[House Hearing, 117 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


                    WORKPLACE PROTECTIONS FOR FEDERAL
                   JUDICIARY EMPLOYEES: FLAWS IN THE
                    CURRENT SYSTEM AND THE NEED FOR
                            STATUTORY CHANGE

=======================================================================

                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

                SUBCOMMITTEE ON COURTS, INTELLECTUAL 
                      PROPERTY, AND THE INTERNET

                                 OF THE

                       COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY

                     U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                    ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS

                             SECOND SESSION

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                        THURSDAY, MARCH 17, 2022

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                           Serial No. 117-59

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         Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary
         
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]         


               Available via: http://judiciary.house.gov
               
                               __________

                    U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE                    
48-350                     WASHINGTON : 2022                     
          
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                       COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY

                    JERROLD NADLER, New York, Chair
                MADELEINE DEAN, Pennsylvania, Vice-Chair

ZOE LOFGREN, California              JIM JORDAN, Ohio, Ranking Member
SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas            STEVE CHABOT, Ohio
STEVE COHEN, Tennessee               LOUIE GOHMERT, Texas
HENRY C. ``HANK'' JOHNSON, Jr.,      DARRELL ISSA, California
    Georgia                          KEN BUCK, Colorado
THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida          MATT GAETZ, Florida
KAREN BASS, California               MIKE JOHNSON, Louisiana
HAKEEM S. JEFFRIES, New York         ANDY BIGGS, Arizona
DAVID N. CICILLINE, Rhode Island     TOM McCLINTOCK, California
ERIC SWALWELL, California            W. GREG STEUBE, Florida
TED LIEU, California                 TOM TIFFANY, Wisconsin
JAMIE RASKIN, Maryland               THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky
PRAMILA JAYAPAL, Washington          CHIP ROY, Texas
VAL BUTLER DEMINGS, Florida          DAN BISHOP, North Carolina
J. LUIS CORREA, California           MICHELLE FISCHBACH, Minnesota
MARY GAY SCANLON, Pennsylvania       VICTORIA SPARTZ, Indiana
SYLVIA R. GARCIA, Texas              SCOTT FITZGERALD, Wisconsin
JOE NEGUSE, Colorado                 CLIFF BENTZ, Oregon
LUCY McBATH, Georgia                 BURGESS OWENS, Utah
GREG STANTON, Arizona
VERONICA ESCOBAR, Texas
MONDAIRE JONES, New York
DEBORAH ROSS, North Carolina
CORI BUSH, Missouri

         AMY RUTKIN, Majority Staff Director and Chief of Staff
               CHRISTOPHER HIXON, Minority Staff Director
                                
                                ------                                

           SUBCOMMITTEE ON COURTS, INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY, AND
                              THE INTERNET

             HENRY C. ``HANK'' JOHNSON, Jr., Georgia, Chair
                  MONDAIRE JONES, New York, Vice-Chair

THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida          DARRELL ISSA, California, Ranking 
HAKEEM JEFFRIES, New York                Member
TED LIEU, California                 STEVE CHABOT, Ohio
GREG STANTON, Arizona                LOUIS GOHMERT, Texas
ZOE LOFGREN, California              MATT GAETZ, Florida
STEVE COHEN, Tennessee               MIKE JOHNSON, Louisiana
KAREN BASS, California               TOM TIFFANY, Wisconsin
ERIC SWALWELL, California            THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky
MONDAIRE JONES, New York             DAN BISHOP, North Carolina
DEBORAH ROSS, North Carolina         MICHELLE FISCHBACH, Michigan
JOE NEGUSE, Colorado                 SCOTT FITZGERALD, Wisconsin
                                     CLIFF BENTZ, Oregon

                      JAMIE SIMPSON, Chief Counsel
                     BETSY FERGUSON, Senior Counsel
                            
                            C O N T E N T S

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                        Thursday, March 17, 2022

                                                                   Page

                           OPENING STATEMENTS

The Honorable Henry C. ``Hank'' Johnson, Jr., Chair of the 
  Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, and the Internet 
  from the State of Georgia......................................     2
The Honorable Darrell Issa, Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on 
  Courts, Intellectual Property, and the Internet from the State 
  of California..................................................     3
The Honorable Jerrold Nadler, Chair of the Committee on the 
  Judiciary from the State of New York...........................     5

                               WITNESSES
                                Panel I

Caitlyn Clark, Former Law Clerk, United States District Court for 
  the Middle District of Georgia Foundation
  Oral Testimony.................................................   104
  Prepared Statement.............................................   107
Caryn D. Strickland, Attorney
  Oral Testimony.................................................   126
  Prepared Statement.............................................   128
Laura C. Minor, Former Associate Director (ret.), Department of 
  Program Services, Administrative Office of the United States 
  Courts
  Oral Testimony.................................................   147
  Prepared Statement.............................................   149
Sarah Parshall Perry, Legal Fellow, Edwin Meese III Center for 
  Legal and Judicial Studies, The Heritage Foundation
  Oral Testimony.................................................   158
  Prepared Statement.............................................   160
Ally Coll, President and Co-Founder, The Purple Campaign
  Oral Testimony.................................................   170
  Prepared Statement.............................................   172

                                Panel II

The Honorable M. Margaret McKeown, Circuit Judge, United States 
  Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
  Oral Testimony.................................................   194
The Honorable Julie A. Robinson, Senior Judge, United States 
  District Court for the District of Kansas
  Oral Testimony.................................................   195
  Combined Prepared Statement....................................   198
  Supplement Material............................................   219

          LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING

Materials submitted by the Honorable Henry C. ``Hank'' Johnson, 
  Jr., Chair of the Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual 
  Property, and the Internet from the State of Georgia, for the 
  record
  A statement from Aziz Huq, Frank and Bernice J. Greenberg 
    Professor of Law, University of Chicago Law School...........     8
  A statement from Aliza Shatzman, Former Law Clerk, Superior 
    Court of the District of Columbia............................    17
  A letter from Olivia Warren....................................    28
  A letter from sixty coalition organizations....................    30
  A letter from Michelle Cohen Levy, Attorney, The Law Office of 
    Michelle Cohen Levy, P.A.....................................    34
  A letter from Deeva Shah, Associate, Keker, Van Nest & Peters 
    LLP..........................................................    40

                                APPENDIX

A letter from Larry Cosme, National President, Federal Law 
  Enforcement Officers Association, submitted by the Honorable 
  Henry C. ``Hank'' Johnson, Jr., Chair of the Subcommittee on 
  Courts, Intellectual Property, and the Internet from the State 
  of Georgia, for the record.....................................   448

 
                   WORKPLACE PROTECTIONS FOR FEDERAL
   JUDICIARY EMPLOYEES: FLAWS IN THE CURRENT SYSTEM AND THE NEED FOR
                            STATUTORY CHANGE

                              ----------                              


                        Thursday, March 17, 2022

                        House of Representatives

             Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property,

                            and the Internet

                       Committee on the Judiciary

                             Washington, DC

    The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:06 a.m., in 
Room 2141, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Hank Johnson 
[Chair of the Subcommittee] presiding.
    Members present: Representatives Johnson of Georgia, 
Nadler, Stanton, Jones, Ross, Issa, Jordan, Gohmert, Tiffany, 
Fitzgerald, and Bentz.
    Also present: Representative Dean.
    Staff present: Aaron Hiller, Chief Counsel and Deputy Staff 
Director; John Doty, Senior Advisor and Deputy Staff Director; 
David Greengrass, Senior Counsel; Moh Sharma, Director of 
Member Services and Outreach & Policy Advisor; Cierra Fontenot, 
Chief Clerk; Gabriel Barnett, Staff Assistant, Merrick Nelson, 
Digital Director; Kayla Hamedi, Deputy Communications Director; 
Jamie Simpson, Chief Counsel for Courts & IP; Evan R. 
Christopher, Counsel for Courts & IP; Matt Robinson, Counsel 
for Courts & IP; Atarah McCoy, Professional Staff Member/
Legislative Aide for Courts & IP; Ella Yates, Minority Member 
Services Director; Betsy Ferguson, Minority Senior Counsel; 
Andrea Woodard, Minority Professional Staff Member; and Kiley 
Bidelman, Minority Clerk.
    Mr. Johnson of Georgia. The Subcommittee will come to 
order. Without objection, the Chair is authorized to declare 
recesses of the Subcommittee at any time.
    We welcome everyone to this morning's hearing on Workplace 
Protections for Federal Judiciary Employees: Flaws in the 
Current System and the Need for Statutory Change.
    Without objection, the gentlewoman from Pennsylvania, Ms. 
Dean, will sit with the Subcommittee for this hearing and will 
be permitted to ask questions of the Witnesses if yielded time 
by a Member of the Subcommittee.
    Before we begin, I will remind Members that we have 
established an email address and distribution list dedicated to 
circulating exhibits, motions, or other written materials that 
Members might want to offer as part of today's hearing. If you 
would like to submit materials, please send them to the email 
address that has been previously distributed to your offices 
and we will circulate the materials to Members and staff as 
quickly as we can.
    I would also ask all Members to please mute your 
microphones when you are not speaking. This will help prevent 
feedback and other technical issues. You may unmute yourself 
any time you seek recognition.
    I will recognize myself for an opening statement.
    Good morning, and welcome to today's hearing on Workplace 
Protections for Federal Judiciary Employees: Flaws in the 
Current System and the Need for Statutory Change. The purpose 
of this hearing is simple. The more than 30,000 women and men 
who work for our Federal courts deserve a workplace free from 
sexual harassment, discrimination, and retaliation. Yet, the 
Federal civil rights statutes that protect nearly every 
civilian employee in the country, public or private, do not 
extend to them. This is by design. Policymakers in the 
judiciary have waged a decades-long campaign to stop Congress 
from remedying this grave injustice.
    As hard as it may be to believe, the same judges who are 
obligated to enforce our foundational anti-discrimination laws, 
have fought off every attempt to extend those same laws to 
their own employees. The results are as predictable as they are 
devastating. In our Subcommittee hearing on this topic two 
years ago, we heard about the tremendous unconscionable impact 
it had on Olivia Warren, who testified about the abuse she 
endured as a law clerk and about how the system failed her when 
she reported that abuse.
    These results are not inevitable. Thanks to Ms. Warren, her 
fellow Witnesses and many other experts and whistleblowers, we 
now have the Judiciary Accountability Act, bipartisan 
legislation that will give judiciary employees meaningful 
rights against workplace misconduct.
    While this legislation provides a pathway for real change, 
until it passes, Judicial Branch employees continue to be 
harassed and discriminated against with little recourse. Time 
and time again, representatives of the judiciary have told us 
that there isn't a problem and we should let them handle it 
themselves. Yet, time and time again, we hear from employees 
that the system is not working. Not only is it not working, but 
we continue to hear how the system worked against employees 
when they tried to report wrongdoing. Some of them fearing 
retaliation have chosen to remain anonymous. Others cannot 
speak because of the nondisclosure agreements the judiciary has 
shockingly forced them to sign. Three former judiciary 
employees are here today willing to speak out, Ms. Clark, Ms. 
Strickland, and Ms. Minor.
    I especially want to thank you for being with us today and 
I know that it wasn't an easy choice, but your testimony brings 
us that much closer to giving every Judicial Branch employee 
the foundational rights that they deserve. You are making a 
difference and we are forever in your debt.
    In closing, I want to read from the powerful letter Ms. 
Warren submitted for today's hearing. It is a lengthy quote so 
stick with me.

        When I made the difficult choice to testify, I naively hoped 
        that no one else would have to do so. I am in awe of the 
        bravery of the Witnesses today and heartbroken that more 
        individual courage is required to continue to expose the depth 
        and breadth of harassment in the judiciary. I hoped that the 
        judiciary would take decades of calls to action seriously, 
        especially in light of the repeated revelations over the past 
        four and a half years. But instead of meaningfully 
        investigating a problem that every other workplace also faces 
        and is under legal obligation to address, Members of the 
        judiciary prefer to minimize the problem, applaud themselves 
        for establishing working groups, and write law review articles 
        extolling purported progress. The inaction on this imminently 
        actionable problem remains baffling and deeply painful. It is a 
        stain on our judiciary. And today marks yet another sad and 
        shameful day in a line of sad and shameful days. I hope that 
        Congress will enact this bipartisan legislation and step in to 
        guarantee basic workplace protections for the 30,000 employees 
        of the Federal judiciary. I hope that members of the legal 
        profession, most of whom continue to remain silent and 
        disengaged, will support this call to action. And I hope that 
        one day our courts will be deserving of public confidence and 
        the promise of equal justice to all, equal justice for all.

    Those are powerful words from an extraordinary, courageous, 
and powerful woman.
    It is now my pleasure to recognize the Ranking Member of 
the Subcommittee, the gentleman from California, Ms. Issa, for 
his opening statement.
    Mr. Issa. Thank you, Mr. Chair. In this particular case, I 
want to associate myself, first, with all of your remarks. They 
help us set the gravity of what we are considering today and 
what we are hearing today. I want to thank our Witnesses.
    This type of a situation of hostile workplaces in the past 
and likely in the present and even with action in the future 
must be a continued process of accountability. I am more than 
many Members a believer in the separation of powers. I know 
that the 600 or so article III Federal judges are to enjoy a 
special deference from this branch and from the Executive 
Branch to ensure that they can maintain the independence that 
our Founding Fathers wanted them to have and gave them special 
standing to have. They are not the only employees of the 
Judicial Branch. There are, in fact, thousands of employees. 
They are men and they are women. They are human. Humans do 
things wrong every day in the workplace predictably.
    So, as much as I believe that we have to think of and look 
at our constitutional officers, including the nine that sit 
just a quarter of a mile from here, with some deference, we 
also have to look at this large amount of Federal employees who 
employ other employees and who as we will hear today have and 
perhaps a rare exception, but not nearly rare enough, have in 
fact engaged in conduct which has been both statutorily defined 
and Federally adjudicated as wrong.
    That last part is the part I most want to associate myself 
with Chair on. The adjudication of what is wrong under these 
statutes should not be a different standard simply because you 
work in the article III versus the article 2 or article 1.
    When I came to this body some 22 years ago, we had reduced 
the amount of times that we as a body, Congress, exempted 
ourselves. Over the last 22 years, we have further reduced that 
and particularly when a process that we had had to deal with 
workplace inappropriate behavior including by Members, was 
brought to light, it was brought to light with great 
embarrassment. We had basically paid employees to go away and 
kept quiet the misconduct sometimes of nonconstitutional 
officers, but sometimes of these constitutional officers in the 
House and the Senate.
    For that reason, the 30,000 employees that work for judges 
as law clerks or other clerks, for Federal defenders, court 
support staff, deserve this hearing and deserve thoughtful 
legislation to ensure that they are protected at least as well 
as they are in the other two branches.
    The harmonizing to the greatest extent possible needs to 
occur and we need to do it and this is the part where I show my 
deference, if you will, we need to do it in a way that is 
accepted by those Federal judges, excepted by the 30,000 people 
who work over there, as fair and showing appropriate deference 
to the branch having certain differences. Let's not exaggerate 
those differences. If a Federal judge assaults someone, they 
need to be held accountable.
    By the way, this is not the only place that this Committee 
needs to continue working. Another example is lawyers in the 
Department of Justice, to this day, refuse to have any 
disclosure to the Inspector General. They continue to consider 
themselves separate even when they have been accused of 
wrongdoing including workplace harassment, including sexual 
harassment.
    So, as we look appropriately at Chair's work product, I 
think we look at it not as the final product, but not as a 
product to be cast aside. We will take action. We will take 
action on a bipartisan basis.
    Today, we will hear from one of the Witnesses about some of 
the progress that has been made, and I look forward to that. 
The question is is progress something that can be verified and 
relied on and, in fact, does it take the place of a statute? I 
believe in some cases it might. Self-rule by the article III 
branch is perfectly reasonable. It has to be the equivalent of 
statute. It has to be accountable, and it has to be 
transparent. That last part is the part over and above what we 
are already dealing with here today that I am most concerned 
about. I do not want accusations that might be related to 
keeping a judge off of a case or the like which certainly, and 
all of you who have seen lawyers work and work very diligently 
know, lawyers can be so nefarious that they actually would try 
to have someone come forward that would bounce a judge. We have 
to protect against that.
    At the same time, we have to hold everyone, including these 
constitutional officers, accountable. So, for that reason, I 
come here with an open mind toward not just the legislation, 
before us, but other measures that we will need, too. Again, I 
want to thank this panel of all women, who come before us today 
to tell us what they believe needs to be changed and what 
happened to them in their lives.
    With that, Mr. Chair, again, thank you for this important 
hearing and I yield back.
    Mr. Johnson of Georgia. I thank the Ranking Member for his 
statement and I am now pleased to recognize the Chair of the 
Full Committee, the gentleman from New York, Mr. Nadler, for 
his opening statement.
    Chair Nadler. Thank you, Mr. Chair, for holding this 
important hearing and for leading this Subcommittee's ongoing 
efforts to investigate the persistent problem of harassment and 
discrimination in the Federal judiciary and explore what 
Congress can do to address it.
    The United States courts are supposed to be a pillar of our 
democracy built on justice and fairness, but it is becoming 
increasingly obviously that there is a crack in that 
foundation. Our courts are charged with dispensing justice to 
the litigants before them. Judiciary employees who are victims 
of harassment and discrimination are too often kept quiet, shut 
out in the very courtrooms they work so hard to support, and 
forced into Byzantine internal processes that effectively deny 
them the most basic procedural rights.
    It frequently seems that the courts' internal processes 
work to the benefit of the accused rather than the safety of 
the accuser. Judiciary employees are virtually alone among 
employees of both the public and private sectors in being 
carved out from certain protections of the foundational civil 
rights laws. Racial discrimination, age discrimination, 
disability discrimination, religious discrimination, gender 
discrimination, and sexual harassment, all these and more are 
prohibited by Federal statutes that are backed by the strength 
and certainty of Federal court litigation.
    An employee who has been victimized and who sues a harasser 
or abuser in court, has the right to discovery, inspecting 
documents and examining Witnesses, as well as the right to a 
neutral, disinterested arbiter to hear and resolve the dispute. 
These are only a handful of the many rights inherent to 
litigation that are meant to ensure plaintiffs' meaningful 
participation in the investigation and adjudication of their 
claim. These rights protect victims of discrimination and 
harassment and encourage the kinds of reporting and 
transparency that can identify hostile workplaces and stop 
patterns of abuse.
    Unfortunately, judiciary employees are guaranteed none of 
these rights. Employees of the third branch have no assurance 
that their harassment of discrimination claims will be 
addressed and their harms redressed in the same manner as 
nearly every other American worker.
    Fortunately, Congress can take action. We did so in 1995 
and again in 2018, when we closed the loopholes that exempted 
employees in our own branch from the same statutes. The 
judiciary should have been included in those efforts, but such 
reform faced strong resistance from the leadership of the 
courts at the time, a position that has endured for nearly 
three decades.
    Meanwhile, the need to extend these basic protections to 
judicial branch employees becomes more urgent all the time. As 
this Subcommittee's 2020 hearing exposed, harassment and 
discrimination remain serious problems within the Judicial 
Branch. Even more concerning, these problems have persisted 
notwithstanding the judiciary's attempt to address them with 
changes to its internal human resource policies, policies that 
are currently the only recourse of judicial branch employees 
when they have been victims of harassment or discrimination. 
That is why Congress must extend to them the protections of 
Federal civil rights laws. What the judiciary is doing is not 
working and Congress must intervene.
    Today, we will hear from a diverse panel of experts and 
advocates and whistleblowers, all whom have long-standing 
experience with the judiciary and the workplace misconduct 
suffered by judiciary employees. We will also hear from 
representatives of the judiciary and I appreciate hearing their 
perspective.
    To the Witnesses who are appearing today at their personal 
and professional risk, I want to thank you for your 
determination, your integrity, and your commitment to fair and 
equal justice.
    Today's hearing will serve as yet another piece of 
necessary labor towards maintaining the integrity and the 
independence of our third branch. Our work is not done. We will 
keep working to give Judicial Branch employees the rights and 
protections they need and deserve.
    Thank you, Mr. Chair. I yield back the balance of my time.
    Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. I thank the gentleman from New 
York. Before we introduce our first panel of Witnesses, without 
objection, I will enter--
    Mr. Jordan. Mr. Chair, I just want to thank our Witnesses 
for being here today. Thank you.
    Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Thank you, Mr. Ranking Member.
    The first statement that I will enter for the record is the 
statement of Professor Aziz Huq who is the Bernice J. Greenberg 
Professor of Law at the University of Chicago Law School. 
Professor Huq's statement concerns the constitutionality of 
congressional regulation of sexual harassment and related forms 
of misconduct within the judiciary.
    The second is a statement from Aliza Shatzman who served as 
a law clerk to a judge on the D.C. Superior Court. Ms. Shatzman 
describes the abuse of misconduct to which she was subjected 
while serving in that judge's chambers, the damage to her 
professional advancement and reputation that judge inflicted, 
and the lack of recourse she faced as she tried to report it.
    The third is a statement from Olivia Warren who testified 
before this Subcommittee in 2020. Ms. Warren builds on her 
earlier testimony and provides new, additional information and 
perspectives on this committee's investigation and the 
Judiciary Accountability Act.
    The fourth, a letter organized by the Project on Government 
Oversight and signed by more than 60 organizations applauding 
the Judiciary Accountability Act's inclusion of a provision 
that would extend and codify best practice whistleblower 
protections for all employees of the judiciary.
    I would also like to add a written statement from Michelle 
Cohen Levy who was counsel for one of our Witnesses here today, 
Caitlin Clark, during Ms. Clark's employment dispute resolution 
process.
    Finally, I would like to add a letter from Deeva Shah, an 
attorney from Keker, Van Nest & Peters which includes two 
anonymous statements from her clients, one from a former law 
clerk detailing the harassment she experienced while working at 
the Federal judiciary, and another from a judiciary employee 
detailing the use of nondisclosure agreements in the 
judiciary's employment dispute resolution process.
    [The information follows:]

                 MR. JOHNSON OF GEORGIA FOR THE RECORD

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    Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Today, we will have two panels of 
Witnesses. The first is a panel of individuals with experience 
in or testimony relevant to the Federal judiciary. The second 
consists of representatives of the U.S. Judicial Conference.
    I will now introduce the first panel of Witnesses.
    Caitlyn Clark is a Georgia attorney who has worked in 
private practice and previously served as a law clerk for Judge 
C. Ashley Royal in the United States District Court for the 
Middle District of Georgia. Ms. Clark earned her undergraduate 
degree from the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta and 
her law degree, cum laude, from Mercer University Law School in 
Macon, Georgia. Welcome, Ms. Clark.
    Caryn Strickland is a former assistant Federal public 
defender who currently works in private practice representing 
indigent criminal defendants. She is a former law clerk for a 
State Supreme Court Justice, a Federal District Court Judge, 
and a Federal Circuit Court Judge. She was the recipient of a 
prestigious Supreme Court fellowship working in the 
Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. Ms. Strickland 
received her B.A. with highest distinction from the University 
of Vermont and her J.D. magna cum laud and Order of the Coif 
from Duke University School of Law. Welcome, Ms. Strickland.
    Laura C. Minor worked for the Federal judiciary for 23 
years in numerous capacities with the Administrative Office of 
the U.S. Courts including as the Associate Director for Program 
Services, the Equal Employment Opportunities Officer, and 
Secretary to the Judicial Conference. She is now retired after 
her over two decades of distinguished public service. Ms. Minor 
is an attorney who earned her B.A. from Georgetown University 
and her J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center. Welcome, 
Ms. Minor.
    Sarah Parshall Perry is a Legal Fellow for the Edwin Meese 
III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies, part of the 
Institute for Constitutional Government at The Heritage 
Foundation. Her previous positions include Senior Counsel to 
Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of 
Education and Senior Fellow for Education Reform at the Family 
Research Council. Ms. Perry earned her B.S. from Liberty 
University and her J.D. from the University of Virginia School 
of Law. Welcome, Ms. Perry.
    Ally Coll is the President and Co-Founder of The Purple 
Campaign and an Adjunct Professor for Civil Rights Law at 
George Mason University. Prior to that, Ms. Coll worked in 
numerous capacities as a Hill staffer on political campaigns 
and as an attorney in private practice. Ms. Coll is nationally 
recognized as an expert on workplace harassment and 
discrimination and has been a contributor on numerous national 
news outlets. Ms. Coll earned her B.A. in history and political 
science magna cum laude from Tulane University and her J.D. 
magna cum laude from Harvard Law School. Welcome, Ms. Coll.
    Before we proceed with testimony, I would like to remind 
all of our Witnesses that you have a legal obligation to 
provide truthful testimony and answers to the Subcommittee and 
that any false statements you make today may subject you to 18 
U.S.C. 1001. Please note that your written statements will be 
entered into the record in their entirety. Accordingly, I ask 
that you summarize your testimony in five minutes. To help you 
stay within that time frame, there is a timing light on your 
table. When the light switches from green to yellow, you have 
one minute to conclude your testimony. When the light turns 
red, it means that your five minutes have expired.
    With this panel, we will have five-minute rounds of 
questions after the Witnesses' testimonies.
    Ms. Clark, you may begin.

