Justice Thomas dissented rom denial of certiorari in United Student Aid Funds v. Bryana Bible. Thomas continued to his call to overturn Auer (Seminole Rock) deference. He catalogued all of the Justice’s who have “personally driven pencils through the creature’s heart,” what Thomas refers to as the “metastasized” deference doctrine.

Any reader of this Court’s opinions should think that the doctrine is on its last gasp. Members of this Court have repeatedly called for its reconsideration in an appro- priate case. See Mortgage Bankers, 575 U. S., at ___–___ (ALITO, J., concurring) (slip op., at 1–2); id., at ___ (Scalia, J., concurring in judgment) (slip op., at 5); id., at ___ (THOMAS, J., concurring in judgment) (slip op., at 1–2); Decker, 568 U. S., at ___–___ (ROBERTS, C. J., concurring) (slip op., at 1–2); id., at ___–___ (Scalia, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part) (slip op., at 2–7); Talk America, Inc. v. Michigan Bell Telephone Co., 564 U. S. 50, 68– 69 (2011) (Scalia, J., concurring); see also Christopher v. SmithKline Beecham Corp., 567 U. S. ___, ___–___ (2012) (slip op., at 10–14) (refusing to defer under Auer). And rightly so. The doctrine has metastasized, see Knudsen & Wildermuth, Unearthing the Lost History of Seminole Rock, 65 Emory L. J. 47, 54–68 (2015) (discussing Semi- nole Rock’s humble origins), and today “amounts to a transfer of the judge’s exercise of interpretive judgment to the agency,” Mortgage Bankers, supra, at ___ (slip op., at 13) (opinion of THOMAS, J.). “Enough is enough.” Decker, supra, at ___ (opinion of Scalia, J.) (slip op., at 1).

Thomas notes that the application of Auer deference in this case is particularly egregious, because the Department of Education first articulated it in an amicus brief to the 7th Circuit!

This case is emblematic of the failings of Seminole Rock deference. Here, the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit deferred to the Department of Education’s inter- pretation of the regulatory scheme it enforces—an inter- pretation set forth in an amicus brief that the Department filed at the invitation of the Seventh Circuit. For the reasons stated in Judge Manion’s partial dissent, 799 F. 3d 633, 663–676 (2015), the Department’s interpretation is not only at odds with the regulatory scheme but also defies ordinary English. More broadly, by deferring to an agen- cy’s litigating position under the guise of Seminole Rock, courts force regulated entities like petitioner here to “di- vine the agency’s interpretations in advance,” lest they “be held liable when the agency announces its interpretations for the first time” in litigation. Christopher, supra, at ___ (slip op., at 14). By enabling an agency to enact “vague rules” and then to invoke Seminole Rock to “do what it pleases” in later litigation, the agency (with the judicial branch as its co-conspirator) “frustrates the notice and predictability purposes of rulemaking, and promotes arbitrary government.” Talk America, Inc., supra, at 69 (Scalia, J., concurring).

Something tells me a Justice Garland would not agree with Justice Scalia on Auer.