BECAUSE RACISM IS/WAS SYSTEMIC:

Gorsuch's concurring opinion was part history lesson and part explanation of his full-throated support for Native Americans.

He wrote about how Native American families were torn apart by federal and state officials' attempts to assimilate them into Anglo-centric American society by eliminating their cultural ties to their tribes.

"In all of its many forms, the dissolution of the Indian family has had devastating effects on children and parents alike," he wrote.

"It has also presented an existential threat to the continued vitality of tribes -- something many federal state officials over the years saw as a feature, not as a flaw," he added. His opinion was joined by two of his liberal colleagues: Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

Chuck Hoskin, principal chief of Cherokee Nation, one of the tribes that defended the adoption law at the Supreme Court, said Gorsuch is "going to loom large over Indian Country cases for a long time" in part because he understands the complexities of Indian law.

"While he may possess a great range of views on a lot of legal issues, he seems to have the most solid understanding of federal Indian law of any justice of the modern era," Hoskin added.

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