US Court Staff Filed 17 Complaints Against Judges, Watchdog Says

Judiciary employees filed 17 complaints against federal judges from fiscal 2020 through 2022, a federal watchdog found in a report examining the judicial branch’s efforts to address workplace misconduct.

Allegations raised in those employee-raised complaints included “abusive conduct by a judge, religious discrimination, and discrimination and harassment based on the employee’s pregnancy,” the Government Accountability Office found in a report released Tuesday.

In one instance, a judge was “privately reprimanded,” and in another, the judge was found to have created a hostile work environment, the report said. The report doesn’t specify either case. Those complaints were initiated under the Judicial Conduct and Disability Act.

Federal judiciary employees can file complaints against judges or other court staff through internal reporting channels through each circuit, or seek informal advice about workplace issues and file reports through a national office. The report was released as the judiciary’s workplace misconduct practices come under scrutiny, as its employees are not covered by federal anti-discrimination statutes.

Judicial complaints recently made public include the Second Circuit judicial council’s decision to back the dismissal allegations against one unnamed judge after pledging to fix the issues raised in the complaint. And earlier this month, Joshua Kindred, a former federal judge in Alaska, resigned after a judiciary inquiry found he sexually harassed his clerk and created a hostile work environment for other employees.

Some complaints were dismissed for not having enough evidence, according to the report.

Individuals also filed 161 complaints under the employment dispute resolution system, known as EDR, from fiscal 2020 through fiscal 2022, which spans from October 2019 through September 2022. Those complaints included more than 500 misconduct allegations, and the most frequent category of misconduct allegation was discrimination, according to the report.

The report found that the number of allegations lodged increased during that time frame, from 124 allegations made through that channel in fiscal 2020 to 336 in fiscal 2022. Judiciary officials “could not identify a specific cause for the increase,” but suggested it could be “improved trust and familiarity with the reporting options” or the return of in-person work after the pandemic.

AO Director Robert Conrad said in a response attached to the report that the judiciary “is committed to supporting its more than 30,000 employees by addressing workplace conduct issues promptly and effectively.”

The GAO found that protections for judiciary employees “are similar to the statutory protections that apply to most federal employees.” While some “exceed those that apply by statute,” other protections are “more limited,” the report said.

The report notes that some of the judiciary’s training materials are aligned with recommended practices from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the federal agency that enforces workplace protection laws. The federal judiciary doesn’t fall under the scope of the EEOC.

But the watchdog said other materials aren’t fully in line with agency’s practices, and can vary from circuit to circuit.

Tracking Reports

The GAO report said that the federal courts should start to track informal reports of workplace misconduct, as that information currently isn’t collected. Judiciary officials said doing so could raise confidentiality concerns, but that they are considering a change that would collect more limited data about that informal advice.

It also said that the judiciary didn’t collect data related to workplace misconduct when it’s reported out of the formal processes, or through informal advice. Court officials told the GAO that those outside processes can help resolve issues informally.

“Because the judiciary does not collect data on issues” raised through the informal advice option or reported outside of the informal processes, “it may be undercounting the number of reported workplace misconduct incidents, or not fully understanding the scope of the problem,” the report said.

The GAO suggested that creating a plan for collecting and analyzing data on the types of misconduct currently not being tracked “could help the judiciary better address specific workplace conduct issues and help ensure a workplace that is free from discrimination, harassment, retaliation, and abusive conduct.”

The report also referenced a national climate survey that the judiciary conducted for employees last year, but said that data wasn’t finalized in time for it to be used as part of the GAO report.

It said information like that collected in the national survey might help the judiciary formally evaluate the effectiveness of its policies, which it hasn’t done. The watchdog said it requested interviews with employee advisory groups, but that the judiciary made one current and one former employee available “after significant delays.”

A spokesperson for the Administrative Office of the US Courts, the judiciary’s administrative arm, said the office “went to extraordinary lengths to ensure cooperation with the GAO study of its workplace conduct policies and procedures and endeavored to maintain a constructive working relationship.”

The current and former staffer “were the only two employees who agreed to participate based on this request,” and the GAO also interviewed two judges, 10 circuit workplace relations directors, and other AO staff, the spokesperson said.