                   STATEMENT OF CAITLYN CLARK

    Ms. Clark. Chair Johnson, Ranking Member Issa, and Members 
of the Subcommittee, good morning.
    My name is Caitlyn Clark and I appreciate the opportunity 
to testify at this Subcommittee hearing on protecting workplace 
rights for judiciary employees.
    At the outset, I'd like to emphasize that I am not here 
today to personally attack anyone I worked with in chambers. I 
am here to describe my experience clerking in the judiciary as 
an expectant mother.
    My sole purpose is to shed light on the inadequate 
protections for judiciary employees. The current protections 
failed me. I do not want them to fail others.
    In July 2019, I began what I thought would be a two-year 
term clerkship for Judge C. Ashley Royal, a senior U.S. 
District Court judge for the Middle District of Georgia.
    During the first six months of my clerkship, I built great 
relationships with Judge Royal's staff, including his career 
clerk, who had worked for the judge for more than 15 years. She 
seemed to think very highly of my work and I looked up to her 
as a mentor and a friend.
    By November of 2019, Judge Royal offered to extend my 
clerkship for an additional two years, and by January 2020, I 
received a performance-based raise. When I became pregnant with 
my second child, my hopes of building a career in the judiciary 
fell apart.
    After I announced my pregnancy to my colleagues in 
chambers, the career clerk's treatment of me changed. She 
became hypercritical of my writing, providing excessive and 
often contradictory feedback, which made it difficult to 
complete my work.
    If I asked her a question about her edits, she would 
belittle and berate me about the quality of my writing until I 
was reduced to tears. She never did any of this before I was 
pregnant.
    In early April of 2020, a few weeks into the pandemic 
lockdown, Judge Royal called me to his house, which he had 
never done before. He expressed frustration about the pace of 
my work and brought up my pregnancy. I remember him saying 
something along the lines of while clerking may be a good mommy 
job, work still has to be done.
    Later that same day, I called the career clerk to discuss a 
motion I was drafting. She grew impatient, raised her voice and 
said, ``It's infuriating to me. I mean, you're pregnant.'' I 
remember that word ``infuriating.'' She complained that my new 
baby was going to ruin her ability to enjoy her son's senior 
year of high school.
    I reported this conversation to Judge Royal the very next 
day, but he saw no need to intervene, and because clerks lack 
standard workplace protections under title VII, I had nowhere 
else to turn.
    Two months later, Judge Royal revoked the additional two-
year offer that he had made in November. Then, just 10 days 
before my daughter was born, he told me to clear out my office. 
Once my maternity leave ended, I would be terminated.
    I was shocked. I felt wronged. I had no recourse. At the 
time, there was no mechanism for me to file a complaint. In the 
days after my daughter was born while I was, of course, 
overjoyed at her arrival, my wrongful termination and treatment 
in chambers was weighing on me.
    Fortunately, a few weeks later, the Middle District of 
Georgia partially adopted the model Employee Dispute 
Resolution, or EDR plan, and allowed clerks to file misconduct 
complaints.
    I quickly discovered this system was broken. Pursuant to 
the plan, I first submitted a request for assisted resolution 
seeking reinstatement to a comparable position and a positive 
letter of recommendation.
    Judge Clay D. Land, who had served on the bench with Judge 
Royal for nearly 20 years, reviewed my request. His final two-
page report stated that my claims could not be resolved to my 
satisfaction and a resolution could not be reached.
    I then filed a 23-page formal complaint alleging unlawful 
harassment, retaliation, and discrimination. Judge Randal Hall, 
the chief judge of the Southern District of Georgia, 
adjudicated my complaint.
    Like Judge Land, Judge Hall, and Judge Royal are colleagues 
with nearly identical backgrounds. They have no incentive to 
police each other.
    I did not stand a chance in this forum either. I was denied 
the opportunity to conduct any discovery, cross-examine 
Witnesses, or participate in a hearing.
    Unsurprisingly, Judge Hall ruled against me and found I had 
no claim. I then had 30 days to appeal the decision. On the day 
of the deadline, the EDR coordinator told me that, unlike all 
of my earlier filings, my appeal had to be submitted in person. 
This was in July 2021 during the height of COVID.
    Determined to keep fighting, I drove three hours to Atlanta 
with my newborn and toddler in the car and filed the appeal 
with minutes to spare. Just this morning, nearly eight months 
later, the 11th Circuit affirmed the decision denying my claim. 
This decision is final.
    The EDR process is severely flawed. Law clerks are denied 
basic procedural protections and the independent evaluation 
that employees in virtually any other sector receive.
    Judges are left in charge of policing their own colleagues, 
allowing their conscious or unconscious biases to affect their 
decision. This stacks the deck against law clerks who are 
already extremely reluctant to speak out regarding misconduct, 
given the power and influence of Federal judges.
    Challenging a sitting Federal judge and, potentially, 
ruining one's career is simply not worth the risk.
    I urge Congress to reform the system to allow for basic 
procedural fairness, to eliminate the self-regulation of the 
judiciary, to guarantee Federal judiciary employees title VII 
protections, and to protect those who speak out against 
discrimination from the threat of retaliation.
    Thank you.
    [The statement of Ms. Clark follows:]
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    Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Thank you.
    To my colleagues, I do want to acknowledge that those who 
will be giving testimony will be given a little time to be able 
to finish. I think you should know that out of courtesy to the 
victimization that they have experienced. So, thank you very 
much for your understanding.
    With that, I'll now turn to Ms. Caryn Strickland. You may 
begin.

                STATEMENT OF CARYN D. STRICKLAND

    Ms. Strickland. Chair Johnson, Ranking Member Issa, and 
Members of this Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to 
testify.
    My name is Caryn Devins Strickland. Before I complained of 
sexual harassment, I was a valued judiciary employee. I clerked 
for a judge on the Second Circuit and served as a Supreme Court 
fellow before becoming a Federal public defender, my dream job 
since law school.
    When I reported sexual harassment and sex discrimination by 
my supervisors, I was stonewalled at every turn as judiciary 
officials protected the perpetrators and punished me.
    I was forced to resign and lose my chosen career. I did 
everything I could to report the harassment. The officials in 
charge of addressing workplace misconduct failed to take the 
most basic steps to address it and instead facilitated and 
aggravated the hostile working environment.
    Almost as soon as I began my job, the second in charge of 
my office, the first assistant, began targeting me with 
unwelcome attention that escalated into quid pro quo advances.
    When I told his supervisor, the Federal defender, that he 
was behaving inappropriately and I was leaving work early every 
day to avoid being alone with him, the defender responded in 
part by comparing my harassing supervisor's authority over me 
to a marriage and ordering me to compromise with him. He then 
placed me more closely under my harasser's supervision.
    I reached out to the judiciary civil rights officer for 
guidance on my rights. She said the behavior I reported was 
classic sexual harassment. She said I was highly credible, but 
she candidly advised that it would be less risky to find 
another job than file a complaint because the cards were 
stacked against me and in favor of management.
    In an effort to help me, she reached out to a senior 
official in the administrative office, who advised the defender 
to appropriately address the sexual harassment.
    Instead, the defender angrily berated me and said he was 
being blamed and attacked for something that was not his fault. 
Officials at the judiciary's highest levels then intervened to 
protect the defender and block the efforts to address the 
harassment.
    I was taken off the track for advancement and denied a 
promotion for which I qualified, a culmination of the first 
assistant's efforts to punish me for rejecting his advances.
    The EDR coordinator, who was supposed to be advising me on 
my rights, told me it was not helpful that I reported 
discrimination to the Administrative Office because barriers go 
up and people are on guard.
    Ultimately, I did file a complaint under the judiciary's 
employment dispute resolution plan. The EDR process went off 
the rails, and for more than six months officials took no 
meaningful action on my complaint.
    They denied my request to disqualify the defender from 
representing the office even though he was a subject of my 
complaint. They also failed to conduct an appropriate 
investigation.
    They told me that my claims against the defender would not 
be investigated. My witnesses were never interviewed. The 
investigator who the defender selected admitted she was not 
trained or qualified.
    After the investigation ended, I was told I would not 
receive the report or its findings. Officials deliberately 
delayed taking disciplinary action, pressuring me to resign.
    During mediation--a mandatory stage of the process--the 
mediator told me that the defender was from a generation that 
didn't get sexual harassment, but officials wouldn't 
micromanage him. He said that the defender who, again, was an 
accused person was the decision maker.
    At this point, I reached out to the judicial integrity 
officer who had recently been appointed to advise employees 
like me. She confirmed that officials would not meddle in the 
office and could not order remedies because article III judges 
do not have authority to manage Federal defender offices. She 
called this issue jurisdictional.
    Having endured a hostile working environment for more than 
six months with no meaningful action on my complaints, having 
been subjected to a deeply biased and unfair EDR process, and 
having been told that no remedies would be ordered even if I 
prevailed, I had no choice but to resign. I accepted a 
temporary clerkship, a devastating step backwards from my dream 
job, in the hopes of mitigating any further attempts to ruin my 
reputation and career.
    Almost a full year after I raised my complaints and several 
months after I resigned, the EDR coordinator informed me that 
disciplinary action was taken against my supervisors for 
wrongful conduct.
    I was still not told the investigation's findings or what 
corrective action was taken, nor was I offered the possibility 
of any remedies. My career was severely damaged while the 
supervisors who discriminated against me stayed in their 
positions.
    For the past two years, I have been challenging the 
discriminatory and unfair EDR process in Federal court under 
the pseudonym Jane Roe. The defendants argue that because I am 
not covered by title VII of the Civil Rights Act I have no 
right to review in a Federal court, even under the 
Constitution.
    If their position prevails, then I will have absolutely no 
remedy for the denial of my right to be free from sex 
discrimination.
    Although I fear further retaliation, I am testifying 
publicly because you, as a co-equal branch of government, have 
the power to provide judiciary employees like me meaningful 
protections from harassment and discrimination.
    Thank you.
    [The statement of Ms. Strickland follows:]
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    Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Thank you.
    Ms. Minor, you may now begin.

                  STATEMENT OF LAURA C. MINOR

    Ms. Minor. Thank you, Chair Johnson, Ranking Member Issa, 
and distinguished Members of this Committee for inviting me to 
testify.
    My name is Laura Minor and I worked in the Federal 
judiciary at the Administrative Office of the United States for 
23 years. During that time, I had direct insight into how the 
judiciary handles misconduct proceedings.
    Before I proceed, however, I would like to thank Ms. Clark 
and Ms. Strickland for sharing your experiences with us. I am 
sorry for what you were forced to endure and I appreciate your 
efforts to address the misconduct that you experienced.
    When I began working in the Federal judiciary, I had hoped 
to reach a point where employees did not have to testify before 
Congress to hold the judiciary accountable.
    Based on what I learned about the judiciary's response to 
workplace misconduct, although I am disheartened by your 
experiences, I am, sadly, unsurprised. I wish I could have done 
more, which is why I am here today.
    I am testifying today with the support of many of my former 
colleagues, my friends, and, most importantly, my family. I am 
a wife, a mother, and the grandmother of two young girls, Naomi 
and Olivia. I care deeply about making the world a better, 
safer, and more just place for my granddaughters and others, 
which is why I am sharing my experience.
    I spent 23 years working in the judiciary in various 
positions that progressed in responsibility, ultimately, 
serving as the Associate Director for the Department of Program 
Services, a position which reported directly to the director of 
the Administrative Office.
    During my tenure, I spent 16 years as the agency's Equal 
Employment Opportunity officer and became intimately familiar 
with the judiciary's struggles to deal with misconduct.
    In this position, I observed a process that discouraged 
people from speaking out for fear of retaliation and a system 
that did not have adequate procedural mechanisms in place to 
keep employees safe.
    Employees often left the judiciary after facing misconduct 
or attempting to report it. They were almost always worse off 
because of their experience, more hurt, more cynical, and more 
worn down.
    Despite repeatedly flagging these issues for leadership, I 
felt my concerns were not heard. Although my written testimony 
provides more depth, I want to outline four specific 
observations about the judiciary's inadequate procedures.

     (1)  Complaints were frequently chalked up to bad management 
instead of discrimination or harassment, which minimized misconduct and 
allowed management to ignore patterns.
     (2)  Management would immediately question the veracity of any 
allegation and then fixate on questioning the complainant's competence. 
Employees who reported misconduct were very quickly labeled problem 
employees.
     (3)  The lack of knowledge, training, resources, and awareness was 
glaring. Even when a complaint presented a clear case of sexual 
harassment, someone in management said there was nothing particularly 
attractive about the complainant, an irrelevant assessment used to 
diminish the misconduct.
     (4)  Management lacked any interest in systemic change. I asked 
for transparency through statistics about reporting and workforce 
demographics. I was told that was not possible.

    I also asked about impartial appeals procedures and clearer 
guidance for employees. My concerns were dismissed. Eventually, 
despite over a decade of service as the agency's EEO officer, I 
accepted that I could no longer make a difference and resigned 
from that position.
    I continued working for the agency, was promoted soon 
afterwards, and retired on good terms and entirely by my own 
decision. The critiques I provide here and in my written 
testimony also apply to other reporting avenues in the 
judiciary.
    As the secretary to the Judicial Conference for many years, 
I became familiar with the reporting procedures for judicial 
misconduct and also the EDR plan described by Ms. Strickland 
and Ms. Clark.
    Although, I am aware of the incremental changes that have 
been made to these reporting procedures since my departure, the 
testimony today confirms what I already know. Those changes are 
insufficient.
    Despite my faith and belief in the judiciary as an 
institution, I feel hopeless about the judiciary as an 
employer. In my opinion, the ineffective reporting procedures 
are merely a symptom of the larger problem--a culture that no 
amount of self-policing can fix.
    Although judges hold many of us accountable, they cannot 
and do not want to hold each other accountable. I urge this 
Committee to consider the pervasive nature of the misconduct 
you've heard about, the many instances that go unreported, and 
the employees that are silenced through well-founded fears of 
retaliation or unwanted NDAs.
    My testimony does not come lightly and my criticisms are 
not directed at any particular judges. I understand that you 
will hear from Judges McKeown and Robinson, for whom I have the 
utmost respect.
    I understand the difficulty and the gravity of their work 
because I also tried for years to reform these processes. I 
pushed judges to bring the thoughtfulness and brilliance that 
they exhibit in the courtroom to addressing issues of 
misconduct for their own employees.
    Now, I have no choice but to accept that the judiciary 
either cannot or will not shine a necessary light on this 
problem. Resolving this dissonance and guaranteeing basic 
workplace protections will require congressional action.
    Although the issues will not end with statutory protections 
alone, I ask you to provide judiciary employees with basic 
workplace protections for three reasons.

