Published: Jan. 31, 2017 By

Neil Gorsuch sits at a courtroom bench. (Photo courtesy of Colorado Law.)

Neil Gorsuch. (Photo courtesy of Colorado Law)

Neil Gorsuch, who President Trump today announced as his nominee for the Supreme Court of the United States, is a visiting professor at the University of Colorado Law School in addition to a judge for the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Since 2008, Gorsuch has taught ethics and antitrust law at CU Boulder, typically teaching one course per semester as a Thomson Visiting Professor. The visiting professor program brings leading experts from academia, the judiciary and legal practice to campus to teach classes in areas of key concern for law students.

“We congratulate Judge Gorsuch on his nomination,” said Chancellor Philip P. DiStefano. “His time spent teaching, advising and mentoring our students has been invaluable to our campus. He has embodied our goals at CU Boulder for ensuring student success and developing tomorrow’s leaders.”

“We congratulate Judge Gorsuch on his nomination,” said Chancellor Philip P. DiStefano. “His time spent teaching, advising and mentoring our students has been invaluable to our campus. He has embodied our goals at CU Boulder for ensuring student success and developing tomorrow’s leaders.”

Through the years, Gorsuch has offered advising to students and has spoken at events, including Colorado Law’s new student orientation in 2016 and the law school’s commencement ceremony in 2012.

“As a distinguished jurist, Judge Gorsuch has given his time, energy and talents to Colorado Law over the last eight years, and our students and alumni are fortunate that he has taught in our classrooms,” said Dean S. James Anaya. “He is an extremely accomplished example of our visiting faculty, who bring diverse perspectives to our school and model rigorous legal thinking for our students.”

Gorsuch’s parents, David Gorsuch and Anne Gorsuch Burford, were 1964 graduates of Colorado Law. Both are deceased.

Another CU Boulder connection to the U.S. Supreme Court, the late Justice Byron R. White was a college football star who graduated from the university in 1938.

CU Boulder’s Byron R. White Center for the Study of American Constitutional Law hosts a variety of speakers and events, including statewide high school visits for Constitution Day; a program pairing upper-level law students with teachers at underserved high schools to teach a course about the Constitution and the Bill of Rights; and lectures that bring legal scholars and well-known jurists to campus. The center’s John Paul Stevens Lecture series, which is open to the public, has included Stevens (2011) and other U.S. Supreme Court justices: Ruth Bader Ginsburg (2012), Sandra Day O’Connor (2013), the late Antonin Scalia (2014) and Sonia Sotomayor (2016).