Jeannie Suk Gersen

The U.S. government asked a North Carolina federal judge to deny a former assistant federal public defender’s deposition of Chief Circuit Judge Roger L. Gregory…

An essay by Jeannie Suk Gersen: In 2016, Brock Turner, a former swimmer at Stanford University, was convicted of sexually assaulting an unconscious woman outside…

An essay by Jeannie Suk Gersen: Last fall, some mysterious new activity appeared on the Supreme Court’s docket. It was one week after oral arguments…

An essay by Jeannie Suk Gersen: More than half of abortions in the United States are accomplished with pills, rather than with surgeries. So, when…

An essay by Jeannie Suk Gersen: On the day that the Supreme Court overruled Roe v. Wade, the lawyer Jonathan Mitchell was at the National…

An essay by Jeannie Suk Gersen: This was a year that was split into before and after—the dividing line being when the Supreme Court overruled…

An essay by Jeannie Suk Gersen: When the Supreme Court declared, in 2015, that the Constitution requires all states to license and recognize same-sex marriages,…

A federal judge is considering a request to unseal sidebar transcripts from the 2018 trial accusing Harvard’s college admissions policies of discriminating against Asian Americans.

The midterms may be over, but a House leadership contest is already under way, and Donald Trump has announced another run for the Presidency. In…

An essay by Jeannie Suk Gersen: On Monday, I was at the Supreme Court for five hours of oral arguments on affirmative action. In constitutional…

An essay by Jeannie Suk Gersen: When Supreme Court Justices want to justify overruling long-standing precedent, the paradigm often cited is Brown v. Board of…

For nearly half a century, colleges and universities have argued that affirmative action is crucial to their missions — and to American society. Campus diversity,…

An essay by Jeannie Suk Gersen: Last week, the Supreme Court heard oral argument about an Andy Warhol illustration of Prince, which he based on…

In 2020, former federal public defender Caryn Strickland filed a complaint alleging sexual harassment from a supervisor while she was a public defender in the Western District of North Carolina. The lawsuit further alleged that the judiciary’s Employment Dispute Resolution system is unconstitutional. ... Jeannie Suk Gersen, attorney for Strickland, noted the impact of the decision: “Today’s decision is a major victory. In a unanimous decision, the court held that Strickland’s constitutional claims for equal protection and due process violations can proceed, and made clear that the federal judiciary as an employer is not immune from suits for sex discrimination.”

An appeals court is giving a former federal public defender another chance to take her sexual harassment claims to court. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit on Tuesday revived a portion of Caryn Strickland’s lawsuit against the judiciary. Certain claims can move forward against several officials, including Roslynn Mauskopf, the chair of the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, and Roger Gregory, the Fourth Circuit’s chief judge. ... Strickland’s attorney, Harvard professor Jeannie Suk Gersen, called the decision a win for her client and others who may bring sex discrimination lawsuits against the courts. “Today’s decision is a major victory. In a unanimous decision, the court held that Strickland’s constitutional claims for equal protection and due process violations can proceed, and made clear that the federal judiciary as an employer is not immune from suits for sex discrimination,” Gersen said in a statement.

A federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that a former assistant federal public defender in North Carolina can sue court officials for constitutional violations stemming from an alleged faulty investigation of sexual harassment. ... Strickland was represented by Jeannie Suk Gersen, a professor at Harvard Law School, who called the decision “a major victory” in a statement published by Law.com and other publications. The unanimous decision “made clear that the federal judiciary as an employer is not immune from suits for sex discrimination,” Gersen said.

A federal appeals court on Tuesday revived a former public defender’s lawsuit challenging the federal judiciary’s handling of her sexual harassment and discrimination claims about a supervisor’s unwelcome attention at work. ... Strickland’s lawyer, Jeannie Suk Gersen, a Harvard Law School professor, characterized Tuesday’s decision as a landmark ruling because it makes “crystal clear” that the federal judiciary, as an employer, “can be held accountable based on its constitutional obligations” by judiciary employees who experience discrimination.