Air Traffic controllers must retire at 56 because they have peoples lives in their hands... Why not have a maximum retirement age for judges too? Maybe something like 88 years old?
I don't know the details of the case, and maybe she should step down. However, the article mentions that doctors' evaluations of her competency were submitted. It sounds a bit like an argument over whose expert testimony should be relevant, and I could easily see a situation where someone wants her gone for political reasons ("political" in a broad sense, including "office politics"), and starts demanding that she have a particular evaluation done by a particular professional. If you were going through a divorce and your ex demanded you be evaluated by a psychologist or psychiatrist of their choosing, would you comply?
I've seen ageism be leveraged for political reasons with people I know, and it's corrupt, pure and simple. It's not any different from arguing against someone because of their ethnicity or gender.
At some point people can't do their job as well anymore and maybe she's at that point. But after reading the article, I wasn't really so sure. I could just as easily see it being the case that someone assumes she should step down because "clearly she's too old at 96", has some resentments about her being there for other reasons, and then leverages the former to achieve satisfaction with regard to the latter.
ATC aren’t “most people”, they are federal employees with a federal pension, and not just normal federal pension because ATC service time is “special provision” time that allows retirement at 20 years service and age 50, or 25 years service at any age.
Retirement benefit is the (highest average salary over any 36 month window) * (34% + (1% * years of service beyond 20))
Plus an additional “FERS Supplement” payment post retirement to age 62.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_Discrimination_in_Employ...