An Open Letter from American Jews Who Reject the Muslim Ban and Neil Gorsuch
To the U.S. Senate, and the millions of immigrants, Muslims, people of color, LGBT people, women, people with disabilities, and everyone who is threatened by Trump and his administration—
We reject Neil Gorsuch’s nomination for the Supreme Court. His record reveals that he is a judicial extremist intent on reinterpreting laws in support of a radical agenda that is opposed by the vast majority of American Jews.
If Neil Gorsuch is confirmed and Trump takes the Muslim Ban to the Supreme Court, Muslim and immigrant Americans will be in danger. And that puts all of us in danger.
Gorsuch has made his career by supporting the powerful over vulnerable people who rely on the courts for protection, creating legal frameworks that enable the Goliaths of our nation to expand their power over others.
From defending torture, to siding with companies over workers (including under the guise of 'religious liberty'), to scolding LGBTQ Americans for going to the courts to protect their civil rights, American Jews find Gorsuch’s judicial decisions deeply offensive and wrong. There is no limit to the extremist policies he could enshrine during the next 30-40 years of his lifetime appointment.
Gorsuch’s disturbing deference to executive power is especially disqualifying in the age of Trump. The Muslim Ban is just one of many authoritarian policies that Trump has proposed that are sure to see a test in the Supreme Court. Once he is confirmed, nothing could prevent Gorsuch from acting as an enabler of the Trump administration’s anti-American plans.
If we’re going to fight the Muslim Ban, we have to fight Gorsuch. That’s why, as American Jews, we stand together to make clear that our community will not accept a Supreme Court Justice who will enable Trump’s agenda of hate.