As all employment lawyers know, federal law (specifically Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964) has protected most employees from unlawful workplace misconduct (including sexual harassment) for more than half a century. Our federal laws correctly provide a mechanism for employees to lodge discrimination complaints that ensure those claims are ultimately evaluated by a judge or jury of our peers. An imperfect system but still the best there is.

But what if a complaint asserts that a federal judge or member of the judicial staff engaged in the misconduct? Surely that would be prohibited by federal law, right? How can those allegations, which impact upward of 30,000 judicial employees, be addressed in such a way as to ensure confidence in the process and to protect an employee who believes he or she was discriminated against? In this circumstance, the typical federal anti-discrimination laws will not provide an avenue because the judiciary and judicial employees were specifically exempted by Congress from those laws the judges otherwise review and enforce. So what is one to do?

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