9th Circuit judge rebuked by colleagues for 'vulgar barroom' language in dissent
Judge Lawrence VanDyke of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals at San Francisco appears before the Senate Judiciary Committee during his confirmation hearing in 2019. (File photo)
A federal appellate judge has been rebuked by 29 of his colleagues for a recent dissent that featured crass references to male genitalia, according to Bloomberg Law.
Judge Lawrence VanDyke of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals at San Francisco recently used the unusually crude phrase in a dissent in a case involving whether transgender women should be allowed to enter a nude, female-only spa in Washington.
“You may think that swinging d- - -s shouldn’t appear in a judicial opinion. You’re not wrong,” wrote VanDyke, who was appointed by President Donald Trump during his first term. “But as much as you might understandably be shocked and displeased to merely encounter that phrase in this opinion, I hope we all can agree that it is far more jarring for the unsuspecting and exposed women at Olympus Spa—some as young as 13—to be visually assaulted by the real thing.”
VanDyke’s use of the language drew harsh criticism from other 9th Circuit judges, who decried it as “vulgar barroom talk” and said it “ignores ordinary principles of dignity and civility and demeans this court,” Bloomberg Law reports.
“That language makes us sound like juveniles, not judges, and it undermines public trust in the courts,” wrote 9th Circuit Senior Judge M. Margaret McKeown and 26 other 9th Circuit judges.
Two other 9th Circuit judges issued a separate statement that said, “We are better than this.”
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