     (1)  These employees need concrete enforcement mechanisms instead 
of the current vague, biased, and ineffectual procedures.
     (2)  Legislation will help chip away at the judicial 
exceptionalism that, unfortunately, prevents any accountability.
     (3)  External pressure will be more effective in changing the 
culture of the judiciary and making accountability the norm, not just 
in the courtroom but in chambers and in our administrative offices, 
which have long been ignored.

    Thank you.
    [The statement of Ms. Minor follows:]
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    Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Thank you.
    Ms. Perry, you may now begin.

               STATEMENT OF SARAH PARSHALL PERRY

    Ms. Perry. Chair Johnson, Ranking Member Issa, Members of 
the Committee, thank you for giving me the opportunity to 
testify today. I also commend these brave women for sharing 
their stories. How easily 100-plus years of women's progress 
can be forgotten in some circles, how quickly we are relegated, 
in some circles, to nothing more than our sex.
    The late Supreme Court Justice and feminist icon Ruth Bader 
Ginsburg once said that judicial independence is vulnerable to 
assault. It can be shattered if the society law exists to serve 
does not take care to assure its preservation.
    The separation of powers demands that the three branches of 
American government operate separately from one another, and 
judicial independence is a foundational tenet of the third 
branch.
    As the only nonpolitical branch, the judiciary must be 
independent of the Executive and the Legislature to assure the 
absence of political influence.
    Congress has already empowered the Judicial Conference and 
the Circuit Judicial Councils to respond to complaints of 
judicial misconduct and prevent the legislature from meddling 
in the affairs and administration and workings of the 
judiciary, which is why this chamber's advancement of H.R. 4827 
is concerning.
    As the Judicial Conference's year-end report from 2021 
demonstrates, the judiciary is both aware of problems 
concerning the integrity of some judges and making extensive 
efforts to address them through wide-ranging reforms.
    In that Conference's report, Chief Justice John Roberts 
noted that the Judiciary Working Group recognized the 
seriousness of several high-profile incidents, but found that 
inappropriate workplace conduct is not pervasive within the 
judiciary. Yet, this bill would impose on the third branch a 
Commission on Judicial Integrity to oversee workplace 
misconduct and administer relief.
    Its membership would consist of Executive appointees, 
recommendations from the EEOC, the U.S. Commission on Civil 
Rights and other experts recommended by the Senate. The Chair 
and Vice Chair would serve for five years and be appointed by 
the Executive.
    The bill also calls for special counsel for equal 
employments and the establishment of an office for employee 
advocacy reporting to the House and Senate. Executive branch 
appointees overseeing the judicial branch, reporting to the 
legislative branch, is perhaps the penultimate separation of 
powers violation.
    This body's failure to seek input from the judiciary on 
this bill only proposes such an intrusion and how it's telling. 
The bill also duplicates recently updated employee protections.
    A 2018 June report commissioned by the Chief Justice after 
sexual harassment allegations surfaced against then Judge Alex 
Kozinski--surfaced, leading to the Federal judiciary's overhaul 
of its responses to workplace misconduct.
    The Judicial Working Group's 2018 findings and its 30 
adopted recommendations led to an amendment of the code of 
conduct for judges, the code of conduct for judicial employees, 
and the Judicial Conduct and Disability Act rules.
    The Judicial Conference also created the National Office 
for Judicial Integrity and offices for circuit directors of 
workplace relations.
    In 2019, the Judicial Conference also revamped its 
employment dispute resolution plan and placed EDR coordinators 
at every local court. Judicial branch employees now have 
whistleblower protections.
    They have newly expanded protections against abusive 
conduct--that above and beyond discriminatory behavior--and 
they have confidentiality policies to remove barriers to 
reporting.
    If these changes don't evidence the judiciary's interest in 
and commitment to eliminating workplace misconduct, it's hard 
to imagine what would.
    Then, there is the bill's back door affirmative action 
plan, an expansive diversity-driven effort in tension with both 
title VII of the Civil Rights Act and the EEOC's explicit 
guidance making it illegal for covered employers to make 
employment decisions because of race, color, religion, sex, or 
national origin.
    This bill requires reporting on both hiring and 
interviewing individuals on those qualities alone. It runs 
afoul of the Supreme Court's assertion that diversity-driven 
hiring plans must be flexible enough to allow candidates to 
compete with other qualified candidates on a level playing 
field.
    Judges look for law clerks that share their judicial 
philosophy, who bring the sharpest minds to the tasks of 
interpreting and applying the law. To hamstring them by forcing 
them to adhere to faux diversity requirements does the Federal 
judiciary and our entire legal profession a disservice.
    Whether by violating the separation of powers, duplicating 
new efforts addressing misconduct, or placing undue emphasis on 
candidate identities over qualifications, this body's foray 
into oversight of the third branch can look a little like a 
hostile takeover.
    Employment discrimination and harassment must be rooted out 
and the Judicial Branch is no exception. Federal judge or not, 
no one is above the law. The very premise of this hearing runs 
counter to available evidence and proposes a solution to the 
problem of discrimination that is constitutionally suspect.
    I look forward to welcoming your questions. Thank you.
    [The statement of Ms. Perry follows:]
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    Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Thank you, Ms. Perry.
    Next, we will hear from Ms. Coll. You may begin.

                     STATEMENT OF ALLY COLL

    Ms. Coll. Thank you, Chair Johnson, Ranking Member Issa, 
and Members of the Subcommittee. Thank you for calling this 
important hearing today and for the opportunity to testify.
    I also want to begin by thanking Ms. Clark, Ms. Strickland, 
and Ms. Minor on behalf of everyone who will benefit from your 
courage. Thank you for your powerful testimony.
    My name is Ally Coll and I'm the President and Co-Founder 
of the Purple Campaign, a non-profit organization I started to 
address workplace harassment. I'm also an attorney and an 
Adjunct Professor at George Mason University where I teach 
civil rights law.
    In the fall of 2017 I made the difficult decision to 
publicly share my own experience with sexual harassment as an 
18-year-old congressional intern. It was only then that I 
learned that because I was an intern and not a full-time 
employee when my harassment occurred I was not protected at all 
under existing Federal law.
    That changed thanks to Members on this Subcommittee and 
others here in Congress when my story came out and I had the 
opportunity to work with lawmakers here to draft and enact the 
Congressional Accountability Reform Act. Today however there is 
still a segment of the workforce where employees continue to 
lack these important statutory protections, the Federal 
judiciary.
    In his 2021 year-end report, Chief Justice John Roberts 
insinuated that such protections are unnecessary because 
workplace misconduct in the Federal judiciary is not pervasive. 
With all due respect to the Chief Justice, the stories you just 
heard from the brave Witnesses who testified before me today 
make clear that workplace misconduct is a significant problem 
in the Federal judiciary and that the institution's efforts at 
self-policing have failed.
    In January of this year the Administrative Office of the 
U.S. Courts sent a form to thousands of judiciary staffers 
asking if they had witnessed wrongful conduct in the workplace. 
After 40 people responded to the question and 34 of them, or 85 
percent, answered that they had observed inappropriate 
behavior, the judiciary shut down the question, removed it from 
the survey, and claimed that the result was, quote, ``an 
unfortunate administrative error.''
    As Olivia Warren, the former law clerk who testified before 
this Committee in 2020, explained, many employees do not feel 
safe reporting misconduct to the judiciary because they fear 
retaliation, a concern that is amplified by the fact that 
unlike almost all other private and public sector employees the 
people who work in the Federal judiciary lack whistleblower 
protections under Federal law.
    As you are aware various Federal laws such as title VII of 
the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Americans with 
Disabilities Act exist to protect employees from discrimination 
and harassment at work. Until the 1990s however these laws did 
not apply to employees of the three branches of the U.S. 
Government. In 1995, Congress extended coverage of Federal 
employment laws to its employees through the Congressional 
Accountability Act and to Executive Branch employees through 
the Presidential and Executive Office Accountability Act.
    To this day, despite its role as the institution tasked 
with enforcing anti-harassment and discrimination laws to other 
work places, the Federal judiciary continues to resist calls to 
provide similar statutory protections to its own employees.
    In its 2021 Annual Report released just this week, for 
example, the Judicial Conference reiterated its opposition to 
legislative action on the grounds that it would interfere with 
the internal governance of the third branch.
    Last year Members of this Committee introduced the 
Judiciary Accountability Act of 2021, the JAA, bipartisan, 
bicameral legislation that would provide strong statutory 
rights and protections against discrimination, sexual 
harassment, retaliation, and other forms of workplace 
misconduct to Federal judiciary employees. Thank you for taking 
this important step.
    The JAA would finally give Judicial Branch employees the 
same anti-discrimination rights and remedies that private 
sector employees have had for decades and that employees here 
in Congress and in the Executive Branch now have as well and it 
would protect whistleblowers by explicitly prohibiting 
retaliation against them and providing them with the right to 
sue for relief if they are retaliated against.
    On behalf of the more than 30,000 people who work in the 
Federal judiciary today I urge you to pass the JAA and ensure 
that Federal judiciaries are guaranteed the basis fundamental 
right to work in an environment free from harassment and 
discrimination and that nobody, not even the most powerful 
lifetime-appointed judges, are above the law. Thank you.
    [The statement of Ms. Coll follows:]
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    Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Thank you. We will now proceed 
under the five-minute Rule with questions, and I will begin by 
recognizing myself for five minutes.
    Ms. Clark and Ms. Strickland, thank you for your powerful 
testimony and for being here today. It might not seem like it 
yet, but I can promise you that you have made a difference in 
the effort to give judiciary employees the rights that they 
deserve. As I listened to you describe your ordeals I kept 
thinking about the impact it must have had on you and how many 
other people probably have had similar experience who you are 
speaking up for today.
    I can think back in my own life to a time when I was your 
age and was the victim of mistreatment, not in any way similar 
to yours, but just the injustice that I felt having been 
treated the way, that I was treated and had no recourse; 
couldn't do anything about it. It sticks to you, sticks with 
you throughout your career and throughout your life. I know 
that many of us have had that same experience, not to equate it 
to what you all shared with us today.
    Ms. Clark, how did your treatment by Judge Royal and his 
career clerk affect your personal--affect you personally and 
professionally and how did the profound flaws in the EDR 
process exacerbate that?
    Ms. Clark. Thank you, Chairn, for your question. The 
discrimination that I faced while in chambers completely broke 
me mentally, emotionally. I've lost a lot of confidence that I 
had gained in law school and while working in private practice, 
so much so--I'm not sure if the law is really something that 
I'd even want to continue.
    Professionally speaking, a judge can't--a clerkship with a 
judge can make or break your professional career. In my case--
it broke my career.
    Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Ms. Strickland?
    Ms. Strickland. Thank you for that question. This has been 
devastating for me both professionally and personally. Before 
all this I was a Supreme Court fellow, I was working in the 
administrative office, I was working for the Judicial 
Conference, I was highly respected and made lots of connections 
there. I was doing all these amazing things, but as soon as I 
made a complaint, all of that changed. Through the EDR process 
I found that my name was dragged through the mud, I was 
vilified and ostracized, my character and integrity were 
brought into question. The only thing that changed was that I 
had made a complaint. Now, I don't know if my career will ever 
be the same as what it was.
    On a personal level it's been humiliating, intimidating, 
and demoralizing, but when I think about the fact that with 
everything I had done, being a trained attorney and everything 
I had accomplished and I was still treated this way, it really 
made me fear and worry for how other people were being treated. 
That is why I felt like I had to stand up for myself and I have 
to fight for this. I have to fight for change so that no one 
else will have to go through what I went through.
    Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Well, we appreciate you sharing 
this private pain with us and I am sure that it will have such 
a tremendous impact on those coming after you. For you both, I 
know that as you move through life you will be able to put this 
experience into perspective and see it as being a benefit to 
you. So, please continue your hard work.
    I would like to read from a letter we received from another 
judiciary employee who went through the EDR process, received a 
favorable decision, but then learned that the EDR policy did 
not empower the hearing officer to impose any remedies. Nothing 
changed except that the employee faced retaliation and the fear 
of further retaliations has kept the employee anonymous.
    This is what that employee says, quote:

        The EDR process made the limits of my power perfectly clear. 
        Even if I am corroborated, believed, and validated, nothing 
        will change. I did everything a person in my position could do 
        and still I accomplished nothing at all. These limits on my 
        power are the logical outcome of the judiciary's EDR process 
        even, and especially when the process performs as designed.

