WASHINGTON—While he was testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee about why he should have the vacant seat on the Supreme Court, Judge Neil Gorsuch got himself smacked around by…the Supreme Court, which was meeting only about a block away from the hearing room. This is the kind of thing that would seem weird, if this were not a time in history when every damn thing seems weird.

Ian Millhiser at ThinkProgress was on the case.

But while this process can be difficult, it must provide meaningful educational benefits to disabled students — which brings us to Judge Gorsuch's error in a 2008 opinion. In Thompson R2-J School District v. Luke P., a case brought by an autistic student whose parents sought reimbursement for tuition at a specialized school for children with autism, Gorsuch read IDEA extraordinarily narrowly. Under Gorsuch's opinion in Luke P., a school district complies with the law so long as they provide educational benefits that "must merely be 'more than de minimis.'" "De minimis" is a Latin phrase meaning "so minor as to merit disregard." So Gorsuch essentially concluded that school districts comply with their obligation to disabled students so long as they provide those students with a little more than nothing. All eight justices rejected Gorsuch's approach. IDEA, Chief Justice Roberts wrote, "is markedly more demanding than the 'merely more than de minimis' test applied by the Tenth Circuit." Indeed, Roberts added, Gorsuch's approach would effectively strip many disabled students of their right to an education.

(Millhiser points out that Senator Richard Durbin asked Gorsuch about this rebuke in real time during the Senate hearing today, and that Gorsuch somewhat fudged his answer.)

So, between the autistic student and the frozen trucker, I'm beginning to conclude that ol' Golly-Gosh Gorsuch might very well have a gift for making all the wrong kinds of trouble for all the wrong kinds of people. No amount of sheep-riding will make up for that.

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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