American federal court workers, tens of thousands of people, are not covered by landmark civil rights protections—and they cannot turn to an independent agency for help if they experience harassment or discrimination on the job.
"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," according to Sofia Bettini, a recent Emory graduate who worked on the Supreme Court petition.
Bettini and nine other students in the program spent weeks researching the facts and the law. They're working to support a former federal public defender, who says she faced sexual harassment on the job.
The law student-drafted petition comes as misconduct in the judiciary is drawing renewed attention. This month, three federal judges in three different states came under scrutiny for their behavior off the bench.
Impeachment by Congress is the most severe sanction federal judges face. Just 15 judges have been impeached, and only eight removed from office.
Emory University Professor Paul Koster said it's the only student-led Supreme Court litigation program in the country.
"These students aren't getting credits for this, they're not getting graded on this, they're doing the work because they want to do the work," Koster said.Current system provides due process for some
At the center of the case is the unique system the courts use to police themselves and whether it gives workers due process and equal protection under the law.
Student Andrew Taramykin said the judiciary is a special place, with some 30,000 employees.
"Yes it's a huge employer but in many ways it's a small community," said Taramykin, who will enter his third and final year of law school in the fall.
He spent hours researching a fundamental civil rights law, known as Title VII, for that Supreme Court petition.
"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 said.
By 1995, lawmakers had passed a new law to extend those protections to workers in Congress. And Taramykin said by his read, Congress intended federal court employees to get protections too. But he said lawmakers wanted to give the judiciary plenty of room to carry them out.
Every federal circuit court has since developed its own human resources program for workers to resolve disputes. Those rules typically leave judges to oversee complaints against people they know and might work with every day.
Bettini, said it was a "no brainer" for the students to pick this issue out of several other requests for help that came their way at the university's Supreme Court Advocacy Program.
"Autonomy for the institution cannot come at the cost of basic workplace rights and safety for people within it," Bettini said.
An earlier NPR investigation found clerks and other employees who face abuse in the courts often find little recourse.
The Emory law students said that's not the kind of neutral, independent decision making that's promised in the civil rights law.
A spokesman for the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts in Washington declined comment on the case. But that office has been defending the judiciary's internal system as robust. And they've said changes are underway to make it easier to report wrongdoing.
The Supreme Court has asked the Justice Department for a response to the students' petition — due next month.
For more information about the Emory Law School Supreme Court Advocacy Program (ELSSCAP) visit sundaysplits.com you can email ELSSCAP at emoryelsscap@gmail.com.