Neil Gorsuch
Neil McGill Gorsuch is an American jurist who serves as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He was nominated by President Donald Trump on January 31, 2017, and has served since April 10, 2017.
Gorsuch spent his early life in Denver, Colorado. After graduating from Columbia University, where he became an established writer, Gorsuch received his legal education at Harvard Law School and earned a doctorate in jurisprudence from Oxford University in 2004 as a Marshall Scholar. His doctoral thesis concerned the morality of assisted suicide and was written under the supervision of legal philosopher John Finnis. He was a law clerk for Judge David B. Sentelle, Justice Byron White, and Justice Anthony Kennedy.
From 1995 to 2005, Gorsuch was in private practice with the law firm of Kellogg, Hansen, Todd, Figel & Frederick. He was the principal deputy associate attorney general at the United States Department of Justice from 2005 until his appointment to the Tenth Circuit. President George W. Bush nominated Gorsuch to the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit on May 10, 2006, to replace Judge David M. Ebel, who achieved senior status that same year.
Gorsuch is a proponent of textualism in statutory interpretation and originalism in interpreting the United States Constitution. Along with Justice Clarence Thomas, he is an advocate of natural law jurisprudence. He is the first Supreme Court justice to serve alongside a justice for whom he once clerked. During his tenure on the Supreme Court he has written the majority opinion in landmark cases such as Bostock v. Clayton County on LGBT rights, McGirt v. Oklahoma on Indian law, Kennedy v. Bremerton School District on personal religious observance while serving in an official capacity, and Ramos v. Louisiana on juries' guilty verdicts.
Early life and education
Gorsuch was born on August 29, 1967, in Denver, Colorado. His parents were Anne Gorsuch Burford and David Ronald Gorsuch. He was the eldest of three children, and is a fourth-generation Coloradan. John McGill, his maternal grandfather, was a surgeon, and his paternal grandfather, John Gorsuch, was an established lawyer in Denver. Both of Gorsuch's parents were also attorneys. They encouraged their children to engage in debate, often spontaneously. From 1976 to 1980, Anne Burford served in the Colorado House of Representatives. In 1981, she was appointed by President Ronald Reagan as the first woman to serve as administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Her conservative views contrasted with those of her husband, who was a liberal.Gorsuch attended Christ the King Roman Catholic School, a private grade school in Denver. The school's moral lessons influenced him and he was remembered by classmates for assuming strong stances. He assisted his mother in her campaign for the Colorado legislature at age nine. After her appointment, Gorsuch's family moved to Bethesda, Maryland. He enrolled in Georgetown Preparatory School, a selective Jesuit college-preparatory school, arriving as a freshman in 1981. He was two years junior to future justice Brett Kavanaugh, a classmate he later clerked with at the Supreme Court. Gorsuch was a member of Georgetown Prep's debate, forensics, and international relations clubs, and served as a United States Senate page in the early 1980s. He graduated in 1985 as student body president; in contrast to Kavanaugh, he was described as a fairly outgoing and extroverted student.
Gorsuch attended Columbia University after high school, graduating in 1988 with a Bachelor of Arts, cum laude, in history and politics. He undertook a heavier courseload to graduate in three years. As an undergraduate, he wrote for the Columbia Daily Spectator and co-founded the satirical student publication The Fed in 1986. Gorsuch distinguished himself as an active debater and an ardent conservative, publishing pieces that criticized left-wing politics. After a brief stint as a writer for a short-lived journal, he led efforts to establish The Fed as a conservative alternative to liberal campus newspapers. He was a member of the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity and was inducted into the Phi Beta Kappa honor society.
After graduating from Columbia, Gorsuch attended Harvard Law School on a Harry S. Truman Scholarship. He was an editor of the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy and was a member of the Lincoln's Inn Society, the Harvard Prison Legal Assistance Project, and the Harvard Defenders program. Gorsuch was described as a committed conservative who supported the Gulf War and congressional term limits on "a campus full of ardent liberals". Despite his contrasting political views, he was generally well-liked by students. Philip C. Berg, a classmate and close friend, remembered him as "very sensitive" and non-confrontational, recalling when he received Gorsuch's support in coming out as gay. Gorsuch graduated in 1991 with a Juris Doctor, cum laude. Future president Barack Obama was among his classmates.
