Troublesome questions.

• Author: Kaimowitz, Gabe
• Position: Letters - Letter to the Editor

The detailed analysis of a singular appeals posture in the lore of employment discrimination litigation by the definitive voice of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit opens the door to troublesome related questions (R. J. Barton, "Determining the Meaning of 'Direct Evidence' in Discrimination Cases Within the 11th Circuit--Why Judge Tjoflat Was [W]right" (October 2003.))

While the article is circumspect about Judge G.B. Tjoflat's own views about employment discrimination, he has made them known off the bench: "Now we're inundated with employment discrimination.... We didn't have any of that in 1970.... You see every kind of bizarre case. Some are highly meritorious, some are frivolous. There are a lot of disgruntled people, both employees and employers. We can't keep tearing each other up. The place of employment can't be an armed camp." The Florida Bar News, Sept. 1, 2000.

Such bluntness off the bench may explain why the former circuit chief judge and his circuit have not been given the respect of peers and jurists nationwide when compared to accolades for predecessors like Judges John Minor Wisdom and Elbert Tuttle in the old Fifth Circuit. They wrote the book in the 1960s on discrimination, which the 11th Circuit should have been required to follow after its creation in 1981.

Judge Tjoflat is the lone active judge spanning the era of those jurists whose line died with the passing of the legendary Judge Frank Johnson. He has been at least as prolific, even in discrimination cases, as those judicial giants and he has not hesitated to try to lead this circuit in new directions.

But those efforts often generate fierce criticism both from within and outside of the federal judicial system, especially but not exclusively for their open hostility to civil and constitutional rights of plaintiffs other than white males and corporations. Lonchar...