An Essex County municipal judge faces disciplinary charges after wearing a hat emblazoned with the word “Palestine” and the Palestinian flag, as well as a keffiyeh, at a judicial conference last summer in an alleged violation of the judiciary’s prohibition on political speech.
The Advisory Committee on Judicial Conduct charges that Steven Brister, a part-time municipal judge in East Orange and acting judge in the cities of Newark and Orange, violated the judiciary’s conduct and political speech rules at a conference for municipal court employees last June.
The charges say that Brister arrived at the conference on June 9th wearing a “black baseball cap bearing the flag of Palestine embroidered on the front and the word ‘Palestine’ embroidered alongside the flag, as well as a black and white checkered keffiyeh draped around his neck and shoulders.” (A keffiyeh is a scarf-like, traditional headdress worn in much of the Middle East. Patterned, black-and-white keffiyehs are closely tied to Palestinian identity.)
According to the complaint, Brister’s presiding judge said his attire offended some other attendees and requested that he remove the hat. Brister said he would remove the cap if an announcement was made asking all attendees to remove their headgear, according to the complaint. He wore the attire for the rest of the day.
In messages with another judge, Brister said he wore the hat and keffiyeh because of the weather that day.
“In a telephone conversation and text message between [Brister] and his presiding judge thereafter on June 9, 2025, [Brister] stated that he chose the hat because it was raining that day and, wanting a brimmed hat, he chose the Palestine baseball cap as it was ‘[t]he first one in [his] caps shelf.’ [Brister] explained to his presiding judge during this telephone call that he wore that keffiyeh because he might have gotten cold during the conference,” the complaint reads.
Under oath before the ACJC in October, Brister said he did not see the cap or the keffiyeh as a political statement; instead, he said he wore the hat because it matched his outfit and the keffiyeh for religious and spiritual reasons.
The ACJC alleges that because he wore the hat and refused to remove the attire, he violated rules concerning political speech and judicial conduct.
This isn’t Brister’s first time before ethics officials. In 2021, the New Jersey Supreme Court suspended Brister for 30 days after misogynistic comments to a defendant facing domestic assault charges, remarks he called “well-meaning but undeniably misguided.”
