U.S. Senator Mazie K. Hirono (D-HI), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL), Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Representatives Norma Torres (D-CA), Hank Johnson (D-GA), and Jerry Nadler (D-NY) have released a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report addressing the Judiciary’s policies and practices to prevent and respond to workplace misconduct.
The Administrative Office (AO) of the U.S. Courts did not fully cooperate with the GAO audit, which relies heavily on transparency. Over the two-year study, the Judiciary permitted the GAO to interview only one current employee and one former employee for an “employee perspective,” severely limiting the GAO’s ability to assess how policies are implemented in practice. The tactics used to delay and restrict auditors’ access to information and personnel raised concerns.
“Everyone deserves to be safe and respected in the workplace,” said Senator Hirono. “But this report makes clear that years after its workplace misconduct problems came to light, the federal judiciary will not prevent workplace misconduct, leaving employees vulnerable to abuse without any recourse. The AO’s refusal to fully cooperate with this report underscores its unwillingness to even understand this issue, let alone address it. If the federal judiciary won’t take even basic action to protect its employees, Congress will. I look forward to introducing strengthened legislation with my colleagues in the weeks ahead to protect judiciary employees and stamp out the workplace misconduct that persists in our courts.”
The GAO report concluded that the Judiciary “does not have performance measures in place for its workplace conduct efforts and has not evaluated the effectiveness of its efforts.” Overall, GAO found that 65% of federal standards were met by Judiciary systems evaluated. It was noted that insufficient data collection “may limit” understanding and addressing workplace misconduct within the organization.
Judiciary officials reported conducting a survey from January 12 through February 17, 2023, receiving responses from approximately 14,000 out of 28,000 surveyed employees. Both GAO's request for access to survey data and a similar request from Congress were denied; circuit courts also lack access.
The full report is available here.