    Ms. Clark, and Ms. Strickland, and Ms. Minor, is there 
anything about those words that ring true to you? Ms. Clark?
    I'm sorry. Yes. Well, I am out of time and I don't want to 
exceed my time. So, with that, I am going to ask that you 
submit an answer to that question for the record.
    I will now yield to the distinguished gentleman from Texas, 
Mr. Gohmert.
    Mr. Gohmert. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I appreciate you 
having this hearing. In preparation it has been quite 
revealing. Having been a litigator in Federal and State courts 
before my time as a State District Judge, when I first heard 
this could be a problem years ago, identifying--I mean, 
everybody knew what was going on in my judicial office as a 
State District Judge. There was no privacy. The people that 
worked for me were not attorneys and they didn't seem to have a 
problem expressing their displeasure with things that went on.
    Then after getting to Congress, right off the bat we had 
two Federal judges that we impeached, one from Galveston who 
had actually sexually assaulted one of his staff, and actually 
harassed others. So, my naivete was blown away pretty quickly. 
Of course, another was impeached. He didn't seem to think there 
was a problem since he appointed people to lucrative 
appointments that--why not have them contribute to his son's 
tuition when it came due.
    So, anyway, I appreciate all you coming out. I know it is 
personal; there is nothing pleasant about coming forward, so 
thank you. That takes obviously courage. Like I say, I didn't 
realize it was a problem until I got to Congress. So, I want to 
make sure that people that are victimized have a proper 
opportunity not to have to go through what Ms. Clark, Ms. 
Strickland--you endured, and others we have heard about.
    I do have concerns about giving authority to the Executive 
Branch in areas of investigating or making decisions on sexual 
harassment allegations. That seems to be contrary to the 
balance of power that we have, the checks and balances. I was 
not aware that Judge Roberts had taken the position until I saw 
what the testimony was. I would have hoped, for heaven's sake 
the Supreme Court would be supremely sensitive to making sure 
that our courts were acting with propriety.
    Ms. Perry, what is your thought about the Executive Branch 
having any role in enforcement?
    Ms. Perry. I have grave concerns about it and the fact that 
the Chair and the Vice Chairs are all appointed by the 
President and serve for a period of five years, that puts a 
lasting imprimatur of the Executive on the Federal judiciary. 
There are no judiciary employees that participate themselves on 
the proposed Commission on Judicial Integrity. In fact, the 
newest iteration from the judiciary workforce has created the 
Judicial Office of Integrity. So, those two are duplicative 
already.
    Beyond that, there are three Executive appointees that 
serve at the President's request for five years.
    Mr. Gohmert. Well, but if you got a Chief Justice that 
doesn't see that it is a problem--and I would say the same 
thing if Congress is supposed to be investigating and--not just 
investigating, but actually sentencing judges. If you have got 
a Chief Justice that doesn't see there is a problem, where is 
the answer? You would have to have buy-in from the Chief 
Justice to make it work. What is the solution?
    Ms. Perry. So, I think that's a great point. The Chief 
Justice mentioned the fact that there was a problem with 
certain high-profile cases. He did not however find it to be--
    Mr. Gohmert. Well, that was generous of him.
    Ms. Perry. Correct. He did not find it to be--
    Mr. Gohmert. I am being sarcastic.
    Ms. Perry. He did not find it to be an endemic problem. As 
a result of all the modifications that have been made for these 
past four years, I think reading his year-end report on the 
Federal judiciary he is hopeful that those changes, once they 
are allowed to take root, will prevent some of this conduct in 
the future.
    Mr. Gohmert. Well, my time is expired as well, but for the 
Chief Justice to be hopeful doesn't give me a lot of hope to 
avoid these kind of circumstances for the future. Hope is not 
enough unless you have got the structure in place where judges 
know they too will be held accountable. I just want to do it in 
a way we don't lose the balance of power, the checks and 
balances. No judge should ever have people that feel like they 
cannot complain about truly inappropriate conduct.
    Again, appreciate all of you being here. You have obviously 
given this tremendous thought.
    Again, Johnson, thank you for having the hearing.
    Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Thank you, judge. Thank you, Judge 
Gohmert.
    I will now turn to the gentleman from New York, Mr. Nadler, 
for five minutes, the Chair of the Full Judiciary Committee.
    Chair Nadler. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    Ms. Minor, I want to thank you for being here today and for 
lending your voice and experience to this hearing. I also 
appreciate your call for giving Judicial Branch employees 
enforceable rights and meaningful protections against 
discrimination, harassment, and retaliation.
    As I listened to your testimony, I was struck by how 
important it is that you decided to come forward now after your 
many years working at the AO. So, I would like to ask you this: 
Ms. Minor, why now?
    Ms. Minor. Thank you. I would say that this moment found 
me. I retired and I thought that I had done all that I could do 
when I left the Administrative Office of the United States 
Courts. Then someone reached out to me and said I'm still 
having issues and can you give me any advice based on your 
experience? Ever since I left the AO people have reached out, 
both from the courts and from the AO, and asked what can you 
help me with? What can you tell me about what has been going 
on? I offered my experience to them.
    As this evolved, I honestly felt like it was a gift to be 
able in retirement to say this because I didn't feel like I 
could say it in a very loud and public when I was working for 
the judiciary. I'm just like the other people on this panel. I 
tried internally. I made comments, I brought issues up, but I 
certainly never brought them to Congress or to anybody else. I 
tried from the inside to make a change. So, I think this is a 
moment and a gift to me.
    Chair Nadler. Thank you.
    One of the most concerning things we hear from the 
judiciary is that Congress cannot provide Judicial Branch 
employees with statutory civil rights and meaningful 
protections because it would somehow infringe on judicial 
independence, but I would like to read from a--or quote from a 
letter to the Subcommittee from Constitutional Law Professor 
Aziz Huq, who writes that, quote, ``neither text nor precedent 
support a pertinent limit,'' unquote on Congress' power to 
legislate in this area.
    Ms. Coll, does Congress have the authority to give 
employees of the judiciary enforceable rights and protections 
against discrimination and harassment?
    Ms. Coll. Thank you for that question. I want to start by 
saying of course the separation of powers between Congress and 
the Federal judiciary is an important component of our 
constitutional system. In particular, the decisional 
independence of the courts is vital. We would not want Congress 
punishing the Judicial Branch for rendering a decision that it 
disagrees with, for example, but that is not what we are 
talking about here.
    We are talking about legislating around the basic 
administrative functioning of the courts, which is something 
that this Subcommittee has already done in various ways, this 
Congress, and something that has been historical practice since 
the beginning of the Republic.
    The necessary and proper clause of Article 1 of the 
Constitution gives Congress broad powers to legislate around 
the functioning of the courts in this way and so it would be a 
significant departure from both constitutional law principles 
and also from historical practice to conclude that the JAA does 
so in any inappropriate way.
    Chair Nadler. Thank you.
    Ms. Clark, sounds to me like the EDR process which is 
supposed to give employees rights and protections protects the 
perpetrators instead of the victims and was actually being used 
against you. What would you say to judiciary employee who was 
considering using the EDR process?
    Ms. Clark. Thank you for your question. I would tell them 
that it's most likely a waste of time. I did every avenue, the 
three different ways you can complain. I asked for informal 
advice, I did the assisted resolution, and I also did the 
formal complaint, all three of which were fraught with hoops to 
jump through, road blocks and discretionary rules made 
against--not in my favor. So, I would say that it is a waste of 
time.
    Chair Nadler. Thank you.
    Ms. Strickland, what about you? Is there anything you would 
like to add?
    Ms. Strickland. Yes, thank you. I think it's a really 
difficult decision. In my case, I was specifically told that 
the process would be stacked against me and I would be better 
off finding another job. Frankly, I think that was really good 
advice and that's probably true, but I also understand the 
absolute crushing burden of feeling like you can't come forward 
and you can't stand up for yourself. So, really at the end of 
the day what we need is some sort of process where people 
actually have basic fairness and a basic impartial forum where 
they feel like they can be heard and adjudicate their claims.
    So, I suppose I would tell that person it's a personal 
decision. Hopefully they can get personal empowerment out of 
it, but I wouldn't expect anything from the process itself.
    Chair Nadler. Thank you. My time is expired. I yield back.
    Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Thank you. We will now hear from 
the gentleman from Wisconsin, Mr. Tiffany, for five minutes.
    Mr. Tiffany. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    Thank you to all the Witnesses for appearing before the 
Subcommittee today. I share the same sentiment as my colleagues 
on both sides of the aisle that there is no place for workplace 
misconduct and hostile work environments.
    Ms. Coll, you heard from Representative Gohmert, as well as 
Chair of the Committee in regards to the encroachment on one of 
the branches of government, and it is a deep concern of us, and 
I think Representative Gohmert began to--I believe he touched 
on it quite well.
    We have been having hearings in this Committee where we 
have seen abuses by the FBI, where they are now going after 
parents for just attending school board meetings, participating 
in school board meetings, where there has been even talk by the 
Executive Branch of using the Patriot Act against those 
parents. We have seen the abuse of the FISA courts, which is--
clearly has separation of powers concerns for us.
    I believe the Chair touched on this a little bit, but do 
you have any concerns with how this bill is written about that 
separation of powers that we think is so important? We really 
have to be neutral abaters up here in terms of looking at the 
information and making the best decision to protect the 
freedoms and liberties of people in America. Does this bill 
bring up any concerns for you in regards to this?
    Ms. Coll. Thank you for the question. So, I endorse this 
bill as it is written, but I understand and would be happy to 
talk further with you and other Members of this Committee about 
specific concerns you might have.
    I will say with respect to the involvement of the Executive 
Branch--I just want to point out that the commissioners are 
removable by the Judicial Conference, so I think there are 
appropriate checks and balances built into the bill as written.
    I also think it's important to remember that Congress has 
legislated with the Executive Branch and with itself in a way 
to provide employees with these basic statutory protections and 
that without those statutory protections there is no equivalent 
recourse.
    The idea that this is duplicative of the judiciary's own 
internal EDR process is not--it doesn't make sense when you 
think about the way that Congress has legislated around this 
issue vis-a-vis the private sector, its own employees, and the 
Executive Branch. So, for example, it would be to say that a 
private sector company's employee handbook or HR department is 
duplicative of title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
    That's simply not the case. We've decided there needs to be 
Federal legislation and statutory rights for those employees in 
the event those procedures fail, and that's what the JAA does.
    Mr. Tiffany. Do you think there has been any improvement 
made in the last few years?
    Ms. Coll. I think that the judiciary has taken important 
steps in the right direction through its EDR plan, but I think 
those are not equivalent to statutory rights that the JAA 
provides.
    Mr. Tiffany. So, Ms. Perry, you talked about reforms. Have 
they been substantive?
    Ms. Perry. They've been extremely substantive. These have 
been going on for four years and each year the Chief Justice 
has recognized that there have been more and more changes that 
have been added. In fact, some of these changes again from, the 
last few months, have not yet taken place.
    In fact, the Judiciary Workplace Working Group's report 
just came out yesterday. They have not only highlighted all the 
changes they've made within the past few months, but also have 
made additional recommendations that I think are a sufficient 
substitute, an appropriate substitute for this bill, which goes 
too far in intervening in the internal workings of the 
judiciary.
    Mr. Tiffany. So. you say it goes too far, and the question 
that I have been asking--so do you believe that this is giving 
too much power to the executive?
    Ms. Perry. I do. I do, absolutely. Not only because there 
are appointees from the Executive Branch, but because there was 
no input solicited from the judiciary itself. There are no 
judiciary Members, save those who are confirmed by the Senate 
or by the House, so the judiciary itself in a piece of 
legislation that will directly affect its operations, 
notwithstanding even the employment disputes, but then allowing 
the Congress to ultimately dictate diversity requirements for 
the hiring of staff or law clerk when, in fact, judges want to 
hire people with the same judicial philosophy.
    It really is a one-two punch. The effect of the Executive 
and the Legislature within the judiciary is problematic for me. 
I think the judiciary is heading in exactly the right 
direction. In fact, the EEOC Commission has called it a model 
response saying that they wished more governmental agencies, 
more branches took this level of extensive reform.
    Mr. Tiffany. Thank you.
    I yield back, Mr. Chair.
    Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Thank you, sir.
    We will now turn to the gentleman from New York, Mr. Jones, 
for five minutes.
    Mr. Jones. Thank you, Mr. Chair, for holding this vital 
hearing today.
    Thank you to our Witnesses for courageously sharing your 
traumatic experiences with such heinous harassment and 
discrimination that you have experienced. Of course to the many 
women across the Nation who have had similar experiences, who 
have spoken up to demand an end to this unacceptable status 
quo. You should never have had to do this work, but we are all 
grateful that you are doing this work.
    I want to make a few observations before getting to my line 
of questions. I have found this discussion of an opposition to 
the bill under consideration, the Judiciary Accountability Act, 
on some theory that it would violate separation of powers to be 
entirely incoherent. It actually undermines the system of 
checks and balances that our Framers wanted, to have an entire 
class of people, in fact 30,000 or so within the judiciary, who 
are unable to vindicate their constitutional rights.
    So, this isn't just about the Administration of the courts. 
We are talking about title VII rights meant to implement 
constitutional provisions. That is one of the various things 
that this bill under consideration would do. It would follow 
the recommendations of several experts in this area by 
broadening title VII of the Civil Rights Act and, of course, 
the Americans with Disabilities Act to cover the 30,000 
Judicial Branch employees. So, I want to be very clear on that.
    I also think discussions about the Patriot Act and, 
respectfully, Ms. Perry, affirmative action to be red herrings 
in the context of a hearing about workplace discrimination and 
harassment--and I would ask that folks who have raised those 
red herrings to really have some perspective.
    Ms. Coll, the leaders of the Federal judiciary assure us 
that they understand the crisis of sexual harassment in our 
courts and that they are committed to addressing it, yet they 
insist that the best way to protect judicial employees from 
abuse by their bosses is to trust those bosses to end the abuse 
themselves. No one is more insistent that the status quo was 
working than Chief Justice Roberts.
    As you noted, in his 2021 year-end report on the Federal 
judiciary Chief Justice Roberts wrote briefly about sexual 
harassment and discrimination. The Chief Justice spared just 
two paragraphs, just two paragraphs in his nine-page report to 
address this crisis, fewer than he wrote about William Howard 
Taft.
    What little the Chief Justice did have to say did not 
inspire confidence. Instead of acknowledging that untold 
numbers of judicial employees have experienced abuse that in 
any other workplace would be unlawful, he simply reiterated the 
conclusion of his Workplace Conduct Working Group, that 
misconduct is, quote, ``not pervasive in the judiciary.'' We 
know that nothing could be further than the truth.
    Instead of committing to whatever it takes to guarantee the 
rights, safety, and inclusion of all judicial employees and 
hold perpetrators accountable, our nation's top jurist merely 
expressed his hope that judges themselves would weed out, 
quote, ``incivility and disrespect.'' I don't want a system of 
accountability where we rely on the Chief Justice of the 
Supreme Court to be a person of good conscience and to do 
something like what we are seeing these Witnesses today ask. 
That is not a true system of accountability.
    Ms. Coll, what message do you hear when the Chief Justice 
of the United States can only be troubled to write two 
paragraphs on sexual harassment and discrimination in his year-
end report?
    Ms. Coll. I find the repeated assertion from the Chief 
Justice and from the Federal judiciary that workplace 
misconduct is not pervasive to be very problematic. I think, as 
you heard from the testimony today, we know that these public 
stories are only the tip of the iceberg. Most people who 
experience harassment do not report it, even through internal 
channels, let alone come forward publicly, as these three women 
have done today.
    A major reason why people don't come forward is because 
they believe that their institution won't take them seriously. 
So, when that is repeated over and over again, that the 
judiciary itself does not believe it has a problem, that is 
only going to further discourage people from coming forward and 
lose trust in the process.
    So, I think it is important to create these statutory 
rights as a way for Congress to say, ``We believe that this is 
a problem.'' We believe, if the judiciary doesn't take the 
steps it needs internally to protect you, that you all will do 
so.
    Mr. Jones. Thank you.
    In closing, I feel compelled to say to our courageous 
Witnesses today what Chief Justice John Roberts would not, 
which is that sexual harassment and discrimination, like what 
you and countless colleagues of yours have experienced, was not 
isolated incivility. It was the systematic violation of your 
civil rights that the law should guarantee to everyone, rights 
that the law will guarantee to everyone when we pass the 
Judiciary Accountability Act this year.
    Thank you, and I yield back, Mr. Chair.
    Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Thank you.
    We will next hear from the gentlelady from North Carolina, 
Ms. Ross, for five minutes.
    Ms. Ross. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and to the Ranking Member, 
for holding this very important hearing and taking this 
situation seriously.
    I also want to thank all the panelists for your powerful 
and personal testimony.
    Under current law, the more than 30,000 employees of the 
Federal judicial branch are not protected by the foundational 
Federal statutes that prohibit workplace discrimination, 
harassment, and retaliation--30,000 employees. This lack of 
protection and accountability is especially concerning, given 
that Federal judges are given lifetime appointments to the 
bench.
    Unlike Members of Congress, Federal judges do not run for 
reelection. There is not built-in mechanism to keep them in 
check. As a result, bad actors in the Federal judiciary have a 
license to Act inappropriately. As we have heard today, the 
judiciary does not maintain a sufficient internal process for 
holding these individuals accountable.
    Moreover, the Federal judiciary is one of the many fields 
in which men outnumber women, and again, for their lifetimes. 
This imbalance creates a culture that is resistant to change 
and is overly tolerant of toxic workplace practices like those 
we have heard described today. It is critical that we pass 
legislation to establish protections to ensure oversight and 
accountability within the judicial branch. No one is above the 
law.
    My first question is for Ms. Strickland. I would like to 
hear your reaction to how the Judicial Conference describes its 
dispute resolution process. Here is what they say:

