Professor Suja Thomas was quoted in a recent ABA Journal article about how our legal and judicial systems have been slow to adapt to sexual harassment and assault issues.
To illustrate the depth of the problem, Thomas pointed to a 2012 study of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, which found that when an employer filed a summary judgment motion in sexual harassment cases where the plaintiff had counsel, 94 percent of the claims were dismissed.
“These are incredibly factually intensive cases, and of course fact disputes should go to a jury. The problem is that federal judges are taking the place of juries and deciding what they think is evidence,” said Thomas, mentioning a 2016 Federal Judicial Center study that found 75 percent of Article III judges are male.
“Our studies show that if a woman is added to an appellate panel, the panel is more likely to find against a summary judgment motion in a sex discrimination claim,” she said.
Read the full article at abajournal.com.