Government

More Women Speak Out About Judge Kozinski's Behavior; Say It Was An 'Open Secret'

This is what happens when you dare women to tell their stories.

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The news that Ninth Circuit judge Alex Kozinski is alleged to be a serial sexual harasser, has reverberated through the legal community since it broke late on Friday. Now others are coming forward with their recollections and interactions with the judge.

In a phone interview with the Los Angeles Times Friday night, Kozinski seemed to offer a dare to others who have their own stories about the judge, saying, “If this is all they are able to dredge up after 35 years, I am not too worried.”

Well, Nancy Rapoport, Special Counsel to the President of UNLV, has accepted the challenge. And it is a direct result of the dismissive way the Kozinski has decided to deal with the allegations against him:

I view his statement to the Los Angeles Times as a challenge; hence, this post to add to the other voices.

She never clerked for Kozinski, but she still details an unsettling incident involving the judge at the time Rapoport clerked for Judge Joseph T. Sneed:

Judge Kozinski sat up north from time to time, and at one point during my clerkship, he asked me to go for drinks with him and his clerks after work.  I’m sociable (though not much of a drinker), so I agreed.  When I showed up, none of his clerks were there.  Just him.

Two things stand out in my memory.  One was that he asked me, “What do single girls in San Francisco do for sex?”  Another was, after I said I needed to head home because I had to absorb the news that my mother had just been diagnosed with breast cancer, he offered to “comfort” me.  There was no reporting relationship between him and me, and I certainly never believed that my job with Judge Sneed was ever in jeopardy because of my interactions with Judge Kozinski.  I just thought that the judge exhibited extremely poor taste.

I’m sure there are some that will try to undermine Rapoport’s account. That the judge never really crossed a line. But consider the result of the interaction — it profoundly changed how she regarded Kozinski, despite the esteem he’s held in as a jurist:

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But I have told countless female law students that I would never write them a letter of recommendation for a clerkship with him, and I have told them why.  I didn’t want them ever to be at risk of being sexually harassed by him.  I have told some of my female colleagues not to be alone with him, and for the same reason.

And we wonder why Supreme Court law clerks are still mostly white and male. When a significant feeder judge like Kozinski isn’t considered “safe” for women to clerk for, that’s a problem as Nancy Leong, Professor at University of Denver Law School, discusses in a series of tweets about the issue:

Stories like this — and there are likely more that will follow — are why few in the legal industry can say the accusations against Judge Kozinski are truly shocking. In what is becoming an all too common refrain after a serial sexual harasser is outed, Kozinski’s behavior is referred to as “an open secret” by Alexandra Brodsky, a Skadden Fellow at National Women’s Law Center:

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And Erica Goldberg, a professor at the University of Dayton School of Law, writes about rumors she began hearing about the judge a few years ago, though she wonders what to do about them since at the time it seemed “only wrong, and not horrific”:

A few years ago, I began hearing rumors that Judge Kozinski took liberties with his female clerks that seemed, at the time we would discuss them, mostly just shockingly creepy and highly inappropriate.  I did not know if these rumors were true, but the buzz circulating was that he touched female clerks on the shoulders inappropriately and had a penchant for attractive clerks.  I did not know the extent to which Judge Kozinski was exerting his authority to bully clerks and force them into uncomfortable, horrifying sexual situations.  His behavior, even knowing the rumors and waiting for them to come out in the aftermath of #metoo, is extreme and surprising.

This is the same man who was involved in a scandal, and merely admonished by a judicial panel, when he accidentally publicly posted sexually explicit material to his personal website. And then there’s this gem of aggressive behavior during his brush with fame on The Dating Show:

One has to wonder if we’ve heard the last story about Judge Kozinski’s behavior.

headshotKathryn Rubino is an editor at Above the Law. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter (@Kathryn1).

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