Bretts mentor is equally charming:
Kozinski has been accused of sexual misconduct, ranging from harassment to assault, by more than fifteen women. Former Kozinski clerk Katherine Ku has described Kozinski's chambers--where three or four law clerks, one or two judicial assistants, and one or more judicial externs typically worked at a given time--as a "hostile, demeaning and persistently sexualized environment."
[24] An image posted on the legal gossip blog Underneath their Robes shows Kozinski with a law clerk draped around him.
[25][26]
Some former Kozinski clerks have observed that because Kozinski retired from the bench after the first fifteen women accused him of misconduct, "additional targets of, or witnesses to, Kozinski's transgressions" will not be likely to speak publicly.
[24][27] His former clerk,
Brett Kavanaugh, during his hearing before the
Judiciary Committee taking up his nomination for the
Supreme Court, received written questions tendered to him by Senator
Chris Coons about any knowledge of Kozinski's inappropriate behavior, including his circulations of sexually explicit emails via his "Easy Rider Gag List." Though Coons had asked him, on September 10, 2018, to review his emails from the judge, Kavanaugh's written and oral responses were vague, and skirted the senator's direct inquiry.
[28]
Kozinski interacted with, and allegedly harassed and assaulted, lawyers at different stages of their careers. He would regularly employ salaried full-time law clerks (recent law school graduates) and unpaid externs (law students). He interacted with clerks for other judges when they traveled to other courthouses for oral arguments. While on the bench, Kozinski was also a mainstay at law school moot courts
[29][30] and conferences.
[31] He also taught courses at Stanford.
Public allegations of Kozinski's sexual misconduct toward female lawyers and law students include:
- Kozinski would call clerk Heidi Bond into his office, pull up *advertiser censored* on his computer, and ask if she thought it was photoshopped or if it aroused her sexually, interrogating her about why it did not.[32]
- A former Kozinski clerk said Kozinski, in his chambers, showed her an "open-legged image of a male figure that was naked."[33]
- "One recent law student at the University of Montana said that Kozinski, at a 2016 reception, pressed his finger into the side of her breast, which was covered by her clothes, and moved it with some 'deliberateness' to the center, purporting to be pushing aside her lapel to fully see her name tag."[33]
- A lawyer "said Kozinski approached her when she was alone in a room at a legal community event around 2008 in downtown Los Angeles and — with no warning — gave her a bear hug and kissed her on the lips."[33]
- University of California at Irvine law professor, Leah Litman, said Kozinski pinched her at a dinner this year, and he also joked that he had just had sex with his wife and she or others at the table would be 'happy to know it still works.'"[33]
- Former U.S. Court of Federal Claims judge, Christine O.C. Miller, 73, said that "around early 1986 said Kozinski grabbed and squeezed each of her breasts as the two drove back from an event in Baltimore in the mid-1980s, after she had told him she did not want to stop at a motel and have sex."[33]
- Dahlia Lithwick, wrote in Slate that when she was clerking for another judge on the 9th Circuit and Kozinski learned she was in a hotel room, he asked her what she was wearing.[34]
- Nancy Rapoport, special counsel to the president of the University of Nevada at Las Vegas, has written that when she was clerking for another judge on the 9th Circuit, Judge Kozinski invited her to drinks and asked, "What do single girls in San Francisco do for sex?"[35]
- Emily Murphy, who was clerking for another Ninth Circuit judge at the time and later became a professor at UC Hastings, said Kozinski suggested to a group that she exercise naked in the courthouse gymnasium.[36] Murphy has said, "It wasn't just clear that he was imagining me naked, he was trying to invite other people — my professional colleagues — to do so as well. That was what was humiliating about it."[36]
- A former 9th Circuit clerk reported that in late 2011 or early 2012, she found herself sitting next to Kozinski at a dinner in Seattle. He "kind of picked the tablecloth up so that he could see the bottom half of me, my legs," and he remarked, "I wanted to see if you were wearing pants because it's cold out."[32]
- A "former 9th Circuit clerk said that at a dinner with other clerks, Kozinski brought up a movie that contained a topless woman, talking about her 'voluptuous' breasts. The woman . . . said she made a face to signal her disbelief at what he was saying, and Kozinski turned to her and said something like, 'What? I'm a man.'"[33]
- One "former Kozinski extern said the judge once made a comment about her hair and looked her body up and down 'in a less-than-professional way.' That extern said Kozinski also once talked with her about a female judge stripping." The clerk said she wouldn't want to be alone with Kozinski.[32]
- A former extern said she had at least two conversations with Kozinski "that had sexual overtones directed at me."[32]
Former clerks also describe abusive employment practices by Kozinski.
[32] For many years, Judge Kozinski's job announcement stated that "I'm looking for amazingly intelligent Supreme Court clerk wannabes eager to slave like dogs for an unreasonably demanding boss."
[37] Former law clerk Heidi Bond, described how Kozinski forbade her from reading romance novels during her dinner break: the Judge asserted, “I control what you read, what you write, when you eat. You don’t sleep if I say so. You don’t
*advertiser censored* unless I say so. Do you understand?”
[38]Bond also described interactions consistent with
cycles of abuse.
This sort of diatribe was a regular occurrence. The judge had incredibly high standards, and when we failed to meet them, we were raked over the coals. I do not think a week passed without at least one such outburst; during bad times, they were a daily occurrence. He also had an innate sense of when he’d gone too far. . . .
After he’d demonstrated that he had forgiven me for the misplaced comma or misspelled word that gave rise to his outburst, he would go up to me.
“Heidi, honey,” he would ask. “Do you still love me?”
There was only one answer. To say “no” would be to invite the tempest a second time.
“Yes, Judge,” I would say. “Of course I still love you.”
He’d kiss my cheek, and I would kiss his.
Former clerk Katherine Ku wrote that Kozinski expected to be able to approve the location of her apartment, would complain when his clerks "wanted salad for lunch instead of whatever he was having," and "regularly diminished women and their accomplishments."
[24]
Complaints about Kozinski's abusive employment practices were raised as early as 1985 by former Kozinski employees. Those employees claimed Kozinski was unqualified to join the 9th Circuit "because of a harsh temperament, questionable decisions and misleading testimony before the Judiciary Committee."
[8]They said Kozinski was "harsh, cruel, demeaning, sadistic, disingenuous and without compassion," and that his actions as a boss "portray[ed] an unusual degree of hostility . . . and at times an almost complete disregard for the consequences of the actions upon individuals."
[8]
Alex Kozinski - Wikipedia
