Neil M. Gorsuch has confronted a wide range of education issues as a federal appeals court judge over the last 11 years, siding with school authorities much of the time but with some notable exceptions.
Gorsuch is President Donald J. Trump鈥檚 choice to fill the vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court created by the death of Antonin Scalia last year.
鈥淛udge Gorsuch has outstanding legal skills, a brilliant mind, tremendous discipline, and has earned bipartisan support,鈥� Trump said Jan. 31 in the East Room of the White House. 鈥淎nd his academic credentials, something very important to me, in that education has always been a priority, are as good as I have ever seen.鈥�
Gorsuch, 49, was born in Denver but moved to the Washington suburbs and attended the elite Georgetown Preparatory School in Bethesda, Md., when his mother, Ann Gorsuch Burford, was appointed by President Ronald Reagan to lead the Environmental Protection Agency. She resigned that post in 1983.
Gorsuch graduated from Columbia University in 1988 and from Harvard Law School in 1991. He earned a doctorate at Oxford University as a Marshall Scholar. He was a law clerk to retired Justice Byron R. White, also a Colorado native, and also served Justice Anthony M. Kennedy during the 1993-94 term of the court. If confirmed, he would become the first law clerk to join the court and serve alongside a justice for whom he had clerked.
Gorsuch was a senior U.S. Department of Justice official when he was nominated to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit, in Denver, by President George W. Bush in 2006.
Gorsuch, appearing with his wife, Louise, on a dais with Trump, said the work of the Supreme Court is 鈥渧ital to the protection of the people鈥檚 liberties under law and to the continuity of our Constitution, the greatest charter of human liberty the world has ever known.鈥�
Gorsuch said that 鈥渨hen we judges don our robes, it doesn鈥檛 make us any smarter, but it does serve as a reminder of what鈥檚 expected of us: Impartiality and independence, collegiality and courage.鈥�
Gorsuch lives near Boulder, Colo., with his wife and two teenage daughters, reportedly on a large lot with horses, chickens, and goats.
When it comes to education, Gorsuch has written or joined opinions in cases involving school discipline, education finance, special education, and school employee speech, among others. Here is a look at some of his key education rulings:
Student Discipline
Last year, Gorsuch notably dissented from a 10th Circuit panel ruling that upheld a school resource officer鈥檚 arrest and handcuffing of a New Mexico 7th grader for disrupting his class with 鈥渇ake burps.鈥�
The 2-1 panel majority in A.M. v. Holmes ruled that the officer was immune from liability because it was not clearly established that the student鈥檚 classroom disruptions would not be in violation of a New Mexico law that prohibits interference with the 鈥渆ducational process鈥� at any public or private school. The majority also upheld qualified immunity for the officer regarding his use of handcuffs when he took the 13-year-old to a juvenile detention center.
In his dissent, Gorsuch wrote with a sense of dismay that a student鈥檚 classroom disruption that would have once resulted in a trip to the principal鈥檚 office and detention was now leading to the involvement of the police.
鈥淎nd maybe today the officer decides that, instead of just escorting the now-compliant 13-year-old to the principal鈥檚 office, an arrest would be a better idea,鈥� Gorsuch said. 鈥淪o out come the handcuffs and off goes the child to juvenile detention. My colleagues suggest the law permits exactly this option. ... Respectfully, I remain unpersuaded.鈥�
Gorsuch added that the New Mexico courts had 鈥渓ong ago alerted law enforcement that the statutory language on which the officer relied for the arrest in this case does not criminalize noises or diversions that merely 鈥榙isturb the peace or good order鈥� of individual classes.鈥�
鈥淩espectfully, I would have thought this authority sufficient to alert any reasonable officer in this case that arresting a now compliant class clown for burping was going a step too far,鈥� Gorsuch wrote.
In a 2014 case, Hawker v. Sandy City Corp., Gorsuch joined an unsigned 10th Circuit panel decision holding that a city police officer鈥檚 鈥渢wist lock鈥� restraint of the arms of a 9-year-old student suspected of stealing an iPad at school did not constitute excessive force.
The panel agreed with a federal district court that the officer, who was called to the school after the student was caught by the principal with the stolen iPad, used the twist-lock only after the student had grabbed her arm.
鈥淭he facts in this case are unfortunate in all respects,鈥� the 10th Circuit panel opinion said. 鈥淚t is regrettable that a police officer feels a need to resort to physical force, handcuffs, and arrest in order to gain control of and reason with a 9-year-old child. Equally regrettable is the disrespectful, obdurate, and combative behavior of that 9-year-old child. In any event, given [the student鈥檚] resistance, [the officer鈥檚] actions in this case simply do not rise to the level of a constitutional violation.鈥�
Special Education
In yet another case about constraining a student, this time in special education, Gorsuch joined a unanimous panel decision in 2013 that held a school district鈥檚 use of a 鈥渢imeout room鈥� to briefly restrain an elementary school student with developmental disabilities did not 鈥渟hock the conscience鈥� and thus did not violate the student鈥檚 constitutional rights.
The case of Muskrat v. Deer Creek Public Schools involved an Oklahoma family鈥檚 claims about the use of the timeout room for their child, who was between ages 5 and 10 when it was used.
In a more typical special education case, Gorsuch wrote the opinion for a unanimous three-judge panel in 2008 that ruled against a family seeking reimbursement for the placement of a child with autism in a private residential facility because the parents believed their school district had failed to provide a free, appropriate public education under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.
The parents had argued that despite making progress on his educational goals in school, the boy had trouble 鈥済eneralizing鈥� his learning experiences at home and in the community.
In Thompson R2-J School District v. Luke P., the 10th Circuit court panel reversed a federal district court ruling that had ordered reimbursement for the private placement.
鈥淲e sympathize with Luke鈥檚 family and do not question the enormous burdens they face,鈥� Gorsuch wrote for the panel. 鈥淥ur job, however, is to apply the law as Congress has written it and the Supreme Court has interpreted it. 鈥� The [IDEA] does not require that states do whatever is necessary to ensure that all students achieve a particular standardized level of ability and knowledge. Rather, it much more modestly calls for the creation of individualized programs reasonably calculated to enable the student to make some progress towards the goals within that program.鈥�
Gary S. Mayerson, a New York City lawyer who had filed a friend-of-the-court brief on the family鈥檚 side for the group Autism Speaks, wrote a letter to Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., that criticized Gorsuch鈥檚 opinion in the case.
Gorsuch 鈥渨rote an opinion revealing his low and short-sighted expectations for individuals with autism,鈥� Mayerson wrote, and that 鈥淛udge Gorsuch鈥檚 low expectations and equally low educational standards, he makes a poor choice to be considered for the high court.鈥�
Stuart Stuller, a Boulder, Colo., lawyer who specializes in education law and represented the Thompson school district in that case, declined to comment on the substance of Gorsuch鈥檚 opinion.
Stuller said he has appeared before Gorsuch in three 10th Circuit cases, and 鈥渉e鈥檚 extremely bright and someone who is always very well prepared on the bench.鈥�
School Finance
In an education-finance case, Gorsuch joined a 2012 panel decision that a group of Kansas parents in the Shawnee Mission district could proceed with a lawsuit seeking to declare a federal constitutional right to spend more on education than the state鈥檚 school-finance plan permitted.
The 10th Circuit held in Petrella v. Brownback that the parents group had standing to sue because their alleged injury鈥攗nequal treatment by the state鈥攃ould be redressed by a favorable decision. (The suit was later rejected on the merits, including by a separate 10th Circuit panel that did not include Gorsuch.)
In a 2007 case, Casey v. West Las Vegas Independent School District, Gorsuch wrote the opinion for a 10th Circuit panel that upheld the dismissal of most First Amendment free speech retaliation claims brought by a district superintendent.
The superintendent had been demoted and later her contract was not renewed by the school board after she raised issues about improper spending in the district鈥檚 Head Start program and that the board was violating the state鈥檚 open meetings act and other concerns about board actions.
Gorsuch wrote that most of the superintendent鈥檚 retaliation claims were barred under the then recent decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in Garcetti v. Ceballos, a 2006 decision that held when public employees speak pursuant to their jobs, they are not immune from discipline as they might be when speaking out as citizens on a matter of public concern.
鈥淲e do not mean to suggest [the superintendent鈥檚] speech regarding the Head Start program did not relate to a matter of public concern,鈥� Gorsuch wrote. 鈥淔ar from it. As we have held many times, speech reporting the illicit or improper activities of a government entity or its agents is obviously a matter of great public import. We simply hold that [the superintendent鈥檚] speech, such as it was, is more akin to that of a senior executive acting pursuant to official duties than to that of an ordinary citizen speaking on his or her own time.鈥�
鈥淎ccordingly,鈥� Gorsuch said, the superintendent could not 鈥渕eet her burden here and avoid the heavy barrier erected by the Supreme Court in Garcetti.鈥�
The court did allow a claim to proceed based on the superintendent鈥檚 reporting to the state attorney general about possible violations by the school board of the open-meetings law. Those statements, Gorsuch wrote, 鈥渁re another kettle of fish.鈥�
