‘INAPPROPRIATE’

Judge Grilled for Sexist Comments After Trying to Ban Attorney

“We didn’t let girls do it in the old days,” Lynn Hughes reportedly said in court. He later tried to ban the same attorney from his courtroom for life but was overruled.

A federal judge in Texas was grilled by an appellate court judge Tuesday for attempting to ban an assistant U.S. attorney from his courtroom forever—the same woman he spewed sexist comments toward in 2018. Lynn N. Hughes, a Ronald Reagan appointee, was quickly overruled by the U.S. Court of Appeals 5th Circuit, with Judge James C. Ho writing in an opinion that Hughes had no authority to bar an attorney for life—a rarity in the U.S. court system that requires a high “threshold” to be done, the complaint said. “It was lot simpler when you guys wore dark suits, white shirts and navy ties. . . . We didn’t let girls do it in the old days,” Hughes, now 80, reportedly told the same attorney in 2018. Ho called those comments “demeaning” and “inappropriate” in Tuesday’s complaint, adding that Hughes needs to think twice about his actions if he doesn't want to be painted as a raging sexist. “It’s hard to imagine a less persuasive way for a judge to rebut the charge that he discriminated against a female attorney than by expelling her from his courtroom—not just in one case, but in every case that she may bring for the rest of her career,” Ho wrote.