Neil Gorsuch

Neil Gorsuch
Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court From: April 10, 2017 – present
Nominator	Donald Trump
Predecessor	Antonin Scalia
Successor	Incumbent (no successor)
Former Judge of the United States Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals From: August 8, 2006 – April 9, 2017
Predecessor	David M. Ebel
Successor	Allison H. Eld
Information
Spouse(s)	Louise Burleston
Religion	Episcopalian

Neil McGill Gorsuch (born August 29, 1967, age 59) is an Associate Justice on the U.S. Supreme Court. In his first full Term Gorsuch had a more liberal voting record than even the socially liberal Justice Anthony Kennedy. Gorsuch authored the decision that unleashed lawfare for the transgender movement, in Bostock v. Clayton County (June 15, 2020), and has also ruled in favor of the homosexual agenda and illegal aliens to give liberals an unearned majority on these issues. Fed by D.C. Deep State types to Trump for nomination, Gorsuch wrote the concurrence in the 2023 affirmative action case that is being used by liberal colleges to terminate their pro-American legacy admission preferences.

Gorsuch's pro-transgender Bostock decision is called the new "Roe v. Wade," because it set the precedent -- without any textual basis in law -- for homosexuals and transgenders to sue for alleged discrimination against employers, private schools, and virtually any institution. “A Constitutional Right to Gender Surgery? An appeals court uses the Bostock ruling to usurp state law, in a new version of Roe v. Wade,” wrote the Wall Street Journal in a May 11, 2024 editorial. As the chief architect of transgender rights, Gorsuch subsequently "never asked a question, which is highly unusual" when Tennessee's law banning transgender operations on children was argued before the Supreme Court on December 4, and Gorsuch wrote nothing on this while joining the majority decision.

The “ministerial exception” recognized in Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. EEOC, 565 U. S. 171 (2012), provides some protection against transgender lawfare for religious schools. Provisions of Title VII exempt certain religious organizations and schools “with respect to the employment of individuals of a particular religion to perform work connected with the carrying on” of the “activities” of the organization or school, 42 U. S. C. §2000e-1(a); see also §2000e-2(e)(2), but the scope of these provisions is disputed; as interpreted by some lower courts, they provide only narrow protection. Bostock v. Clayton Cty., 140 S. Ct. 1731, 1781 (2020) (Alito, J., dissenting).

Gorsuch joined the liberal wing of the Supreme Court in voting (along with John Roberts) to write transgenderism and "sexual identity" into the twelfth title of the 1964 Civil Rights Act in Bostock v. Clayton County. Gorsuch was "pro-choice" and told Senator Susan Collins that he would not overturn Roe v. Wade simply because there was a 5-4 majority to do so, as reported by Politico:

When [Gorsuch] met with Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) earlier [in February], she pressed him on his views on judicial precedent: If five current justices disagree with a previous Supreme Court decision, is that sufficient grounds to overturn the ruling? Gorsuch said no.

“It’s important to me generally, but it also is important to me because of Roe v. Wade,” Collins, who supports abortion rights, said of asking Gorsuch about precedent. “It’s an important principle.”

David Souter and Anthony Kennedy used the same excuse to perpetuate Roe v. Wade in 1992 in Planned Parenthood v. Casey. Much to the surprise (but delight) of conservatives, however, Gorsuch cast his vote without comment in favor of completely overturning Roe in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization. But less than a year later, Gorsuch cast his vote in favor of allowing the chemical abortion drug mifepristone to remain on the market, which is responsible for a majority of American abortions, in FDA v. Alliance For Hippocratic Medicine, Sup. Ct. No. 22A902.

Leading up to his nomination and confirmation, Gorsuch was active in an ultra-liberal Episcopalian church whose woman pastor marched against Trump in Washington, D.C. in January. More generally, the Episcopal Church is officially on record as being strongly against pro-life laws, though TEC's official statement says that abortion "should be used only in extreme situations.”

After Scalia unexpected passed away, Gorsuch began positioning himself for the vacancy by aligning himself with originalism. He supposedly opposes judicial activism as an underhanded method to bring about social change, but has sided with inventing new rights for homosexuals and transgenders under federal laws passed decades ago.

Life

Neil Gorsuch was born in Colorado on August 29, 1967, to two lawyers. He spent increasing time in Washington, D.C. as his mother Anne became the first woman to run the EPA. He went to Columbia University, where he wrote for the Columbia Daily Spectator and co-founded The Federalist Paper, and later attended Harvard Law School.

The "Frozen Trucker" Case

See also: Frozen Trucker case

Judge Gorsuch rendered several opinions after the vacancy arose on the U.S. Supreme Court, perhaps as a way of enhancing his own candidacy. Often for the first time, Gorsuch used language in these opinions to position himself closer to Justice Scalia's philosophy. One of these opinions, a dissent by Gorsuch, occurred in the so-called "frozen trucker" case, TransAm Trucking, Inc. v. Admin. Review Bd., United States DOL, 833 F.3d 1206 (10th Cir. 2016).

This so-called "frozen trucker" case emerged during Gorsuch's confirmation hearings as an example of his favoring powerful corporations over the "little guy." A trucker whose rig had broken down was stuck in freezing weather and told to remain with his rig until help arrived. After waiting in vain for more than two and a half hours, he unhooked his trailer and drove it to safety, and was fired for disobeying orders.

Gorsuch dissented passionately from a panel decision that upheld an administrative ruling reinstating the employment of the trucker.

Supreme Court nomination and confirmation

President Trump announcing his nomination of Gorsuch, January 31, 2017.

President Trump looks on as Gorsuch is sworn in.

On January 31, 2017, President Donald Trump nominated Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. The nomination was well received by many conservatives. Others, however, most notably Andrew Schlafly, disagreed with the nomination due to concerns about Gorsuch's position on abortion. The Senate ultimately confirmed Gorsuch on a vote of 54–45, even though the GOP was forced to initiate the nuclear option and remove the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees due to Democrat obstructionism.

Tenure on the Court

After assuming office, Gorsuch was frequently described as generally positioning himself along with conservative justices, though Reason Magazine's analysis found that in his first full term, he positioned himself as slightly more liberal than even Justice Kennedy, the swing vote. On June 26, 2017, Gorsuch joined a dissenting opinion by Justice Clarence Thomas opposing the Supreme Court's decision to reject hearing two cases in which gun rights groups appealed and which meant that anti-gun and -Second Amendment laws would prevail. The Court assigned Gorsuch to the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals.

On subsequent Second Amendment petitions for cert, however, Gorsuch sided with the liberal wing of the Court in denying cert and thereby allowing anti-Second Amendment appellate rulings to stand. For example, on Feb. 20, 2018, Gorsuch refused to join a dissent by Justice Thomas which sought to invalidate a 10-day waiting period gun control law in California:

“

The Second Amendment protects “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms,” and the Fourteenth Amendment requires the States to respect that right, McDonald v. Chicago, 561 U. S. 742, 749-750, 130 S. Ct. 3020, 177 L. Ed. 2d 894 (2010) (plurality opinion); id., at 805, 130 S. Ct. 3020, 177 L. Ed. 2d 894 (Thomas, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment). Because the right to keep and bear arms is enumerated in the Constitution, courts cannot subject laws that burden it to mere rational-basis review. District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U. S. 570, 628, n. 27, 128 S. Ct. 2783, 171 L. Ed. 2d 637 (2008). But the decision below did just that. Purporting to apply intermediate scrutiny, the Court of Appeals upheld California’s 10-day waiting period for firearms based solely on its own “common sense.” Silvester v. Harris, 843 F. 3d 816, 828 (CA9 2016). It did so without requiring California to submit relevant evidence, without addressing petitioners’ arguments to the contrary, and without acknowledging the District Court’s factual findings. This deferential analysis was indistinguishable from rational-basis review. And it is symptomatic of the lower courts’ general failure to afford the Second Amendment the respect due an enumerated constitutional right.

”

On April 17, 2018, Gorusch joined the liberal wing of the Supreme Court by casting the deciding vote against deportation of an illegal alien who broke the law, and thereby invalidated a key part of immigration law.

On the Fourth Amendment, Gorsuch alone espouses a view that it should be reinterpreted based on property ownership, rather than privacy expectations. Litigants in Fourth Amendment cases, including the one decided by the Supreme Court in June 2018, do not typically assert such an argument.

Writing style

Justice Gorsuch has a non-conventional writing style that repeatedly uses "I" and verbose phrases like, "Start with how I would analyze this case" and "As I see it" (used twice to open two paragraphs in a 14-paragraph section of the same opinion). In a dissent on June 18, 2025, Gorsuch wrote:

“

As I read it, the Clean Air Act provides a clear rule for cases like this one. Applying that rule here, I would direct the parties to the appropriate regional circuit.

”

Sometimes Judge Gorsuch's style is witty, as in his concurrence stating that "we may not shelter in place when the Constitution is under attack." Roman Catholic Diocese v. Cuomo, 592 U.S. 14, 25 (2020) (Gorsuch, J., concurring).

See also

• Truck Drivers Weigh In On TransAm Trucking Case, Neil Gorsuch Nomination
• The Real Story About Neil Gorsuch and the TransAm 'Frozen Trucker'
• When Neil Gorsuch put corporate interests over a man freezing to death