Neil Gorsuch reminds judges that they ‘are never free to defy’ the Supreme Court

This week saw the Supreme Court hold that the Trump administration can end $783 million worth of health research funding that it has identified as promoting DEI causes.

Yet in a bombshell move, Justice Neil Gorsuch also used the decision as an opportunity to take aim at lower court judges. 

Gorsuch: Judges “are never free to defy” the Supreme Court

According to USA Today, he took issue with judges who have refused to abide by rulings from America’s highest judicial body.

“Lower court judges may sometimes disagree with this Court’s decisions, but they are never free to defy them,” Gorsuch wrote in an opinion joined by Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

USA Today noted how Gorsuch stressed that the lower courts which blocked DEI funding cuts while the matter was being litigated should have known that they were exceeding their authority.

“[T]his Court granted a stay because it found the government likely to prevail in showing that the district court lacked jurisdiction to order the government to pay grant obligations,” he recalled.

Yet “[r]ather than follow that direction, the district court in this case permitted a suit involving materially identical grants to proceed to final judgment.”

DOJ appeals injunction from Obama-appointed judge

This is not the first time that lower courts have been accused of defying the Supreme Court, as the Department of Justice (DOJ) has leveled a similar allegation against U.S. District Judge Myong Joun.

In May, the Biden-appointed judge blocked the Trump administration from making substantial cuts to the Department of Education.

Trump administration claims judge defied Supreme Court to bar Education Department firings https://t.co/cOqP9MzUPJ https://t.co/cOqP9MzUPJ

— Reuters (@Reuters) August 16, 2025

While the Supreme Court later lifted Joun’s injunction, Reuters reported last week that Joun continued to assert that a similar injunction barring the Department of Education from reducing staff at its Office of Civil Rights remained in effect.

DOJ slams Joun for his “disregard of the Supreme Court’s ruling”

That fact led the DOJ to file a brief with the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit appealing Joun’s decision.

The brief asserted that “[t]he district court’s disregard of the Supreme Court’s ruling represents an affront to the Supreme Court’s authority—and thus to the rule of law in the United States.”

“In order to avoid the need for the government to potentially burden the Supreme Court with yet another emergency application, this Court should accordingly enter an immediate administrative stay and a stay pending appeal,” it added.

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