During Justice Neil Gorsuch’s six years on the Supreme Court, the justices have faced 10 cases involving the rights of Native American individuals or tribes. Every time, Gorsuch has voted in favor of Indian rights — including thrice in the past two weeks. Whether in the majority or the minority, he defends tribal sovereignty with power and passion.
Many have professed amazement that so “conservative” a judge would defend the rights of Indigenous people. It should instead serve as a warning against our tendency to essentialize the justices, to carve out categories of “conservative” and “liberal” to fit our prejudices.
The strength with which Gorsuch writes enlivens our debates and has much to teach us about subjects we often know less about than we imagine. Writing for the 5-4 majority in McGirt v. Oklahoma, the court’s controversial 2020 ruling that a large chunk of Oklahoma still comprises the Creek Reservation established in 1833, he rejected the argument that the state’s longstanding assertion of authority over the territory in question should be taken into account: “To hold otherwise would be to elevate the most brazen and longstanding injustices over the law, both rewarding wrong and failing those in the right.”
