The NPR Politics Podcast - NPR Exclusive: Harassment In The Federal Judiciary

Episode Date: February 25, 2025

People who work for the federal court system don't have the same kinds of job protections that most other Americans do. A nearly year-long NPR investigation has found problems with the way the courts police sexual harassment and bullying and a pervasive culture of fear about blowing the whistle. This episode: political correspondent Susan Davis, national justice correspondent Carrie Johnson, and senior national political correspondent Mara Liasson. The podcast is produced by Bria Suggs & Kelli Wessinger and edited by Casey Morell. Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi.Listen to every episode of the NPR Politics Podcast sponsor-free, unlock access to bonus episodes with more from the NPR Politics team, and support public media when you sign up for The NPR Politics Podcast+ at plus.npr.org/politics.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

There's been a lot of attention on loneliness lately. 16% of Americans report feeling lonely all or most of the time. The former Surgeon General even declared a loneliness epidemic. On It's Been a Minute, we're launching a new series called All the Lonely People, diving deep into how loneliness shows up in our lives and how our culture shapes it. That's on the It's Been a Minute podcast on NPR. our culture shapes it. That's on the It's Been A Minute podcast on NPR. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics podcast. I'm Susan Davis. I cover politics. I'm Carrie Johnson. I cover the Justice Department.

And I'm Mara Eliasson, senior national political correspondent. And it is 1.59 p.m. on Tuesday, February 25th. And today on the show, an NPR exclusive, an investigation into the federal court system, the people who work there, and what happens when they're faced with sexual harassment or bullying. And heads up, we will be talking about sexual assault in this episode. Carrie, this is your reporting. You spent the better part of a year reporting this story out, and we're going to have more of that reporting on the podcast this weekend. But first, I'm always curious about what led you to start asking questions about this

in the first place. You know, over the last few years, I've really been thinking about accountability and the balance of power in all kinds of different contexts. And it seemed to me the federal courts were kind of under-investigated. And so I did a piece last year. We put out a call out for stories from people around the country who've worked in some capacity for the federal court system. I heard back from dozens and dozens and dozens of people.

I spent weeks and weeks and weeks last year on and off in between reporting about what the Justice Department was doing, talking to people about their experience working for the courts, either for judges or probation or parole offices or federal public defenders and the like. And what I heard was really important, I think. And we're going to hear more about that on Saturday. And it did seem like you found that there was a culture in which people felt like there was often subjected to a power dynamic in a part of the government in which there isn't much recourse.

That's exactly right. You know, the judiciary in many ways governs itself because of the balance of power and concern about separation of powers and the like and the independence of the judiciary. But the system that they've got operating now, the system that they have started to try to put in place since MeToo kind of swept politics and the media and business and Congress, everyplace else since 2017. The system has some flaws and our story hopes to uncover some of them. One thing that people might not know is there's something like 30,000 people who work for the federal judicial system and they are not covered by the same laws that virtually every other employee in the country is. I talked with Aliza Schatzman, who runs a database for law clerks who can report honest feedback about judges. Here's what she had to say.

The federal judiciary is outrageously exempt from Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. That means that if you are a law clerk and you are sexually harassed, fired, retaliated against by a federal judge, you have no legal recourse. Danielle Pletka So, Carrie, do we have some data as to how widespread this is? And is it mostly judges who are doing it or other officials who... What do we know about this? Carrie Sussman That's a really important question. The data that we do have comes from the federal court system itself. Last winter, just a few months

ago, they put out the first report on workplace issues. And they suggested that most of the complaints come from people who are working in other parts of the court system than law clerks. For instance, the data they have suggests that only seven law clerks between 2021 and 2024 actually reported their judges. Seven. And there are more than 1,400 federal judges with life tenure. So seven complaints about those judges is not very many complaints. Now, the issue is, is more of that misbehavior happening and people are afraid to report it, or is it just not happening? When I talk with Elisa Schatzman, and when I talk with these clerks who reached out to us over the past year or so,

