What to expect from Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch
This article was originally posted on The Progressive last week.
by Dora Taylor
Many people know about Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch’s role in the Hobby Lobby case, which helped establish that corporations can cite religious beliefs to deny contraception coverage to employees.
We’ve also been hearing about the case of a truck driver who was fired after sitting for three hours in his cab in freezing temperatures waiting for emergency services to fix the brakes on a truck trailer he was pulling. His employer dismissed him after he chose to unhitch the trailer and drive for help to get the brakes repaired. The National Labor Relations Board sided with the driver and so did two judges who heard his appeal. But Judge Gorsuch dissented, saying the law didn’t protect the driver from losing his job.
Some of Gorsuch’s lesser-known decisions, involving the American Disability Act and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, are equally egregious.
In this disability-rights case, a hearing officer, judge, and federal district court judge unanimously agreed that a student with autism should be placed in a residential school because the student showed a lack of progress in transferring what he was learning in his regular public school to everyday life.
Judge Gorsuch ruled that the student had made “some progress,” although he conceded it was “de minimus.” By setting the bar exceedingly low, he determined that the school district had met its obligation under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, which guarantees people with disabilities a free and appropriate public education.
The precedent that Gorsuch set in this case was recently overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court.
A student with a learning disability dropped out of school after the school failed toWhat to expect from Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch | Seattle Education:
