Neil Gorsuch and the Uses of History

We have yet to learn just how closely the views of the Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch resemble those of the late Justice Antonin Scalia, a staunch conservative and a standard-bearer for the legal philosophy known as originalism. Originalists claim to interpret the Constitution by relying on its words and on the contemporary writings of the Constitution's framers. The New Yorker staff writer Jill Lepore, a professor of history, says that Gorsuch has been candid about the limitations of historical thinking. But she also notes that liberal jurists, for their part, have become more engaged in historical research to bolster their decisions, and thus are “out-originalizing originalists.”