those anecdotal accounts suggest that bad judges are rare, but when there are problem judges on the bench, it's very hard to do anything about them. And so what I heard a lot was allegations of bullying and abusive and hostile conduct, judges who were really mistreating their law clerks, and to some extent allegations of sexual assault, unwanted touching, and other problems. Now when I reached out to the court system, the administrative offices of the US courts, they point out that they put in place a lot of changes since

the Me Too movement erupted. Like what? They have something like 500 people working in different parts of the court system who can hear complaints from people, law clerks, secretaries, court reporters, any old kind of person, and give them advice. And so there is a system in place now where they can escalate and file former complaints, but that's a pretty rare thing to do. And when those complaints are filed,

sometimes it's the judge's colleagues or friends or the judge down the hallway that turns out to be the decider. And so clerks who think about reporting are worried about maintaining their anonymity and even more important, keeping up in the legal profession, these judges have the power to make or break your career. Has there been retaliation against people who did come forward? I've certainly talked to people who feel they have been retaliated against, Mara.

And there are a small number of people who have filed formal complaints against judges. You know, they really feel as if they're treated differently. And to some extent, if really feel as if they're treated differently. And to some extent, if their judge about whom they complained is called as a reference, that those judges have given them very negative references. And this is a real fear in part because you come out of law school often with hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt.

And if you can't get a job, you can't pay down your law school bills. Well, I think about we were talking about this, like the power dynamic here. And this is an imperfect metaphor, but you both recall several years ago, there was huge national stories about sexual assault in the military. And part of the problem was the culture that you had to report it up a chain of command. And it was the same chain of command that had to address it. There's been many reforms in the Pentagon under that regard. But Carrie, to your point about law clerks, I was thinking about this. Like, if you want a career in law, who you clerk for, that judge writing your letters of recommendations, I mean, it really can be make or break for a career. And that's something you can speak

to uniquely that I'm not sure that people fully understand that how important that relationship can be. You know, a judge has the power with one phone call to get you an interview with the best law firm in town or an interview at a university or a law school. And a judge similarly has the power to stop you from getting any of those jobs and in many future jobs. You know, for so many people we talk about in politics here in Washington and around the country or who have big jobs in the courts, the first or second paragraph

of stories about them is who they clerked for. That relationship is often like a family. You know, they have reunions with their clerks every year, every other year. But that closeness can curdle into something really problematic, unethical, and wrong. I heard from so many clerks. Okay, let's take a quick break and we'll talk more about this when we get back. This message comes from Wise, the app for doing things in other currencies. Sending or spending money abroad, hidden fees may be taking a cut. With Wise, you can convert between up to 40 currencies at the mid-market exchange rate.

Visit WISE.com. TNCs apply. And we're back. So, Carrie, are there any efforts underway to try to address things like this on a bigger, broader level? You know, the judiciary in the last year or so has been investigated by two independent research bodies, the Government Accountability Office and the Federal Judicial Center and

the National Academy of Public Administration. And both of those reports had some praise for the system the courts have in place now, but they also identified some big problems, like there's not enough information on court websites about how to report this stuff. And there's really not a lot of data collection. I talked about that with Gabe Roth. He pushes for more accountability for the courts at a group called Fix the Court. There's tons of stats. You want to know the birth year of some random judge in Missouri from 1897? They have that. But the idea that they

have not successfully captured the most common type of complaint is very frustrating. Danielle Pletka And so Roth says really, a lot more needs to be done to understand the scope of this problem. And, you know, I even have talked with current and former judges about it. It's very complicated. Judges feel uncomfortable squealing about each other. And so the system perpetuates because a new batch of law clerks can come in and not understand the previous batch of law clerks had problems.

