On Jan. 31, 2017, President Donald Trump nominated Judge Neil Gorsuch of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit to fill Justice Antonin Scalia’s vacant seat on the U.S. Supreme Court, which has been open since Justice Scalia’s death in February 2016.1 Judge Gorsuch, a Colorado native and Harvard Law School graduate who previously clerked for Supreme Court Justices Byron White and Anthony Kennedy, was appointed to serve on the Tenth Circuit by President George W. Bush in 2006.2 Over the past 11 years, Judge Gorsuch’s opinions on a variety of topics have revealed a judicial philosophy centering, among other things, on a textualist approach to statutory interpretation, limited deference to administrative agencies, and heightened protection for free speech and expression. These core tenets often influence Judge Gorsuch’s decisions on labor and employment law issues.

The Supreme Court is set or predicted to evaluate a number of critical labor and employment law issues during the Trump administration, including: (1) the enforceability of mandatory class action waivers in employment agreements; (2) whether Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VII) prohibits employment discrimination based on sexual orientation; and (3) the constitutionality of agency fee requirements for employees who are a member of a bargaining unit, but not the union who represents it.3 This article summarizes Judge Gorsuch’s judicial philosophy and predicts how his approach may affect these three key areas of labor and employment law that are expected to be decided by the Supreme Court in the near future.

Relevant Judicial Philosophies

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