’s appointees voted in instances on claims of non secular liberty, analyzing some 1,600 votes in additional than 500 instances within the federal appeals courts from 2000 to 2022.

Trump appointees voted in favor of plaintiffs claiming that their proper to free train of faith had been violated about 45 % of the time, in contrast with 36 % for different Republican appointees and 33 % of Democratic appointees. The hole grew for instances that concerned solely Christians, to greater than 56 %, in contrast with 42 % for different Republican appointees and 29 % for Democratic ones.

And the numbers flipped when it got here to Muslims, with Trump appointees at 19 %, in contrast with 34 % for different Republican appointees and 48 % for Democratic ones.

“The pattern that emerges,” the examine stated, “is consistent with conventional wisdom: Democrats tend to protect minority religions, and Republicans tend to protect Christianity (and possibly Judaism).”

The examine thought-about a typical critique of Trump appointees: that they’re much less certified than different judges. It discovered that the proof didn’t help the cost, at the very least on common and at the very least as measured by the status of the legislation colleges the judges attended, whether or not they had served as legislation clerks and rankings from the American Bar Association.

“We find little evidence that Trump judges break the historical pattern of judicial appointments,” the examine’s authors wrote. “Women and minorities are less well represented among Trump judges than among Democratic judges, but that reflects a historical partisan difference; Trump judges do not differ much from Republican judges in this respect.”

“A few more Trump judges received top A.B.A. ratings, but not quite as many Trump judges attended top-10 law schools,” the examine stated. “Our view is that the data do not support the view that Trump’s judges were less qualified than judges appointed by other presidents.”

But the examine’s predominant discovering, on faith, was that Mr. Trump was true to his phrase.

“Trump is not known to be personally religious,” the examine’s authors wrote, “but he appears to have believed that he could obtain votes by promising to appoint religious judges, and he kept his promise.”