At least two federal judges in D.C. have resisted attending workplace-conduct training scheduled in response to courthouse concerns about how the judiciary handles allegations of misconduct, according to an internal court email.
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Leaders of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and the U.S. District Court announced the training sessions this spring after employees detailed accusations of bullying, gender discrimination and racial insensitivity in a confidential workplace survey.
In an all-courthouse email sent to about 400 people last week, Circuit Judge David B. Sentelle said he and a colleague, Circuit Judge A. Raymond Randolph, would not participate in the training, which court leaders had described as mandatory “for everyone.”
“Like Judge Randolph,” Sentelle wrote in the brief message reviewed by The Washington Post, “[I] do not intend to attend this ‘mandatory’ session.”
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Sentelle was responding to a reminder from the court’s workplace relations coordinator asking employees to register for a 45-minute online session, which includes a review of the court’s employee dispute resolution process known as EDR. The subject of the email was “Mandatory 2022 EDR Plan Training for Everyone,” and the message described the session as “mandatory,” written in bold, underlined text.
Sentelle, who joined the D.C. Circuit in 1987, declined to comment on his initial refusal to participate. Randolph, appointed in 1990, did not respond to messages seeking comment.
Judges accused of sex discrimination, bullying, internal survey shows
In the days since he sent the email, Sentelle has decided to attend the training, according to a court official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal court operations. Sentelle did not mean to reply-all, the person said. He also did not object to the substance of the training, the official said, but to the characterization that it was mandatory for judges. Since 2019, courts across the country have been required to conduct annual training, but the judiciary leaders who adopted that policy did not require judges to attend.
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It was not immediately known whether Randolph would also attend one of the remaining sessions this month.
Chief Judges Sri Srinivasan of the D.C. Circuit and Beryl A. Howell of the U.S. District Court announced the training in late April as one of two concrete steps in response to employee feedback in the workplace survey. The judges said the sessions would cover “resources to address workplace conduct.”
“We are committed to ensuring that this courthouse is a workplace where we all treat one another, and the members of the public we serve, with dignity and respect,” the judges wrote in an April 21 email.
The survey, a copy of which was obtained by The Post, details allegations of misconduct by some judges and a reluctance by courthouse staff to file formal complaints against their supervisors. Most survey respondents described the courthouse as a positive work environment and said they had not personally experienced or witnessed wrongful conduct. But some employees also cited fears of retaliation and said they did not believe that the judiciary’s system for workplace accountability would resolve their concerns.
Courts drop survey question about workplace misconduct, but not before judges’ staffers said they had witnessed problems
Leaders of federal courthouses throughout the country have worked to overhaul the system for handling workplace misconduct in the years since Judge Alex Kozinski of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in California stepped down after allegations of sexual harassment from women he supervised. U.S. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., who oversees the federal judiciary, has resisted intervention by Congress on the matter, and the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts has opposed proposed legislation that would extend anti-discrimination rights to the court system’s more than 30,000 employees.
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After The Post published a report about the survey’s findings last month, the House Judiciary Committee requested a copy of the D.C. Circuit workplace survey. Srinivasan, the chief judge, asked Sentelle, a former chief judge and former prosecutor, to lead an investigation into the leak of the document.
Judges representing the courts’ administrative office told lawmakers at a March oversight hearing about steps the judiciary has taken to improve workplace protections and to increase reporting options. A March report from the judiciary’s workplace conduct committee notes a “dramatic increase in training related to workplace conduct” and says that judges and other court leaders are “actively engaged in training and leading by example through their personal commitment to maintaining an exemplary workplace.”
The report recommends tracking and ensuring training is completed by all employees, including judges. Training efforts could be “strengthened,” the report says, “if courts and employing offices ensured that all their employees not only have access to but also complete EDR training on an annual basis.”
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Nancy Gertner, a retired federal judge in Massachusetts who teaches at Harvard Law School, said the apparent resistance to training from the federal appeals court judges in D.C. “sends a troubling message.”
“Saying I’m not going to the training is saying, ‘It’s not important,’” Gertner said. “It’s the functional equivalent of the CEO of the company saying, ‘I’m not going to bother to go to the training.’”
Federal judges, who are nominated to life-tenured positions, place a premium on their independence and may bristle at the idea of being told something is required.
“There’s a judicial independence theme judges resort to,” Gertner said. “But telling judges that they have to behave cordially and responsibly is not the same thing as telling them how they should decide. That’s a different issue.”