Leak of Employee Survey to Media Prompts D.C. Courts Investigation

WASHINGTON -- The federal judiciary in Washington, D.C., is investigating how embarrassing results of an employee survey were leaked to the media recently.

The confidential survey revealed that some employees of U.S. District Court and the U.S. Court of Appeals were bullied by judges, which has included gender discrimination and racial insensitivity.

The survey was given to The Washington Post by an unknown source, which prompted D.C. Circuit Chief Judge Sri Srinivasan to order an investigation.

Court administrators told employees the survey last year was intended to “better understand our employees’ workplace experiences, and employees who completed the survey did so on the understanding that their responses would be used only for that purpose and kept confidential.”

Srinivasan seemed unwilling to tolerate the media report, saying in a statement, “The leak of a confidential document compiling the responses was a serious breach of that understanding and must be investigated.”

The Post reported that many employees were afraid of filing workplace complaints out of fear of reprisal and job loss. They also said they did not trust self-policing of the judiciary.

The report coincides with a bill pending in Congress that would grant the nation’s 30,000 judicial employees the same protections against discrimination as other government workers. The federal judiciary is resisting it.

Members of the House Judiciary Committee told D.C. federal court administrators they wanted to see a copy of the survey and related information.

“While it is commendable that the D.C. Circuit has finally conducted a workplace climate survey, the results are further evidence of the culture of silence that allows judges and supervisors across the country to act with impunity,” says a statement from Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., and Rep. Hank Johnson, D-Ga., both members of the House Judiciary Committee.

The Post’s report on the survey said, “One federal appeals court judge in D.C. has hired only male law clerks for the past two decades. Another judge allegedly refused to speak to a staffer for weeks after a child-care emergency caused the assistant to depart work early one day. Others are said to have reduced their employees to tears by yelling or making cruel comments about the quality of their work.”

For more information, contact The Legal Forum (www.legal-forum.net) at email: [email protected] or phone: 202-479-7240.