INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
United States District Judge Lynn N
Hughes had been presiding over a criminal case.Buried in a footnote, the brief rebuke nonetheless marked a notable step in abridging gender
discrimination in the legal workplace: The United States Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit scolded a veteran judge for making sexist
comments in his Houston courtroom, calling his remarks "demeaning, inappropriate, and beneath the dignity" of his profession.United States
Hughes had been presiding over a criminal case against Simone Swenson, an adoption agency owner charged with fraud.Under federal rules,
prosecutors are permitted to wait until just before trial to turn over pieces of evidence, known as discovery
But when a female federal prosecutor delivered stacks of new documents during four pretrial conferences in early 2017 - weeks after the
final discovery date set by Hughes - the septuagenarian judge was not impressed."You're supposed to know what you're doing," Hughes said to
an assistant United States attorney on Feb
"What else is out there that you misplaced or didn't think was relevant so you didn't check it at all"Hughes dismissed the Swenson
indictment, faulting the prosecutor's mistakes.Then he said something else that eventually became the basis of the rebuke."It was a lot
simpler when you guys wore dark suits, white shirts and navy ties," Hughes said, according to the 5th Circuit
"We didn't let girls do it in the old days."The United States attorney's office appealed the case's dismissal, which set up a panel of
appellate judges to send back its censorious response.In reinstating the Swenson case, the appellate court also took an unusual action: It
ordered Hughes, now 76, to be replaced with a different judge.More than a third of the 300,000 members of the American Bar Association are
women, according to a recent report from the ABA's Commission on Women in the Profession, and female litigators have been subjected to
male colleagues' sexist comments for decades.Two years ago, the ABA adopted an anti-discrimination resolution in its rules of professional
ethics, making harassment and discrimination grounds for findings of misconduct."It's important to set up a process and culture that
doesn't marginalize people who legitimately say, 'You did this to me,' " said Michele Coleman Mayes, former chair of the ABA's Commission
on Women in the Profession.The resolution and the subsequent arrival of the #MeToo movement eased the way for women to come forward with
claims of sexual harassment or unfair treatment, Angela Brandt, president of the National Association of Women Lawyers, told The Washington
Still, she said, female lawyers are hesitant to do so."It's a male-dominated profession," she said
"Women feel weak highlighting this type of bad behavior, and, in certain circumstances, it can jeopardize their careers."Experts say the
industry has therefore faced less scrutiny than other professions - though there have been notable exceptions: Judge Alex Kozinski, for
example, resigned from the federal bench last year amid allegations of sexual misconduct
The accusations led to a review of how the judiciary handles claims of harassment, though Kozinski's abrupt retirement cut short any
investigation into the merits of the allegations against him.Hughes, who has been on the bench for almost three decades, denied the
He told The Post that his comment was not directed at the prosecutor in his Houston courtroom but at an "inappropriately dressed" woman.The
5th Circuit acknowledged that Hughes's comments may have been intended for someone other than the United States attorney
Nevertheless, Judge Edith Brown Clement of the 5th Circuit wrote, as Hughes "excoriated the prosecution," he "attributed the government's
mistakes to the prosecutor's sex."The female prosecutor was not named in the 5th Circuit's decision, but Assistant United States
Attorney Tina Ansari has been prosecuting the Swenson case since 2015, according to the Justice Department.Ansari, who attended the
University of Houston Law Center and has been practicing for more than 15 years, could not be reached for comment.Michael Sokolow, Swenson's
assistant federal public defender, declined to speak about the case, which is being assigned to a new judge and rescheduled for
trial.Hughes denied favoring either sex
"After I've made it through my career with a woman's first name, of course I'm going to be sympathetic," he told The Post.Hughes began
teaching at South Texas College of Law in 1973
At that time, he said, about 6 percent of the law school's students were women
By 1985, the figure had surpassed 40 percent, leading to what Hughes called "a vast improvement in the quality of the lawyers
We're getting the best of both sexes instead of the best of one sex."Until recently, there was little judicial precedent or federal case law
addressing sexism, California attorney Lori Rifkin told The Post
The Hughes decision, she said, will help female lawyers represent the best interests of their clients, which should never be reduced by the
biases of parties involved in the litigation process."It's very positive that a court of appeals was willing to engage on this issue, name
it and act to address the problem," said Rifkin, who said she had been a victim of belittling, gendered remarks
"Having something so head-on will empower women and other underrepresented groups in litigation to fight back against this kind of
treatment."In 2016, Rifkin moved for sanctions against her opposing counsel, a managing partner at a California law firm
A comment from him - not to raise her voice at him during a deposition because it's "not becoming of a woman" - brought on a
tongue-lashing from a federal judge, who called it an "indefensible attack on opposing counsel."The judge then ordered that he donate $250
to the Women Lawyers Association of Los Angeles Foundation.There is not necessarily less sexism in the profession now, Rifkin said, but
there is "more consciousness and a willingness especially by judges to take a role in addressing it." Now, she noted, women are doing more
than whispering to one another in courthouse hallways
The conversation is happening inside the courtroom.Still, until there are more women in positions of power in the legal industry, women who
practice law will be reluctant to speak out unless the behavior was egregious, said Mayes, who led the ABA's Commission on Women in the
Profession until 2017."You win the fight, but you lose the war," she said
"And I don't think most people are willing to lose for the cause."(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by
TheIndianSubcontinent staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
