Law Students Take Judiciary Workplace Fight to Supreme Court

A group of law students at Emory University in Atlanta has petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to take up a case challenging whether the federal judiciary’s internal system for policing workplace misconduct provides adequate constitutional protections for its 30,000 employees. The petition, filed in the case Strickland v. Moritz, argues that employees of the federal courts—including law clerks, probation officers, and public defenders—are effectively denied the civil rights protections that most other American workers take for granted, as NPR reported.

A Legal Gap Dating to 1964

Unlike workers in the private sector, state and local governments, and most federal agencies, the approximately 30,000 employees of the federal judiciary are not covered by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits workplace discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. By 1995, Congress extended Title VII protections to workers on Capitol Hill, but judiciary employees remained excluded—a gap that critics say leaves them vulnerable with no independent recourse.

Andrew Taramykin, an Emory law student entering his third year who researched Title VII for the petition, explained the scope of the problem. “Title VII goes back to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and it prohibits certain unlawful workplace conduct that includes what we generally understand as workplace harassment, workplace discrimination,” he told NPR.

The students argue that while Congress intended federal court employees to receive protections, it gave the judiciary room to implement them internally—a system they say fails to provide neutral, independent decision-making. Each federal circuit court has developed its own human resources program for resolving disputes, but those rules typically leave judges to oversee complaints against people they know and work with daily.

‘Nowhere to Turn’

Sofia Bettini, a recent Emory Law graduate who worked on the Supreme Court petition, described the stakes for young lawyers entering the judiciary. “You may not know as a student entering a clerkship that you’re going to forgo certain workplace protections that you otherwise would never have to even consider forgoing because they just seem that fundamental,” she said.

Bettini added: “They have nowhere to turn, no independent enforcer, no neutral decision maker and there exists a very real threat that speaking up will cost them everything.”

The case at the center of the petition was brought by Caryn Strickland, a former assistant federal public defender who alleges she faced sexual harassment on the job and found no adequate recourse within the judiciary’s self-policing system. The Supreme Court has asked the Justice Department for a response to the students’ petition, due in July 2026, as noted on SCOTUSblog.

A System Under Scrutiny

The petition comes at a moment of heightened attention on judicial misconduct. In June 2026 alone, three federal judges in three different states—Georgia, Idaho, and Michigan—faced scrutiny for alleged misconduct off the bench, as NPR reported.

In Georgia, Rep. Andrew Clyde filed articles of impeachment against U.S. District Judge Eleanor Ross, alleging she had sex in her chambers during business hours and made false statements to investigators. In Idaho, Ninth Circuit Judge Ryan Nelson pleaded not guilty to misdemeanor battery after allegedly smashing a motorist’s eyeglasses in a parking lot dispute. And in Michigan, U.S. District Judge Thomas Ludington faced arraignment for allegedly failing to undergo required alcohol testing as part of his probation following a DUI conviction.

Aliza Shatzman, president of The Legal Accountability Project, described the federal judiciary as “the most dangerous white-collar workplace in America.” She noted that the system’s exemption from Title VII means that “if you are a law clerk and you are sexually harassed, fired, retaliated against by a federal judge, you have no legal recourse.”

The Power Imbalance

Federal judges hold lifetime tenure, while law clerks are typically young attorneys in their mid-to-late 20s working for judges whose average age is in the mid-to-late 60s. A single negative reference from a judge can derail a clerk’s career, while a positive one can open doors. This power differential creates an environment where abuse can flourish and victims are reluctant to speak out.

Only 15 federal judges have ever been impeached by Congress, and only eight have been removed from office. Gabe Roth, executive director of Fix the Court, described the dynamic succinctly: “This is a classic case of judges protecting other judges.”

What’s Next

The Supreme Court’s decision on whether to grant certiorari in Strickland v. Moritz will be a critical indicator. If the Court takes the case, it could fundamentally reshape the legal landscape for 30,000 judiciary employees. The case raises novel Fifth Amendment due process and equal protection claims about whether a system where judges police other judges provides adequate constitutional safeguards.

Legislative efforts, including the Judiciary Accountability Act introduced by Reps. Norma Torres and Hank Johnson, have stalled in a Republican-controlled Congress. With the legislative path blocked for now, all eyes are on the Supreme Court—and the Emory law students who are fighting to ensure that the institution entrusted with upholding the law extends its protections to those who work within it.

Professor Paul Koster, director of Emory’s Supreme Court Advocacy Program, noted that the students are doing this work without academic credit or grades. “They’re doing the work because they want to do the work,” he said.