        Our Employment Dispute Resolution system has long provided 
        judiciary employees enforceable protections against all the 
        same conduct covered under title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 
        1964, the Age Discrimination Act of 1967, as well as the 
        Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, and the Rehabilitation 
        Act of 1973.

    Based on your experiences, are any of the protections in 
the EDR plan actually enforceable in Federal court?
    Ms. Strickland. Thank you for that question.
    With all due respect, the idea that these protections are 
actually enforceable is completely inaccurate. In my 
experience, they were not enforceable through the EDR process 
itself. I was told that by multiple high-level judiciary 
employees, that they would not be enforceable, even if I went 
to a final hearing. Now, that I am in litigation, the judiciary 
defendants have taken the position that none of these rights 
are enforceable in Federal court, even if this process goes off 
the rails.
    Ms. Ross. Thank you.
    Ms. Clark, I think it can be hard for people who haven't 
worked for the judiciary to understand what it is like to work 
there. Can you explain why judicial branch employees are 
especially vulnerable to discrimination and harassment?
    Ms. Clark. Yes. Thank you for your question.
    Judicial employees are extremely vulnerable for several 
reasons, but what sticks out to me the most is the power 
disparity between you and the judge that you work for. Like I 
said earlier, that they can make or break your career. So, 
people don't want to come forward with this information, for 
fear of retaliation.
    Ms. Ross. Great.
    To both--we only have 37 seconds--Ms. Clark and Ms. 
Strickland, briefly, why is the lack of transparency an 
impediment to navigating the internal processes?
    Ms. Strickland. Because it creates a culture of silence, 
because it makes people feel alone and compartmentalized, and 
it intimidates them from coming forward.
    Ms. Ross. Ms. Clark?
    Ms. Clark. Yes, I had the exact same experience. So, yes, I 
would agree with Ms. Strickland on that.
    Ms. Ross. Thank you so much.
    Mr. Chair, I yield back.
    Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Thank you.
    I must compliment the gentlewoman from North Carolina for 
her efficient use of 37 seconds.
    [Laughter.]
    Ms. Ross. The Witnesses.
    Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Now, we will hear from the 
gentleman from Wisconsin, Mr. Fitzgerald, for five minutes.
    Mr. Fitzgerald. Thank you, Chair.
    Thanks to the panel. I apologize upfront if I am redundant 
here in the questions because I am running between two 
different things right now.
    Ms. Perry, in addition to the creation of the Commission on 
Judicial Integrity, H.R. 4827 creates an Office of Judicial 
Integrity and an Office of Special Counsel for Equal Employment 
Opportunity, and an Office of Employee Advocacy. With each 
office being led by individuals appointed by the Commission, 
would any of these new offices be duplicative of workplace 
protections and resources already available to the judiciary?
    Ms. Perry. Yes, Representative. In the first of those, the 
Commission on Judicial Integrity absolutely duplicates the 
Judicial Office for Integrity that was created two years ago, 
during the height of some of these reforms that have 
piggybacked on one another. There has been a continual 
evolution towards stricter and stricter regulations, more 
enhanced protections for judicial employees, whether that is 
enhancement of the Judicial Code of Ethics, the Judicial 
Conduct and Disability Rules, or the Code for Judicial 
Employees. There have been a number of expansions. So, first, 
the office itself duplicates an office that was just created 
two years ago.
    I'm sorry, Congressman, what was the other question that 
you asked?
    Mr. Fitzgerald. Well, the follow-up would--and maybe you 
talked about this already, which, again, I apologize--but there 
was an issue in the ability of judges to select law clerks.
    Ms. Perry. Yes. That, as well, goes to specifically the 
diversity reporting requirement that's required under the 
Judicial Accountability Act. In other words, not just those who 
are hired, but those who are interviewed, disaggregated by all 
protected categories under civil rights law, placing an undue 
emphasis on individuals to be hired strictly because of these 
identifying characteristics, in violation of title VII.
    Law clerks are chosen for their judicial philosophies, 
their suitability to the task of interpreting and applying the 
law. So, it is, as Mr. Jones said, a red herring in this 
situation. It is something that is not required. It doesn't go 
to the issue of solving the workplace dilemma, and it is 
duplicative of other protections in Federal law.
    Mr. Fitzgerald. Thank you very much. Thanks to the panel.
    I yield back, Mr. Chair.
    Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Thank you.
    We will now turn to the gentleman from Arizona, Mr. 
Stanton, for five minutes.
    Mr. Stanton. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, for holding 
this important hearing.
    Before I begin, I will yield one minute of my time to the 
Vice Chair of our Committee, Congresswoman Dean.
    Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Ms. Dean is recognized.
    Ms. Dean. I thank you, Mr. Chair. I thank you for this 
hearing. I also thank you, Representative Stanton, for yielding 
for just one minute.
    I want to offer a special thank you to every woman on this 
panel, and many others out there, who find the strength and 
courage to speak up.
    First, I want you to know I truly wanted to be with you 
today, and but for my current positive COVID diagnosis, I would 
be there with you.
    I was a young trial attorney, and I intimately recall the 
authority and the power a judge could hold over his courtroom. 
I am old enough to say ``his'' more often than ``hers.''
    Although I did not clerk, I could only imagine from your 
testimonies what may happen in the confines of a judicial 
chamber.
    I wanted you to know that I spoke with Aliza Shatzman, a 
Pennsylvanian, a lawyer, a young woman who shared with me her 
experience within the chambers and without. She recalled the 
feelings of isolation, the silent treatment, the different 
treatment from her male co-clerk. Aliza described the current 
State of judiciary as uniquely insulated from scrutiny, 
unaccountable to the public, based on the testimony we have 
also heard here today.
    I would have to agree this must change. Thank you, Mr. 
Chair, for recognizing that.
    I recognize, too, that her full testimony has been entered 
into the record, without objection.
    So, I just simply thank the Subcommittee for working to 
ensure that no other woman is subject to harassment in the 
workplace without recourse.
    Representative Stanton, I yield back.
    Mr. Stanton. Thank you very much, Congresswoman Dean, and 
wishing you a swift and full recovery from COVID.
    Thank you to our Witnesses who have testified so honorably 
at today's hearing. I join my colleagues in condemning the 
outrageous behavior and the appalling circumstances that you 
have endured in the workplace. It is clear to me that reforms 
are necessary and essential to better protect the rights of 
those employed by the Federal judicial. Your testimony here 
today is a key to spurring positive action. So, thank you for 
speaking up, speaking out, and for sharing your important 
stories.
    I have a question for Ms. Minor. You worked at the AO for 
many years, including as the AO's Equal Employment Opportunity 
Officer. Can you speak to the culture to the judiciary as it 
pertains to addressing workplace conduct? What was the attitude 
at the AO when it came to investigating these types of 
complaints?
    Ms. Minor. I appreciate the chance to speak to this, 
because I think it is actually the key to why involvement of 
the Legislative Branch is so important.
    The general attitude and the culture in the AO, quite 
frankly, and in the judiciary as a whole, is that judges are 
the last word on everything. So, while there were people within 
the judiciary who tried to address the issues, at the end of 
the day, if the judges were not willing to be accountable to 
each other or to hold each other accountable, all the systems 
in the world don't really make a difference.
    What is happening now is nibbling around the edges of 
things; I will tell you that. I told someone once I heard a 
chief judge say to me, ``I'm not going to meddle in anybody 
else's business in chambers, because when I'm not the chief 
judge anymore, I don't want anybody meddling in my business.''
    Now, that is not every judge, but there were enough judges 
who felt that way that it is very clear to me that, without 
real cultural and structural change within the judiciary and 
oversight, the judiciary will want to do the right thing; it 
can't do the right thing. Nibbling around the edges will not 
change that culture.
    It certainly did not change it at the AO. I am still in 
contact with many friends and colleagues who are very clear 
with me that nothing has changed.
    Thank you.
    Mr. Stanton. Right now, there is a series of voluntary 
policies and procedures instead of enforceable statutory 
protections. You somewhat answered it in the answer you just 
gave, but why do you think those kinds of internal policies and 
procedures will fail if they are not backed up with enforceable 
rights? This is for Ms. Minor.
    Ms. Minor. I guess I will repeat what I said, which is 
those are nibbles around the edges. The culture and the 
structural barriers that exist within the judiciary will make 
those fail, as they have for so many years.
    My personal story is that I came to the judiciary in 1994, 
and the very first job I had was responding to the 
Congressional Accountability Act, which originally included the 
judiciary. They successfully got themselves out from under 
that.
    I spent two years traveling all around this country, 
educating people about equal employment opportunity, and then, 
it was over and everybody went back to business as usual. I 
fear that is exactly what will happen this time, unless this 
Committee moves forward and puts the statutory protections in 
place for judiciary employees.
    Thank you.
    Mr. Stanton. Thank you very much.
    I yield back. I yield back. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Thank you.
    The gentleman from California, Mr. Issa, is recognized for 
five minutes.
    Mr. Issa. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    I want to thank you all for your indulgence. Unfortunately, 
the classified briefing on Iran gets in the way of everything, 
because you can only have the White House when you have them.
    Ms. Perry, you obviously spoke very eloquently about the 
separation of powers and our limitations. Let me start by 
asking a question. If you set aside 600 article III judges, and 
presume that we judge them based on their good behavior, and 
you look at the entire rest of the 30,000 employees, for all 
practical purposes, is there any reason that we should not 
consider their protection separate from the question of those 
constitutional officers?
    Ms. Perry. I think, factually, as long as we are satisfied 
that there is an endemic problem, I think there is nothing 
preventing us from taking that into account. For example, the 
Administrative Office of the Courts was at one point under the 
jurisdiction of the Department of Justice. So, it is created by 
Congress from 1939, but operates distinctly separate, as an 
administrative agency tasked with assistance of the Federal 
judiciary. Those particular protections, again, as applied to 
Federal judges themselves, I find to be more problematic than 
against those who are employees of the Federal judiciary.
    Mr. Issa. Okay. Then, switching to the other side, Ms. 
Minor, because you have operated in that oversight role, 
isn't--and I don't want to lead you unfairly--but isn't it fair 
to say that we lack today, here in this body, the transparency 
of the conduct of those 600 or so Federal article III judges 
that would allow us to proactively know whether or not their 
behavior was good?
    The standard under which we are charged to impeach them and 
remove them is, obviously, it's high crimes and misdemeanors, 
but it is really good behavior. What you have all talked about 
today isn't in some cases a clear absence of good behavior. Do 
we have the transparency today, or would you say that all or 
part of the reforms we're talking about are to get transparency 
sufficient to know what is going on in a way that we can meet 
that responsibility?
    I am making the assumption for a moment, with Ms. Perry, 
that we set aside the article III judges for a moment and say 
we judge them under our constitutional limitation. Then, how do 
we amass that information? If you could opine on that?
    Ms. Minor. Well, thank you for leading me in the direction. 
My sense is that you have very little transparency right now as 
a branch into what happens in the judiciary. In fact, what I 
generally find--and it has happened over and over--over the 
years is that whenever an issue comes up, they circle the 
wagons and they keep everything inside.
    There is also something about the structure of these 
courts. I think people sometimes miss this. We have a lot of 
small courts in our Federal judiciary, where there are only one 
or two judges, sometimes three, where it is almost like a 
family. In fact, the judiciary describes themselves as ``the 
judiciary family.''
    Mr. Issa. Even San Diego does that.
    [Laughter.]
    Yes, the eastern wing that only goes a couple of days a 
week really is quiet.
    Ms. Minor. So, as a result of that, what you have is what I 
think you find in families, quite frankly. That is, if there is 
an issue, let's keep it in-house and let's deal with it. So, 
very little comes out about what is actually happening.
    So, I think there is a huge problem with transparency right 
now. If there are things in the JAA that will help create that 
transparency, I think that is critical to trying to address 
these issues.
    Mr. Issa. Now, let me ask one final question, if I could, 
Mr. Chair. The judiciary, and particularly, Chief Justice 
Roberts, has opposed anything that would be the equivalent of 
an Inspector General, even one that he would create and 
appoint.
    When we look at the AO, and we look at the cases that we 
dealt with here, isn't it the absence of that process, an 
advocate for finding wrong, which is what Inspector Generals 
do, the absence of that in the AO? As a result, the absence of 
that as one more availability for 30,000 nonconstitutional 
officers that work there, isn't that inherently a flaw that we 
need to look at to create that, whether we do it through this 
