Federal Appeals Court Judge Is Accused of Sexual Harassment

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/10/us/judge-alex-kozinski-harassment.html

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A federal court judge in California has been accused of making sexually inappropriate comments to female clerks and lower-level staff members and showing them pornography on his office computer.

The judge, Alex Kozinski, has served on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit for 32 years and was the chief judge from 2007 to 2014. The circuit is the largest federal appeals court in the United States, covering the entire West Coast.

Six women, four of whom asked to remain anonymous, told The Washington Post that over the course of several years — and up to as recently as 2012 — Judge Kozinski made suggestive comments that made them uncomfortable.

One of the women, Heidi Bond, declined to comment through her assistant on Saturday, but in a blog post under her pseudonym as a novelist, Courtney Milan, she described her allegations in detail.

She said Judge Kozinski had asked her to look at pictures of “a handful of naked college-age people supposedly at a party where other people were clothed and drinking beer,” she wrote on her blog.

One of the photos showed a man and a woman sitting naked on a couch and he asked her if she thought it was photoshopped and whether it aroused her sexually, she wrote. She said he called her into his office for similar interactions at least two other times.

“When this happened, I felt like a prey animal — as if I had to make myself small,” wrote Ms. Bond, who was in her early 30s at the time. “If I did, if I never admitted to having any emotions at all, I would get through it.”

Another woman, Emily Murphy, said Judge Kozinski suggested in a conversation with other colleagues that she should exercise naked. Ms. Murphy was 30 and a clerk for a different judge at the time.

“Within the legal community, there are power dynamics that can make it very challenging for people to speak out, especially about a sitting judge,” Ms. Murphy, a professor at the University of California Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco, wrote in an email. “As an educator, I owe the next generation of lawyers a better version of the legal profession.”

Judge Kozinski, who is known for his libertarian views and his lively opinions, was appointed to the appeals court by President Ronald Reagan in 1985.

In statement emailed on Saturday, he said: “I have been a judge for 35 years and during that time have had over 500 employees in my chambers. I treat all of my employees as family and work very closely with most of them. I would never intentionally do anything to offend anyone and it is regrettable that a handful have been offended by something I may have said or done.”

He told The Los Angeles Times that he was unaware of any formal complaint against him. “If this is all they are able to dredge up after 35 years, I am not too worried,” he said.

Judge Kozinski declined to comment beyond his statement. A spokesman for the court did not immediately respond to an email request for comment.

At the federal appeals level, clerkships usually last one year, sometimes two. They allow recent law school graduates to work closely with a judge, who in many cases becomes a mentor and a valuable reference.

But a clerk who wishes to report harassment is in a unique bind. Those outside the judiciary who want to address sexual harassment claims can turn to the courts to seek justice, but the process is murkier when the accused party is a sitting judge.

Allegations of judicial misconduct are often handled internally. In this case, a complaint could be filed with Sidney R. Thomas, the chief judge. Then the circuit — or another circuit, if Judge Thomas refers the matter — could appoint a committee to assess whether there was misconduct, said Charles G. Geyh, a law professor at Indiana University in Bloomington and an expert in judicial ethics.

Judge Kozinski has been through that process before.

In 2008, The Times reported on a family website that he contributed to where some of the content veered into the raunchy. The judicial council of the Third Circuit admonished Judge Kozinski, who apologized for carelessness in leaving the material publicly accessible.

“I think, frankly, it is more show than substance,” Ronald Rotunda, a law and ethics professor at Chapman University in Orange, Calif., said of the internal investigation process.

Sandra F. Sperino, an employment law expert and associate dean of faculty at the University of Cincinnati College of Law, said that while clerkships are sometimes difficult, they should not be demeaning.

Speaking of clerkships and Ms. Bond’s experience, Ms. Sperino said, “I think some of them can be rigorous and challenging, but I had not heard of a work environment like that before.”