Early legal career
Clerkships
Gorsuch served as a law clerk for Judge David B. Sentelle of the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit from 1991 to 1992. After spending a year at Oxford, later earning a doctorate as a Marshall Scholar, Gorsuch clerked for Justices Byron White and Anthony Kennedy from 1993 to 1994. His work with White occurred right after White retired from the Supreme Court; therefore, Gorsuch assisted White with his work on the Tenth Circuit, where White sat by designation. Gorsuch was part of a group of five law clerks assigned that year that included Brett Kavanaugh, who described Gorsuch at the time, saying: "He fit into the place very easily. He's just an easy guy to get along with. He doesn't have sharp elbows. We had a wide range of views, but we all really got along well."Private law practice
Instead of joining an established law firm, Gorsuch decided to join the two-year-old boutique firm of Kellogg, Huber, Hansen, Todd, Evans & Figel, where he focused on trial work. After winning his first trial as lead attorney, a jury member told Gorsuch he was like Perry Mason. He was an associate in the Washington, D.C., law firm from 1995 to 1997 and a partner from 1998 to 2005. Gorsuch's clients included Colorado billionaire Philip Anschutz. At Kellogg Huber, Gorsuch focused on commercial matters, including contracts, antitrust, RICO, and securities fraud.In 2002, Gorsuch wrote an op-ed criticizing the Senate for delaying the nominations of Merrick Garland and John Roberts to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, writing, "the most impressive judicial nominees are grossly mistreated" by the Senate.
In 2004, Gorsuch received a Doctor of Philosophy in legal philosophy from the University of Oxford, where he completed research on assisted suicide and euthanasia as a postgraduate student at University College. A Marshall Scholarship enabled him to study at Oxford in 1992–93, where he was supervised by the natural law philosopher John Finnis. His thesis was also supervised by Canadian legal scholar Timothy Endicott of Balliol College, Oxford. In 1996, Gorsuch married Louise, an Englishwoman and champion equestrienne on Oxford's riding team whom he met during his stay there.
U.S. Department of Justice
Gorsuch served as Principal Deputy to the Associate Attorney General, Robert McCallum, at the United States Department of Justice from June 2005 until July 2006. As McCallum's principal deputy, he assisted in managing the Department of Justice's civil litigation components, which included the antitrust, civil, civil rights, environment, and tax divisions.While managing the United States Department of Justice Civil Division, Gorsuch was tasked with all the "terror litigation" arising from the president's war on terror, successfully defending the extraordinary rendition of Khalid El-Masri, fighting the disclosure of Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse photographs, and, in November 2005, traveling to inspect the Guantanamo Bay detention camp.
Gorsuch helped Attorney General Alberto Gonzales prepare for hearings after the public revelation of NSA warrantless surveillance, and worked with Senator Lindsey Graham in drafting the provisions in the Detainee Treatment Act that attempted to strip federal courts of jurisdiction over the detainees.
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit (2006–2017)
In January 2006, Philip Anschutz recommended Gorsuch's nomination to Colorado's U.S. senator Wayne Allard and White House Counsel Harriet Miers. On May 10, 2006, President George W. Bush nominated Gorsuch to the seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit vacated by Judge David M. Ebel, who was taking senior status. Like Ebel, Gorsuch was a former clerk of Justice White. The American Bar Association's Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary unanimously rated him "well qualified" in 2006.On July 20, 2006, Gorsuch was confirmed by unanimous voice vote in the U.S. Senate. He was Bush's fifth appointment to the Tenth Circuit. When Gorsuch began his tenure at Denver's Byron White United States Courthouse, Justice Kennedy administered the oath of office.
During his time on the Tenth Circuit, ten of Gorsuch's law clerks went on to become Supreme Court clerks, and he was sometimes regarded as a "feeder judge". One of his former clerks, Jonathan Papik, became an associate justice of the Nebraska Supreme Court in 2018.
Freedom of religion
Gorsuch advocates a broad definition of religious freedom that is inimical to church–state separation advocates.In Hobby Lobby Stores v. Sebelius, Gorsuch wrote a concurrence when the en banc circuit found the Affordable Care Act's contraceptive mandate on a private business violated the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. That ruling was upheld 5–4 by the Supreme Court in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc.. When a panel of the court denied similar claims under the same act in Little Sisters of the Poor Home for the Aged v. Burwell, Gorsuch joined Judges Harris Hartz, Paul Joseph Kelly Jr., Timothy Tymkovich, and Jerome Holmes in their dissent to the denial of rehearing en banc. That ruling was vacated and remanded to the Tenth Circuit by the per curiam Supreme Court in Zubik v. Burwell.
In Pleasant Grove City v. Summum, he joined Judge Michael W. McConnell's dissent from the denial of rehearing en banc, taking the view that the government's display of a donated Ten Commandments monument in a public park did not obligate the government to display other offered monuments. The Supreme Court subsequently adopted most of the dissent's view, reversing the Tenth Circuit's judgment. Gorsuch has written, "the law doesn't just apply to protect popular religious beliefs: it does perhaps its most important work in protecting unpopular religious beliefs, vindicating this nation's long-held aspiration to serve as a refuge of religious tolerance".