Law students challenge judiciary's internal system for handling misconduct

Law schools often push students to work for the federal courts, in prestigious jobs as interns or clerks.

But those students can get a harsh surprise when they learn judges exercise near total control over their hours, holidays and work culture. And there's no clear way to complain or sue outside that system.

A group of law students at Emory University in Atlanta is trying to change that. They recently petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to take up a case that challenges the internal system the judiciary uses to police itself.

Unlike most other American workers, tens of thousands of people who work for the federal courts are not covered by landmark civil rights protections—and they cannot turn to an independent agency for help if they experience harassment or discrimination on the job.

Sofia Bettini, a recent Emory graduate who worked on the Supreme Court petition, said it was a "no brainer" for the students to pick this issue out of several other requests for help that came their way at the university's Supreme Court Advocacy Program.

"You may not know as a student entering a clerkship that you're going to forgo certain workplace protections that you otherwise would never have to even consider forgoing because they just seem that fundamental," Bettini said.

Many of her friends and colleagues expect to take jobs in the courts someday. So the plight of clerks, probation officers and public defenders who work for the judicial branch felt personal.

"They have nowhere to turn, no independent enforcer, no neutral decision maker and there exists a very real threat that speaking up will cost them everything," Bettini said.

Bettini and nine other students in the program spent weeks researching the facts and the law. They're working to support a former federal public defender, who says she faced sexual harassment on the job.

Professor Paul Koster said it's the only student-led Supreme Court litigation program in the country.

"These students aren't getting credits for this, they're not getting graded on this, they're doing the work because they want to do the work," Koster said.

Current system provides due process for some

At the center of the case is the unique system the courts use to police themselves and whether it gives workers due process and equal protection under the law.

Student Andrew Taramykin said the judiciary is a special place, with some 30,000 employees.

"Yes it's a huge employer but in many ways it's a small community," said Taramykin, who will enter his third and final year of law school in the fall.

He spent hours researching a fundamental civil rights law, known as Title VII, for that Supreme Court petition.

"Title VII goes back to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and it prohibits certain unlawful workplace conduct that includes what we generally understand as workplace harassment, workplace discrimination," he said.

By 1995, lawmakers had passed a new law to extend those protections to workers in Congress. And Taramykin said by his read, Congress intended federal court employees to get protections too. But he said lawmakers wanted to give the judiciary wide berth to execute on them.

Every federal circuit court has since developed its own human resources program for workers to resolve disputes. Those rules typically leave judges to oversee complaints against people they know and might work with every day.

The Emory law students said that's not the kind of neutral, independent decision making that's promised in the civil rights law.

"Autonomy for the institution cannot come at the cost of basic workplace rights and safety for people within it," Bettini said.

An earlier NPR investigation found clerks and other employees who face abuse in the courts often find little recourse.

Judicial misconduct is drawing fresh attention

Caryn Strickland, the former public defender who says she faced harassment at work, said she's proud of the students for taking up her cause.

"The shortcomings in civil rights protections for the judiciary's 30,000 employees will only be addressed if the legal community is willing to stand up publicly against this serious injustice," Strickland said in a written statement to NPR.

A spokesman for the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts in Washington declined comment on the case. But that office has been defending the judiciary's internal system as robust. And they've said changes are underway to make it easier to report wrongdoing.

The Supreme Court has asked the Justice Department for a response to the students' petition —due next month.

The law student-drafted petition comes as misconduct in the judiciary is drawing renewed attention. This month, three federal judges in three different states came under scrutiny for their behavior off the bench.

Impeachment by Congress is the most severe sanction federal judges can experience. But just 15 judges have been impeached, and only eight removed from office.