Thank you to the judges for doing the right thing here. We need more of it. And when we see someone do the right thing, let’s promote it. So, a few weeks ago, we had filed a complaint with the judicial council that’s out of the US Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit. So, essentially, the courts and the federal courts in America are divided into circuits. And the 7th Circuit includes Illinois.

And the chief judge there, the honorable Diane Sykes, she’s the person at the top who handles ethics complaints against other judges in the circuit there. And there were three Illinois judges that had become public, had standing orders that were discriminatory. There were woke standing orders past probably, I think around 2020. And we had filed this ethics complaint back in February 2024. So earlier this year, and our friends over at American First Legal foundation, another group that does a lot of work like Judicial watch does, theyre kind of the newbies to the scene, but theyve been around two or three years now.

They were founded after the Trump administration. They do some great work, including this ethics complaint they also filed. They filed it before we did. So I want to give them credit. We filed it afterwards. And, you know, sometimes if another group files something, its like, well, you know, they did it. We dont need to do it. But the issue is so important. We thought that, you know, theres got to be additional voices out there opposing what happened here.

And what had happened was the judges had filed, you know, district court judges, federal judges. District court is kind of the first level judges, and then you have the appellate court judges, and then you go to the Supreme Court and the district court judges. In the southern district of Illinois, there were three judges we had found or had evidence of, based on reports, had published orders that provide discriminatory benefits to certain people, basically ethnic minorities, racial minorities, and women, completely inappropriate.

And so, and we don’t file, as you might imagine, ethics complaints against federal judges lightly. But as I said, this was pretty darn serious. You know, we are all supposed to get equal protection of the law, especially lawyers appearing before a federal court judge. And this is what the order said, more or less, because they’re all quite similar. So I’m going to summarize it by reviewing one judge Stacey Yandle entered a standing order, and she did this in January of 2020.

Recognizing the importance of the development of future generations of practitioners through courtroom opportunities, the undersigned encourages the participation of newer female and minority attorneys in proceedings in my courtroom, particularly with respect to oral argument. To that end, the court adopts the following procedures regarding oral arguments as to pending motions after a motion is fully briefed as part of a motion requesting oral argument, a party may alert the court that if oral argument is granted, it intends to have a newer female or minority attorney argue the motion or a portion of the motion.

If such a request is made, the court will grant the request for oral argument on the motion, if at all, is practically grant the request for oral argument on the motion. If it is all practical to do so, strongly consider allocating additional time for oral argument beyond what the court may otherwise have allocated. Were a newer female or minority attorney not arguing the motion, permit other more experienced counsel of record the ability to provide some assistance to the newer female or minority attorney who is arguing the motion, where appropriate, during oral argument.

Now, if they had just said, if you’re a new lawyer, we’ll give you special consideration, maybe that might be appropriate. I don’t know why it might not be, but by giving special consideration to minority and female lawyers, I mean, a, you don’t have a right to an oral argument, so you may have a question. You want the court to decide and you’re debating it. You know, obviously you’re in civil litigation.

Typically, the court doesn’t have to grant you oral argument. They can decide it on their own through, you know, without any papers here, it looks like you have a leg up in getting a oral argument. And typically you might want to, in my experience, lawyers like to have oral arguments, at least good lawyers, because you get to make your case again to the court. Right. If you were trying to get someone to do something, would you just rely on a letter if you could, in addition to that, go in and talk to them in person? It’s easy to understand why oral arguments are sought often by lawyers.

But the idea that you get special treatment and special consideration for one, that’s not correct. It’s not correct under our constitutional, the fair administration of justice. Really disturbing that these three judges have put that in there. And then, of course, you know, if you’re a minority or a female lawyer, you get, you’re allowed to get special help at the podium for more experienced attorneys to make your argument.

I mean, that’s not right either. And I’m trying to be nice. I try to be nice, believe it or not. And I understand maybe they, they were like thinking, well, you know, these folks, patronizingly, too often the approach is, but maybe it was just an honest mistake, right. They were trying to help folks that they thought typically dont have the experiences that other lawyers get in oral arguments.

So they wanted to be sure they had access to those experiences through this equal opportunity. But you gotta follow the law and ensure that people understand that theres no racial and gender based favoritism. And that was not the case. And that’s why we filed the ethics complaint. We said, the orders are discriminatory and unconstitutional and conduct. Conduct, and can constitute conduct prejudicial to the effective and expeditious administration of the courts.

Guess what? We won. And to the credit of the judges, they agreed with us. Now, they didn’t say it as directly as our complaints said it, but in a remarkable decision, it was just released before I got out here, so I kind of had to read through it quickly. Judge Sykes, the chief judge of the district of the circuit I told you about, said, look, the orders have been rescinded, and they fixed it, and they’ve authorized me to publicize it.

And we’re like, well, that’s great. I don’t want to put too fine a point on it. I don’t know if I printed out the detail I wanted to do on this. Maybe I did. Yeah. So Judge Sykes says that she noted that we filed the complaint, and our friends at American First Legal foundation filed the complaint. Now, one of the judges said, and she attached letters, and the judges authorized the release of these letters, that that order was old, and I had rescinded it, and, you know, we should have caught it.

