,This is rich, or would be if we weren’t talking about a man nominated for the Supreme Court who is so out of the mainstream that even Thomas and Alito just overturned him.

8-0 the Supreme Court overturned a 10th Circuit decision that limited the educational opportunities for an autistic child.

Under Gorsuch’s opinion in Luke P., a school district complies with the law so long as they provide educational benefits that “must merely be ‘more than de minimis.’”

“De minimis” is a Latin phrase meaning “so minor as to merit disregard.” So Gorsuch essentially concluded that school districts comply with their obligation to disabled students so long as they provide those students with a little more than nothing.

A smidge more than nothing.  That’s all that boy can expect if Gorsuch is the decider. Legally.  This makes me angry.

This is the dark Darwinian side of conservatism that constantly posits that those less fortunate are not their brother’s responsibility.  Government can’t be held responsible for their well being.  Charity is fine.  But government can’t do everything and shouldn’t even try.

That alone makes my blood boil.  Add to that the inconvenient fact that these people claim to be Christians and I want to rend clothing and punch noses.  The rank hypocrisy of these moralizers who apparently do not understand Jesus, or any major religion, or any loving and humanistic tendency of all of history like The Golden Rule, is beyond all understanding.

Justice Roberts wrote:

When all is said and done, a student offered an educational program providing “merely more than de minimis” progress from year to year can hardly be said to have been offered an education at all. For children with disabilities, receiving instruction that aims so low would be tantamount to “sitting idly . . . awaiting the time when they were old enough to ‘drop out.’”

Quite frankly that’s the kind of attitude we found with our middle son who has speech and language delays.  The special education program at our very good suburban High School constantly sold him short, underestimated him and understimulated him.  They set him up for a life of menial work, if he could work at all.

Just for the record that boy became a man that is 9 credits away from a Bachelor’s Degree from Rutgers. The Gorsuch’s of the world don’t give a good goddamn about individuals and their needs, their potential or human decency.