legislation or something else, with or without the support of 
perhaps the justices? I use the AO because I think it is a good 
example of something that is not inherently our article III 
judges directly and that separation of powers.
    Ms. Minor. Yes.
    Mr. Issa. Okay. Then, Mr. Chair, with your indulgence of 
giving me additional time, I just want to close and say I want 
to thank all of our Witnesses today.
    Particularly, I am going to look at my former member of our 
branch, and the protections that we need to always give in this 
branch are something that is on our mind. Because Mr. Johnson 
and I--and for that matter, Chair and others--we lived through 
that period. We were embarrassed by what we discovered and made 
the decision to legislate on ourselves.
    Lastly, I apologize that we often leave that third branch 
out, out of deference, and sometimes to the detriment of having 
to go back, as we are here today.
    So, I just want to thank you all.
    Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Thank you, Representative Issa. I 
am sorry to trample upon your closing statement. I had agreed, 
before you got here, with Mr. Gohmert that I would allow him, 
in the spirit of bipartisanship within which we have held this 
hearing, to ask one last question that he wanted to pose to all 
the Witnesses.
    So, with that, Representative Gohmert?
    Mr. Gohmert. Yes, and I do appreciate the opportunity.
    I want to be clear. I have no problem legislating a 
solution here. We have got every authority to do that. My 
constitutional law professor that I lost last year, I grew to 
love when he was my professor. He used to say, ``There's only 
one court that doesn't owe its existence to the Congress.'' 
Congress brought all the other courts in to being, except the 
Supreme Court, and we can take them out. There is a delicate 
balance.
    So, my one question to each of you, very sincere. 
Obviously, hope is not enough, as we share that concern. If you 
could change one thing to help tweak the legislation to 
providing appropriate accountability, which we clearly don't 
have yet, but observing the need for the judiciary 
independence--and, Ms. Minor, I would like to ask that question 
to you, and get each of your buy-in. You have all, obviously, 
given this a great deal of thought. You have bound to have seen 
something, you know, ``I wish it did this.''
    Ms. Minor. Well, I am here today because of the experience 
I had in the judiciary, not because I am an expert on the JAA.
    Mr. Gohmert. That makes you an expert.
    Ms. Minor. So, I think I will cede my time over to the rest 
of the experts on the panel here.
    Ms. Strickland. I am not an expert, either. I think what I 
will say is that it was very clear from my situation that these 
people believed that they faced absolutely no liability 
exposure. So, there was no incentive for them to do the right 
thing. So, I think the most important thing, in my personal 
opinion, about this legislation is providing a cause of action, 
so that people can pursue their rights.
    Mr. Gohmert. Ms. Clark?
    Ms. Clark. I am no expert, either. I will say that the most 
important thing about this piece of legislation is that it will 
create an independent Special Counsel to investigate claims of 
misconduct. Independence is something that virtually every 
person in corporate America gets an independent arbitrator of 
their claims of discrimination. So, I feel like that is very, 
very basic. That is the least we can do.
    Mr. Gohmert. Thank you.
    Ms. Coll?
    Ms. Coll. I think the core of this legislation is about 
providing these basic statutory rights to employees that they 
currently lack.
    Ms. Strickland's case is a great example. She has tried to 
bring her claim in Federal court. The judiciary knows that this 
is typically how employees whose internal processes fail them 
find relief. It is what they do under title VII every day. In 
her case, the judiciary's lawyers are arguing that she has no--
that the EDR plan provides no property right under the Fifth 
Amendment. Employees who have tried to bring these cases under 
title VII have had their cases dismissed by the EEOC for lack 
of jurisdiction.
    Mr. Gohmert. Back to circling the wagons, actually.
    Ms. Coll. Yes. So, I think the fact that there is no 
remedy, as I said earlier, the idea that the EDR plan is 
duplicative of statutory rights is not the way Congress has 
seen this issue in any other workplace. So, I think providing 
those fundamental rights will go a long way, both toward 
allowing appropriate remedies, but also just sending a message 
to employees. Circling back to my own experience as an intern--
being told you have no rights under Federal law does not 
engender a lot of faith in your institution.
    Mr. Gohmert. Ms. Perry?
    Ms. Perry. So, if I have to pick one thing, Representative, 
I would want to eliminate the Commission on Judicial Integrity, 
knowing that the judiciary has already established that precise 
mechanism within its own body.
    I would also like to see this chamber hold regular hearings 
from the Administrative Office of the Courts on what workplace 
conduct, what workplace study and data is transpiring; what 
they are seeing at the ground level, and how they are 
responding to it, either annually or biannually. So, that we 
can be assured fully that they are responsive and they are not 
shrouded behind a veil of secrecy.
    Mr. Gohmert. Thank you.
    Mr. Chair, thank you.
    Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Thank you.
    I want to thank all of the Witnesses.
    Ms. Perry, you have been a magnificent defender of the 
status quo. I may not agree with what you have to say, but I 
admire your professionalism. So, thank you.
    Ms. Perry. Thank you, Chair.
    Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Ms. Minor, you have been on the 
inside and you have seen what happens, and you have tried to 
make a difference while there. Your efforts were not at the 
right time, or the time was not right for you in that position. 
Yet, things have changed. You have retired, and you don't have 
to stay in your comfort zone, as many would. You decided to 
come out and say what you know, and we deeply appreciate that.
    Ms. Coll, as a young 18-year-old suffering discrimination, 
you could have been snuffed out in terms of your contribution 
to the legal profession, but, instead, you have become like the 
phoenix. So, you are a shining example to Ms. Clark and Ms. 
Strickland, who have just begun this journey.
    Without you all, we would not have a foundation for this 
hearing. So, you all have been the foundation for this hearing, 
and we thank you for your courage in coming forward.
    With that, I would also like to recognize some unsung 
individuals, not in the courtroom, but in the hearing room, the 
pro bono attorneys who represent Ms. Clark, Ms. Strickland, and 
Ms. Minor.
    For Ms. Minor, we have Deeva Shah and Erin Meyer, both from 
the firm of Keker, Van Nest & Peters. Thank you all for being 
here.
    For Ms. Caryn Strickland, we have Jeannie Suk Gersen and 
Cooper Strickland who are here. Thank you all for your pro bono 
work.
    Last, but not least, for Ms. Caitlyn Clark, we have Mr. 
Roscoe Jones, Jr., and also Ms. Greta Williams, who is a repeat 
offender here today. They are from the firm of Gibson Dunn. We 
appreciate your pro bono representation.
    With that, we will now proceed to our second panel of 
Witnesses.
    We will allow you to collect your belongings and depart 
while I have a phone call right quick. So, I am going to step 
down.
    [Recess.]
    Mr. Johnson of Georgia. I will now introduce the Witnesses 
on our second panel.
    Judge M. Margaret McKeown. I hope I pronounced that 
correct. McKeown. Judge M. Margaret McKeown has served as a 
Circuit Judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the 
Ninth Circuit in San Diego, California, since 1968. She is 
chair of the Ninth Circuit Committee on Workplace Environment 
and a member of the Federal Judiciary Workplace Conduct Working 
Group.
    Prior to joining the Federal bench, Judge McKeown was a 
partner in private practice and served as a White House fellow 
under President Carter. Judge McKeown earned her BA from the 
University of Wyoming and her JD from Georgetown University Law 
Center.
    I know I would be catching glances of disapproval, now, if 
we were in the courthouse but, welcome, Judge McKeown. I hope 
I've given you some--I hope I've pronounced that name somewhat 
correctly.
    Judge Julie Robinson is a Senior Judge from the district of 
Kansas where she has served since her appointment in 2001.
    Judge Robinson was the first African American to be 
appointed to the district of Kansas bench and served the 
Federal judiciary with distinction in several capacities, 
including as a Member of the Federal Judiciary Workplace 
Conduct Working Group.
    Before her appointment to the Federal bench, Judge Robinson 
clerked for bankruptcy Judge Benjamin E. Franklin, worked as an 
Assistant U.S. Attorney for a decade and herself became a 
bankruptcy judge. She earned both her undergraduate and juris 
doctorate degrees from the University of Kansas. Welcome, Judge 
Robinson.
    Before the proceeding--before proceeding with testimony, I 
would like to remind all our Witnesses that you have a legal 
obligation to provide truthful testimony and answers to this 
Subcommittee, and that any false statement you make today may 
subject you to 18 U.S.C. 1001.
    Please note that each of your written statements will be 
entered into the record in their entirety. Accordingly, I ask 
that you summarize your testimony in five minutes. There is a 
timer and that should be visible on your screen. That should 
help you stay within that time limit.
    Judge McKeown, you may begin.

                STATEMENT OF M. MARGARET McKEOWN

    Judge McKeown. Thank you.
    Chair Johnson, Ranking Member Issa, and Members of the 
Committee, I am Judge Margaret McKeown, a United States circuit 
judge for the Ninth Circuit, and I note, Mr. Chair, that you've 
come the closest of anyone to pronouncing my name correctly. So 
thank you for that.
    I'm accompanied today by Judge Julie Robinson, United 
States District Judge for the District of Kansas. We are both 
Members of the Workplace Conduct Working Group established at 
the direction of Chief Justice Roberts, who, in 2018, called 
for swift action to address workplace concerns.
    Thank you for the invitation to be here today on behalf of 
the Judicial Conference of the United States.
    The Federal judiciary is committed to the well-being of its 
employees and to an exemplary workplace by ensuring a safe, 
respectful, and professional environment free from 
discrimination, harassment, abusive conduct, and retaliation.
    Over the past four years, the Working Group has, in 
consultation with judiciary employees, law clerks, outside 
experts, and interested groups, recommended more than 30 
changes to the policies and practices and procedures of the 
judiciary, all which have been adopted by the Judicial 
Conference.
    The judiciary is also committed to ensuring that every 
employee has a clear avenue to obtain confidential advice, 
report misconduct, and seek and receive remedial action.
    Our written testimony describes many of the transformative 
actions that have been taken. I will briefly highlight just a 
few points.
    To begin, judiciary employees are protected from the same 
conduct that would violate 10 enumerated employment laws and 
policies, including title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 
the Age Discrimination and Employment Act, the Americans with 
Disabilities Act, the Rehabilitation Act, and whistleblower 
protections.
    The judiciary also provides expanded protections beyond 
these statutes against abusive conduct. Based on the Working 
Group's finding that while inappropriate conduct is not 
pervasive, incivility, disrespect, and abusive behavior is more 
common than sexual harassment.
    Second, we have improved the workplace protections and 
procedures. Revised model employment dispute resolution plans 
are in place for the courts and for Federal public defender 
organizations.
    Codes of conduct confidentiality obligations were updated 
and they now remove barriers to reporting and emphasize the 
responsibility of judges and judiciary employees to take 
appropriate action upon learning of potential misconduct.
    Confidentiality provisions for law clerks were also revised 
to clarify that confidentiality does not prohibit the reporting 
of misconduct by judges, supervisors, or any other judicial 
employee.
    Rules under the Judicial Conduct and Disability Act clarify 
that discrimination, harassment, abusive behavior, and 
retaliation are cognizable misconduct, and added that a 
bystander judge's failure to report is also cognizable 
misconduct.
    Third, we have streamlined our procedures and made it 
easier for employees to seek confidential help and report 
misconduct, while enhancing impartiality and protecting 
confidentiality.
    A network of trained professionals, including local, 
circuit, and national workplace specialists are now available 
to provide confidential guidance and advice.
    We took to heart the EEOC's advice regarding the importance 
of having multiple avenues for reporting. We have expanded the 
paths for employees to raise concerns, to choose the options 
that best fit their needs--informal advice, assisted 
resolution, or formal complaint.
    The incorporation of informal advice and assisted 
resolution has provided additional opportunities for reporting, 
and that's been indicated by the increased use of these 
processes and has allowed issues to be resolved more quickly.
    The Directors of Workplace Relations--a judiciary 
innovation--report that more time is spent on confidential 
informal advice than anything else, and that these interactions 
involve a range of workplace issues, not just harassment.
    These confidential conversations provide for a variety of 
interventions that would not have been possible if employees 
were uncomfortable coming forward or limited to filing a formal 
complaint.
    Fourth, and finally, we have emphasized training at all 
levels to ensure employees are aware of their rights and 
protections. EDR training, orientation, management training, 
and educational programs all contribute to transforming 
workplace culture.
    The positive effects of the protection and improved 
processes have already begun to take hold. The judiciary looks 
forward to even greater improvements that will further enhance 
the fairness, dignity, and respect with which we treat our 
employees.
    Mr. Chair, I thank you and look forward to questions from 
you and the committee.
    Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Thank you, Judge McKeown.
    Next, Judge Robinson, you are recognized.

