Elie Mystal applauds Gorsuch’s 'progressive' Native American rulings but slams his record on Black rights

16 June 2023

Progressive legal expert Elie Mystal has been a blistering critic of the U.S. Supreme Court's 6-3 GOP supermajority. But in an article published by The Nation on June 16, Mystal applauds right-wing Justice Neil Gorsuch's record on Native American rights — before slamming his record on rights for women and African-Americans.

"Gorsuch is the staunchest defender of tribal sovereignty and Native American rights perhaps in the history of the Supreme Court," writes Mystal, a frequent guest on MSNBC. "And I choose to be thankful for that."

The attorney salutes Gorsuch's work in Haaland v. Brackeen and Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians v. Coughlin. But he laments that Gorsuch's judicial views fall painfully short where women and Blacks are concerned.

"Gorsuch refuses to apply his heady and progressive views on Native American rights to everybody else, because the white guys who wrote the Constitution never said, 'Also, we should respect the rights of Black people,'" Mystal laments. "He won't even apply a full and robust reading of the 14th Amendment to Black people, because the white guys who wrote it didn't specifically say, 'We are writing this to protect Black people from the encroachment on their rights by white folks like my racist cousin Thom, whose a** I just kicked at Gettysburg.'"

Mystal continues, "There are very obvious reasons why the white guys who have been allowed to write constitutional text didn’t explicitly mention the 'immunity' of Black people from white foolishness or the 'sovereignty' of women over their own bodies, but Gorsuch ignores all of that. 'Indians' are mentioned in the Constitution; 'Black people' are not, and for Gorsuch, that is enough."

Read Elie Mystal's full article for The Nation at this link.

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