Judged unfit

All the possible faucets for juicy gossip were turned on when the news blared out the latest Supreme Court decision to dismiss Judge Eliza Yu from the judiciary, and to disbar her from the honorable profession of lawyering.

Apparently, Eliza did not do little, but on the contrary, very much, by way of sexually harassing another judge. "Sexual harassment", by the way, was the characterization of a couple of news outlets, so I had to take this at face value even though it seemed that a judge harassing another judge, who are therefore co-equals, did not seem to possess the usual characteristic of a superior smothering a subordinate in unwanted sexual advances.

In fact, the news stories narrated that the harassment started when Eliza was still a prosecutor and the other judge was already a judge. That would have meant that the target had more power and authority, as compared to Eliza. By my books, that wasn't really textbook harassment, but rather courtship. Or maybe Eliza was highly ambitious and wanted to land a big fish?

These were the unusual details that caught my eye, and in the interest of pure scholarship (and not the pursuit of prurient details for mere shallow titillation), I went hunting for more facts.  So on to the actual Supreme Court decisions I went. First, there was a December 2016 decision that dismissed Eliza from the judiciary. A later April 2017 decision disbarred her. Trying to be thorough, I attacked the first.

Naturally, there to be found were more details about the numerous messages that Eliza sent to her fellow judge, and my eyes just got rounder and rounder as I read on. Not meant for speed reading, this one, as Eliza's missives were studiously unveiled to the scholarly (ahem) reader.

Nope, not courtship. This was full-blown pursuit, as Eliza professed her heat for the other. And by heat, I mean, she went as far as inviting the object of her affection to assume sexual positions. Ooh. So not Maria Clara at all.

What I found offensive was not the crass language employed. Rather, it was the distinct lack of knowledge about HIV AIDS transmission, which I thought had been debunked in the 90's, that Judge Eliza demonstrated. There was Eliza, warning her target to beware of a certain sexual position because it was more conducive to HIV transmission, so her advice was to make sure that the sexual act should be done in a swimming pool.

That floored me. Do people really think that the chlorine in a swimming pool can prevent HIV transmission? For a judge to believe this was, well, alarming. We're very far away from a successful information campaign if this is still what some educated citizens think.

Anyway, on to the other salacious portions of the decision. Enough material for a movie, I must say, so if ever I end up a producer, perhaps I'll commission a script based on the downward spiral captured by the narration by the court.

Eliza urges the other judge to watch Brokeback Mountain, which supposedly would make the other judge "enjoy the sex between 2 cowboys in a tent". Then, she recommends "When Night is Falling", because there would be "sizzling (red hot) sex between a university literature professor at a religious college and a free spirited circus performer inside a tent". (So let me guess, it's really the tent thing that's causing so much arousal here.)

After racing furiously through the 85-page decision, I take stock of what the Supreme Court wrote. Wait. Did I see the phrase "sexual harassment" or not? I'm not sure, but I'm too exhausted by the butchering of grammatical and punctuation rules that are reproduced so painstakingly by the court that I can't muster enough energy to do a careful reread.

As for the April decision? Maybe that can await another column. This exercise has been too depressing.