Ethical Judicial Culture

The problems that roil society affect the judiciary. Most recently, an uncontained virus challenged courts to perform their duties remotely for a time and then safely when they reopened. The #MeToo movement forced judicial systems to reckon with their past negligence and adopt reforms to do better in the future. And the racial justice movement of 2020 prompted commitments from state courts to, for example, “look afresh at what we are doing, or failing to do, to root out any conscious and unconscious bias in our courtrooms; to ensure that the justice provided to African-Americans is the same that is provided to white Americans; to create in our courtrooms, our corner of the world, a place where all are truly equal.”1