Did you find that it was a culture that people are aware of? I think about, again, when you reference the Me Too movement, a lot of things, it was like the floodgates opened. It's like if you started talking to people about this, it was like, oh, of course, and yes, it's everywhere. I mean, did you find that? I was surprised about how many people entered this system as law clerks or court reporters or working in clerk's offices or some other capacity who did not realize that it's basically

an at-will employment system. So you can be fired for any reason at any time. And sometimes they don't even need to give you a reason. And depending on where you live and work, it can be really hard to find another job like this one that pays the same. And so there's a lot of pressure on people to make it work. And when it doesn't work and when a judge takes a dislike to you for whatever reason, it's super hard to convince the judge otherwise, and it's

super hard to either find a lawyer to advise you or navigate this system on your own because you either don't have enough money to pay a lawyer to advise you or, you know, a lawyer doesn't even want to get involved because they need to appear before these judges too. Yeah, that's a good point. I have a question which seems kind of obvious. Are all of the cases that you're aware of men harassing women? You know, Mara, I have heard about more than two dozen judges, people appointed by Democratic presidents and by Republican presidents.

And the most common thing I hear is abusive or hostile conduct and bullying. And I've heard that about male judges and about women judges. Wow. A lot of complaints. And it's not confined to people who've been on the bench for 30 or 40 years. I've heard a lot of complaints about some new judges too. And yet people are so afraid to talk about it. The biggest finding of the past year or so for me is that even though the courts have made changes, there's still such

a widespread culture of fear because of what it means to report, what it means for your livelihood, what it means for your future career. And you don't want to wind up in a Google search for the rest of your life complaining about a judge. It's rough. Yeah. Are there efforts to address this in Congress? You know, we have had a couple of members of Congress in particular pushing. Norma Torres, a Democrat from California, has tried to use the appropriations process to compel the judiciary to make some changes or at least fund these research studies that

I talked about. Hank Johnson, Democrat of Georgia, has also been involved and has introduced a bill called the Judiciary Accountability Act, but nobody took action on it before Congress left town last year. And on the Senate side, people like Senator Mazie Hirono of Hawaii, a Democrat, have been active, as has Lisa Murkowski, a Republican from Alaska. But there haven't been a lot of Republican co-sponsors otherwise. Danielle Pletka If Congress doesn't act on this, and that's

a reasonable thing to presume because it doesn't sound like a priority on Capitol Hill, is there anything the judiciary can do to police itself? Jessica McAllister You know, they have tried with these internal complaint systems they developed and with the people they've kind of deputized across the country. But I think it's important for folks to know that the judiciary is not run like the White House is. There isn't one person in charge, right? Each system or each circuit court kind of operates as a fiefdom. And so they have their own rules and their own ways of complaining and their own systems.

And while people in Washington can try to tell these courts what to do, they don't really always have to listen. And you know, we are living in an era where we're finding out that various parts of our government are unaccountable in any way. And this obviously predates Donald Trump, the problem that you're reporting on, but we are really in uncharted territory because there are a lot of government officials who have no checks and balances. One of the most galling things to the clerks who spoke with me was the idea that the judiciary

is not subject to the same kinds of civil rights laws that other workplaces are. That they are in charge of enforcing. And that the judges hear plenty of complaints about workplace problems in other employment contexts. And that just seemed like too much to stomach for people. Exactly. All right. That is it for us today. But you can hear an extended version of Carrie's reporting. It'll be in our podcast feed this weekend on Saturday, right here on the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Susan Davis. I cover politics.

I'm Carrie Johnson. I cover the Justice Department. And I'm Mara Eliason, senior national political correspondent. And thanks for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast. At Radiolab, we love nothing more than nerding out about science, neuroscience, chemistry. But, but, we do also like to get into other kinds of stories. Stories about policing, or politics, country music, hockey, sex, of bugs. Regardless of whether we're looking at science or not science, we bring a rigorous curiosity to get you the answers. And hopefully make you see the world anew.

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