                 STATEMENT OF JULIE A. ROBINSON

    Judge Robinson. Thank you.
    Chair Johnson, Ranking Member Issa, Chair Nadler, and other 
Members of the Committee, thank you for the invitation to 
appear today to discuss workplace conduct matters in the 
Federal judiciary.
    I share my experiences and views not only as a member of 
the Working Group, but also as a Chief Judge who served from 
2017 until last December.
    As you have heard and read in our testimony, the judiciary 
is committed to an exemplary workplace and has taken action to 
improve workplace protections and the dispute resolution 
process. These improvements are the result of leadership, which 
is a key imperative for creating a safe workplace.
    Chief Justice Roberts demonstrated decisive leadership from 
the top by creating the Working Group. In addition, engaged 
leadership by chief judges and court unit heads sends a 
powerful signal to our community that everyone must support a 
safe and civil workplace.
    While many protections and procedures have been improved, 
the judiciary's work is not done. The Working Group has 
proposed additional recommendations that would strengthen 
policies and procedures, expand communication and training, and 
improve our measurement of our progress.
    The Working Group, for example, recommends a nationwide 
climate survey disseminated at regular intervals to all 
judiciary employees to assess the workplace environment and 
also to provide insight into the prevalence of workplace 
conduct issues and the impact and effectiveness of the 
improvements we have made to our policies and processes.
    In addition to leadership, a continuing focus has been to 
build confidence and trust in the changes that have already 
occurred and that will occur. Building that trust requires a 
clear explanation of how we are addressing workplace 
misconduct.
    We have done so with training and awareness at all levels 
with judges, with judiciary employees, locally and nationally. 
The Working Group recommends strengthening annual EDR training. 
A related recommendation to expand outreach and engagement will 
help courts fully understand employee concerns.
    Another element of trust is regular reporting. The Working 
Group recommends including in our data collection information 
and data related to informal advice contacts. We also recommend 
issuing an annual judiciary workplace conduct report.
    Confidence is further enhanced by ensuring fair and 
impartial procedures. The Working Group is further proposing 
that in addition to existing recusal requirements the 
judiciary's policies be enhanced to specify that an employee 
complaint must be overseen by a judge from outside the court 
from which the complaint originated.
    Another key imperative for creating a safe workplace is to 
have effective policies and procedures written in clear and 
plain language. You have heard or read in our testimony many 
improvements in that area.
    The Working Group has additional recommendations to enhance 
policy. These include assessing incorporation of additional 
monetary remedies as part of the EDR complaint process, and 
developing a system for regular review of the judiciary's 
workplace conduct policies to ensure comprehensive 
implementation across courts and circuits.
    We also recommend adopting an express policy regarding 
romantic relationships in the workplace where there is a 
supervisory or evaluative relationship.
    Solutions that work must account for the unique culture and 
governance of a particular workplace, which, in the case of the 
judiciary, includes a dispersed regionalized governance 
structure.
    Individual courts at the district and circuit levels 
possess significant administrative autonomy, including 
authority to address workplace conduct matters. The reforms 
instituted since 2018 took careful account of the judiciary's 
decentralized governance and culture.
    We have now established a system that empowers employees to 
seek advice and guidance from experts at the local, regional, 
and national level, and empowers them to seek resolution 
through informal advice, assisted resolution, and/or formal 
complaint procedure.
    This is more likely to be used and to be more effective 
than a single national oversight body. We believe that the 
judiciary's response to workplace conduct concerns is 
succeeding locally at the circuit level and nationally.
    While the judiciary has made significant strides and with--
expeditiously so, some changes do not occur overnight. Thus, 
this is a continuing effort and we expect some cultural changes 
will need time to take root.
    That said, we do not condone this conduct at any level. The 
judiciary recommends that our strategy for an exemplary 
workplace continue on its current course without sweeping 
legislative overhaul.
    Thank you, Mr. Chair. I look forward to questions from you 
and the Members of the Committee.
    [The statement of Judge McKeown and Judge Robinson 
follows:]
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    Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Thank you, Judge Robinson.
    We will now go to questions and I will proceed under the 
five-minute Rule with, first, deferring to the gentlelady from 
North Carolina, Ms. Ross, for five minutes.
    Ms. Ross. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and thank you to 
the Witnesses for testifying and for your service.
    I just have two questions. The first question is I don't 
know if you listened to the testimony from Ms. Clark and Ms. 
Strickland, who were in the panel before you came on.
    They spoke about their experiences with persistent 
harassment and with the inability to secure meaningful redress 
through the judiciary's internal system.
    We also received an anonymous statement from a former law 
clerk echoing the same difficulties. After hearing about these 
Witnesses' testimony today and knowing that the system really 
is failing them, how can we protect them in the future from 
this kind of abuse and lack of redress?
    Judge McKeown. Thank you for the question.
    Let me first say that I very much appreciate the courage of 
the Witnesses who have come forward to testify. The judiciary 
has taken this call to action seriously, not only today but 
before.
    I think it's important to focus on what has changed in the 
judiciary since many of the processes described by some of the 
Witnesses. So, we acknowledge that our work is not done, but we 
have provided new avenues for reporting. We have provided 
trained investigators, trained mediators, and trained advisors 
in the judiciary.
    It is a question not only of rules and procedures, we 
understand. It is also a question of culture and we have worked 
hard not only with the judges, but, also, with the many 
employees of the judiciary to understand that things have 
changed, that this is not the past, that we, too, the 
judiciary, like others who took the wakeup call from the #MeToo 
movement, that we can't look just at the past but we have to 
look forward.
    So, we have outlined in our written testimony the very many 
things along with the recent report that the judiciary has 
done. So, the work is not done, as Judge Robinson indicated. We 
have further recommendations that we trust will be 
accomplished.
    Ms. Ross. My second question is that the Judicial 
Conference has vocally opposed the expansion of Federal civil 
rights laws to judiciary employees for at least 25 years.
    How can the Judicial Conference reconcile opposing granting 
their own colleagues the basic protections that they apply and 
interpret every day for the rest of society?
    Judge Robinson. The Judicial Conference has not opposed our 
employees--our 30,000-plus employees--having the same 
protections that all other people enjoy under title VII and all 
the other employment statutes, age based, disability based, 
etc, and, in fact, our employees have those same protections. 
The difference, of course, is that--
    Ms. Ross. They can't enforce them.
    Judge Robinson. They are enforceable. They are not--our 
employees do not fall under title VII, but our employees have a 
formal EDR process that allows them to seek judicial 
adjudication much earlier in the process than, for example, the 
two other branches of government where those employees have to 
go through an administrative process, get exhaustion, perhaps 
be subjected to formal mediation before they can even seek a 
judicial resolution.
    Our employees, a very first step should they choose to, can 
seek judicial adjudication of their complaint.
    Ms. Ross. With all due respect, it didn't appear that it 
was as fair a process as it would be for a private litigant 
from the testimony that we received today.
    Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I yield back.
    Mr. Jones. [Presiding.] Thank you, Congresswoman Ross. The 
Chair recognizes himself for five minutes.
    Judge McKeown, Judge Robinson, thank you so much for 
joining us today and for your incredible service to our nation.
    Judge McKeown, beginning with your confirmation in 1998, 
you served on the Ninth Circuit alongside Judge Alex Kozinski. 
In 2017, Kozinski resigned in the wake of numerous reports that 
he had coerced women who clerked for him into looking at 
pornography with him, made sexually degrading comments about 
them in front of other judicial employees, referred to them as, 
quote, ``slaves'' and engaged in other forms of verbal and 
physical harassment.
    According to a number of survivors, Kozinski's misconduct 
was an open secret across the Ninth Circuit. Did you ever 
witness Judge Kozinski Act inappropriately in anyway toward any 
of his employees?
    Judge McKeown. No, sir, I did not.
    Mr. Jones. Let me be clear. Until the allegations became 
public, you never had any reason to think that your colleague, 
Judge Kozinski, acted inappropriately toward any of his 
employees?
    Judge McKeown. No, I did not. I do not think it's fair to 
say it's an open secret. I served with Judge Kozinski over many 
years. I would acknowledge that he is an unusual personality in 
his approach.
    It was not until those brave individuals came forward and 
told our chief judge and various reporters about these 
allegations of harassment that we had first heard about those.
    I might add that as soon as those allegations were made, 
our chief judge filed a misconduct complaint against Judge 
Kozinski. He then called me before Judge Kozinski had responded 
or resigned and said he wanted a workplace committee, that we 
should start our work immediately, which we did, and then Judge 
Kozinski resigned.
    Mr. Jones. Thank you, Judge. So, in the nearly 20 years you 
worked with him you never even heard a rumor that he had done 
anything like that, correct?
    Judge McKeown. I don't know if I would say I'd never heard 
a rumor. I'd just heard rumors about antics, but not about the 
kind of allegations that these individuals came forward with.
    Mr. Jones. You also served on the Ninth Circuit alongside 
the late Judge Stephen Reinhardt from 1998 until his death in 
2018.
    Last Congress, when this Subcommittee held its first 
hearing on sexual harassment and discrimination in the Federal 
judiciary, Olivia Warren courageously testified about how Judge 
Reinhardt harassed and abused her during her clerkship for him. 
More than half of Judge Reinhardt's clerks acknowledged this 
behavior and supported Ms. Warren's testimony.
    Did you ever witness Judge Reinhardt Act inappropriately 
toward any of his employees?
    Judge McKeown. I did not, and I was, certainly, shocked to 
hear the allegations, and I, of course, credit those 
allegations to the Witness. As you know, Judge Reinhardt died 
within three months of Judge Kozinski's resignation and I 
believe that the clerk in question was a clerk at that time, 
and the workplace procedures that we have now instituted and 
put in place did not exist at that time.
    Mr. Jones. Right. Judge, thank you, Judge, and I want to 
get to those procedures, but just want to clear something up. 
So, until the allegations became public, you never had any 
reason to think that your colleague, Judge Reinhardt, acted 
inappropriately toward any of his employees?
    Had you heard a rumor like you had heard about Judge 
Kozinski, for example?
    Judge McKeown. No.
    Mr. Jones. Okay.
    Judge McKeown, the Ninth Circuit never completed a 
comprehensive investigation of the harm that Judge Kozinski or 
Judge Reinhardt inflicted on the people who worked for them, 
even after Witnesses publicly described the sexual harassment 
and discrimination that those judges perpetrated.
    Why didn't that comprehensive investigation occur?
    Judge McKeown. The undertaking that we went forth 
immediately was quite comprehensive. First, we took a survey of 
our 6,000 employees to find out their views, their comments, 
the pervasiveness or otherwise, of harassment and 
discrimination.
    We reached out to law clerks. We held focus groups. We also 
reached out to outside groups such as the Law Clerk 
Accountability Group. We can--
    Mr. Jones. Judge, I'm so sorry to interrupt. I just want to 
clarify. Isn't it true that your disciplinary jurisdiction 
terminated upon Judge Kozinski's resignation and Judge 
Reinhardt's death, respectively?
    Judge McKeown. That's true, but under the new procedures, 
the Judicial Conduct and Disability Committee has very express 
authorization to now do a look back. We didn't have the 
authorization, but we went ahead and we did what we considered 
an important look back to see what had happened and why.
    Mr. Jones. Thank you so much. So, I just want to be very 
clear, as we conclude. No law expressly authorizes the Judicial 
Conference to promulgate the model employment dispute 
resolution plan and, to me, and I think to many of the folks 
who have testified today in this extended hearing, that is a 
deficiency.
    So, I just want to urge some perspective around that and, 
of course, to thank, again, our incredible jurists for their 
participation in today's panel.
    With that, this hearing has concluded.
    [Whereupon, at 12:35 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]

                                APPENDIX

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