Well, of course, we didn’t say it was because we couldn’t find it. We were based on. We were basing our complaint on some published reports. But that judge even acknowledged that there was an issue potentially with the order. And this is the key line. The ruling states. In sum, all three judges have rescinded the standing orders that are the subject of these complaints. They also revised their case management procedures, which now state only that the judges welcome or encourage oral argument by relatively inexperienced attorneys.

The judges no longer have a policy of preferential treatment for new or inexperienced attorneys of any other or any other particular group of lawyers. More specifically, the judges have eliminated their prior policies of preferential treatment based on the lawyer’s sex, gender, race, or ethnicity. And so that complaint has been dismissed. Now, they were asking us if we’re gonna sue or appeal this decision. It’s like, well, you know, they admitted their mistake.

They were public about it, and they fixed it in a timely way once the complaints were made. I mean, why would we? You know, I guess we could always appeal it because we want a more significant punishment. But to me, this is kind of a remarkable story in the sense that we had a series of public officials, and I dont know who appointed these other judges. You know, for all I know, they could be left wing liberals, right? It doesnt matter to me.

They do the right thing here. And im going to read you the letters they wrote to the court, the chief judge for that district, so Chief Sykes is the appellate chief. Chief Rosen Stengel in the Southern District of Illinois is the chief for the district court level. So the level below, she had the standing order like this, and this is what she said. I acknowledge I chose the wrong means to accomplish my goal of expanding courtroom opportunities for young lawyers.

As worded, the standing order created perceived preferences based on immutable characteristics. As such, my procedures have been revised and the standing order eliminated. And she said, I’ve never based my decision to grant or denial oral argument on an attorney’s sex, race, or other immutable trait, nor would I ever do so. And she went on to say that, you know, this is something that would be alien to her, and I appreciate that.

And I have to tell you, she didn’t have to make this public. Chief, Judge Sykes, nor the other judges. They could have, they could have just said, well, their orders are done. They’re gone. They could have just disappeared and we wouldn’t know what. And then Chief Sykes could have written a letter back or a public statement or no statement at all, potentially saying, oh, we took care of this and we’d have no real resolution in terms of whether the judges acknowledged there was an issue that we were right to complain about.

Now, chief, another judge, the judge whose order I read to you, judge, I’m going to get her name right. Stacy Candel, I think it is. Or candle. Let me see. Excuse me. Stacey M. Yandle. Y a n D l E. She wrote the following. These are federal court judges making these admissions great, great model for public service in my regard. In my view, while I’ve never granted or denied oral argument to an attorney based on their sex or race, nor would I.

I acknowledge that as worded, the procedure and the standing order created a perception of preference based on immutable characteristics. As a result, I’ve eliminated the standing order. Good for her, Chief Dugan. Not Chief Dugan, but Judge Dugan, the other judge who we complained about first. He says, look, I removed this two or three years ago, back in 2022, but even though he technically didn’t have this order, still as part of his operations in the court, this is what he said.

I can assure you, the court, the counsel, Mister Hamilton and he was part of american first legal. He had Gene Hamilton filed the complaint and the public generally, that notwithstanding the allegations, I have not on any occasion in my now seven years on both the state and federal benches, granted, denied, or even seriously entertained access to oral arguments specifically or to our court generally on the basis of race, sex, or age or any other immutable characteristic.

Nor will I in the future. Still, I recognize and acknowledge how such references could cause confusion for someone, and for that I am regretful. Imagine if other politicians took this approach in denouncing and pulling back or corporations for woke policies. There’s no defense here by any of these judges of this order. And to me, its a remarkable testament to their ethics. And I think this is a big victory for ethics on the judiciary, transparency and accountability.

And I want to credit all three judges. And I know im supposed to be cynical, and im sure some of you will look at this and say, tom, youre being entirely too nice. They should have been removed from the and I respect your views in that regard. But having done this for 25 years, this is a remarkable development on a key issue where woke discrimination is encouraged in all sectors of our nation’s public, cultural, corporate, government, educational right.

And here the judiciary said, no, not here. It’s the rule of law. We treat everyone equally, no matter your race, no matter your gender. Isn’t that what we all want? And here it is as affirmed. And this is my statement. I don’t even think we’ve issued this yet, so I don’t know if it is my statement, but it’s my statement, at least in draft form. So if I make a mistake, it’s in draft.

This is a remarkable victory for judicial ethics, accountability, and transparency. The courts did the right thing in acknowledging and correcting their mistakes in a public way. We are hopeful that the quick and decisive result here sends a signal to any other courts to end any woke policies that perpetuate discrimination and undermine confidence in the fair administration of justice. So this is a great victory. It’s a credit to judicial watch and our supporters for highlighting this and giving us the ability to highlight this.

And thank you to my friends at American first legal foundation who filed the initial complaint here. And we followed up with our own complaint. And thank you to the judges for doing the right thing here. We need more of it. And when we see someone do the right thing, let’s promote it and sing about it from the mountaintops. Thanks for watching. Don’t forget to hit that subscribe button and like our video down below,.

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