U.S. Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch recently criticized lower courts for defying Supreme Court decisions.

The Daily Caller reports that Gorsuch did so in an opinion that he recently wrote for the court.

This was in the case in which the Supreme Court gave the administration of President Donald Trump the go-ahead to cut millions in funding for the National Institutes of Health (NIH). There will be more on this in a moment.

Justice Gorsuch calls out lower courts for ignoring SCOTUS decisions, noting this is the "third time in a matter of weeks" they have had to intervene.

"Lower court judges may sometimes disagree with this
Court’s decisions, but they are never free to defy them," Gorsuch writes. https://t.co/gjQzBAZszY pic.twitter.com/NkR1112JAA

— Katelynn Richardson (@katesrichardson) August 21, 2025

Gorsuch calls out lower courts

Gorsuch did not hold back in his opinion. In fact, he put things rather bluntly, which is somewhat unusual for a Supreme Court justice to do.

"Lower court judges may sometimes disagree with this Court’s decisions, but they are never free to defy them," he wrote.

He went on to admonish the lower courts for doing so, in essence, taking them back to the first-year of law school.

He wrote:

If nothing else, the promise of our legal system that like cases are treated alike means that a lower court ought not invoke the ‘persuasive authority’ of a dissent or a repudiated court of appeals decision to reach a different conclusion on an equivalent record.

Persuasive authority contrasts with binding or mandatory authority. The latter is required to be followed by lower courts within a jurisdiction, while the former may be influential on the court's decision when mandatory authority is lacking.

Background

In recent months, we have seen many examples of lower courts defying the Supreme Court. The NIH case is one example.

The Daily Caller reports:

Yet a lower court in June allowed a lawsuit “involving materially identical grants” from the NIH to move forward, citing the dissenting justices while ignoring the majority ruling. The judge proceeded to block the administration’s terminations of DEI and gender ideology-related NIH grants.

That's right. A lower court actually attempted to disregard the Supreme Court's majority opinion and instead use the Supreme Court's dissenting opinion to justify its decision.

The Supreme Court has now struck down that decision, giving the Trump administration the go-ahead to cut the NIH funding.

One wonders whether Gorsuch's admonition will be enough, or whether a more drastic penalty is required for those members of the legal system who refuse to adhere to even the most basic rules, if it means achieving a particular outcome.