Neil McGill Gorsuch, an American jurist, has served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States since April 10, 2017, following his nomination by President Donald Trump on January 31, 2017.
Born on August 29, 1967, Gorsuch spent his early life in Denver, Colorado, before moving to Bethesda, Maryland, where he attended Georgetown Preparatory School. He then matriculated at Columbia University, where he developed his writing skills, and later received his legal education at Harvard Law School.
After 15 years of practicing law, Gorsuch obtained a Doctor of Philosophy in jurisprudence from the University of Oxford on a Marshall Scholarship. His doctoral thesis, supervised by legal philosopher John Finnis, explored the morality of assisted suicide.
From 1995 to 2005, Gorsuch worked in private practice with the law firm Kellogg, Hansen, Todd, Figel & Frederick. He then served as 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 in 2006, replacing Judge David M. Ebel, who had achieved senior status that year. Gorsuch is a strong advocate for textualism in statutory interpretation and originalism in interpreting the United States Constitution, and is also a proponent of natural law jurisprudence, alongside Justice Clarence Thomas.
Throughout his career, Gorsuch has clerked for several prominent judges, including Judge David B. Sentelle of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, and U.S. Supreme Court justices Byron White and Anthony Kennedy. He is the first Supreme Court justice to serve alongside a justice for whom he once clerked (Kennedy).
As a Supreme Court justice, Gorsuch has written the majority opinion in several landmark cases, including Bostock v. Clayton County on LGBT rights, McGirt v. Oklahoma on Native American law, Kennedy v. Bremerton School District on personal religious observance, 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis on free speech, and Ramos v. Louisiana on juries' guilty verdicts.
