June 6, 2022

"After a more than four-month investigation that led to his reinstatement last week, Ilya Shapiro resigned today from Georgetown University Law Center...."

"Georgetown investigated Shapiro after he tweeted that Sri Srinivasan, chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, would be President Biden’s 'best pick' for the Supreme Court. He continued: 'But alas [Srinivasan] doesn’t fit into latest intersectionality hierarchy so we’ll get lesser black woman.'...  When Georgetown reinstated Shapiro, it said that university policies did not apply to him when he tweeted on Jan. 26, as his employment was to begin Feb. 1.... [A]ccording to Shapiro, the university investigative report said... if he were to 'make another, similar or more serious remark as a Georgetown employee, a hostile environment based on race, gender, and sex likely would be created.' In making this determination, Georgetown effectively told Shapiro he must either toe the company line and keep dissenting opinions to himself or face another investigation and possible sanction.... Shapiro additionally cited examples of Georgetown professors’ remarks on matters of public concern that drew attention and ire. None of these professors, however, were investigated or punished, demonstrating disparate treatment by the university...."

FIRE reports, with the full text of Shapiro's letter, which I've read and strongly recommend. I'll excerpt a few things: 

Contrary to your June 2 statement, no reasonable person acting in good faith could construe what I tweeted to be “objectively offensive.” It’s a complete miscomprehension to read what I said to suggest that “the best Supreme Court nominee could not be a Black woman,” as you did in your very first statement back on January 27, or that I considered all black women to be “lesser than” everyone else. Although my tweet was inartful, as I’ve readily admitted many times, its meaning that I considered one possible candidate to be best and thus all others to be less qualified is clear. Only those acting in bad faith to get me fired because of my political beliefs would misconstrue what I said to suggest otherwise.... 
As the report put it, “The University’s anti-harassment policy does not require that a respondent intend to denigrate or show hostility or aversion to individuals based on a protected status. Instead, the Policy requires consideration of the ‘purpose or effect’ of a respondent’s conduct.” According to this theory, the mere fact that many people were offended, or claimed to be, is enough for me to have violated the policies under which I was being investigated. Although there was no formal finding of a violation because of the procedural fact that I wasn’t an employee when I tweeted and so not subject to those policies, so long as some unstated number of students, faculty, or staff claim that a statement “denigrates” or “show[s] hostility or aversion” to a protected class, that’s enough to constitute a violation of Georgetown antidiscrimination rules. The falsity of such a claim is immaterial to being found guilty. Georgetown has adopted what First Amendment jurisprudence describes as an impermissible “heckler’s veto.”...

ADDED: Here's Shapiro's WSJ column, "Why I Quit Georgetown The university didn’t fire me, but it yielded to the progressive mob, abandoned free speech, and created a hostile environment." Excerpt:

Dean William Treanor cleared me on the technicality that I wasn’t an employee when I tweeted, but the IDEAA [Office of Institutional Diversity, Equity and Affirmative Action] implicitly repealed Georgetown’s Speech and Expression Policy and set me up for discipline the next time I transgress progressive orthodoxy. 

Instead of participating in that slow-motion firing, I’m resigning. 

IDEAA speciously found that my tweet criticizing President Biden for limiting his Supreme Court pool by race and sex required “appropriate corrective measures” to address my “objectively offensive comments and to prevent the recurrence of offensive conduct based on race, gender, and sex.”...

All sorts of comments that someone could find offensive would subject me to disciplinary action.... 

Contrast my case with these recent examples: 

• In 2018, Prof. Carol Christine Fair of the School of Foreign Service tweeted during Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation process: “Look at this chorus of entitled white men justifying a serial rapist’s arrogated entitlement. All of them deserve miserable deaths while feminists laugh as they take their last gasps. Bonus: we castrate their corpses and feed them to swine? Yes.” Georgetown held this to be protected speech. 

• In 2020, Prof. Heidi Feldman of the Law Center tweeted that “law professors and law school deans” should “not support applications from our students to clerk for” judges appointed by President Trump. “To work for such a judge,” Ms. Feldman continued, “indelibly marks a lawyer as lacking in the character and judgment necessary for the practice of law.” These comments could threaten the careers of all conservative and libertarian students, or anyone who clerks for duly confirmed but disfavored judges. But Georgetown took no action. 

• In April of this year—months after my tweet—Ms. Feldman tweeted: “We have only one political party in this country, the Democrats. The other group is a combination of a cult and an insurrection-supporting crime syndicate.” She went on: “The only ethically and politically responsible stance to take toward the Republican ‘party’ is to consistently point out that it is no longer a legitimate participant in U.S. constitutional democracy.” Unlike me, Ms. Feldman teaches first-year law students in mandatory courses. This pattern of remarks created a hostile educational environment for Republican students—a protected class under District of Columbia antidiscrimination law. The tweets were quietly deleted without apology or disciplinary action....

45 comments:

RideSpaceMountain said...

...And freshman enrollment continues to plummet. Thank god the shine is coming off academia and the university indoctrination complex.

These conclavists need to be re-introduced to the real world.

David Begley said...

It’s a good thing that Ann Althouse retired when she did. Ann is a practitioner of wrongthink and would certainly be punished today.

Georgetown Law is a disgrace.

rhhardin said...

I'd hang in there and offend them.

StephenFearby said...

Back in the day, I was a student at Georgetown's Walsh Foreign Service School. With the notable exception of Caroll Quigley, the professors were not outstanding.

Wikipedia: "...From a historical study of weapons and political dynamics, Quigley concludes that the characteristics of weapons are the main predictor of democracy.[11][12] Democracy tends to emerge only when the best weapons available are easy for individuals to buy and use.[13] This explains why democracy occurs so rarely in human history."

Attended 50th Reunion. Gave money to honor a student (my best friend) who had passed away.

That was way before Georgetown went crazy woke. Won't get a penny more.

Jamie said...

Objectively: they keep using that word. I do no' think it means what they think it means.

tim maguire said...

I was at Fordham during Treanor's stint as dean. I found him to be a man of weak character, a person you could rely on to take the path of least resistance regardless of the merits of the situation. I couldn't believe it when I found out he went on the Georgetown. They really have no standards anymore.

John Holland said...

Georgetown is Bedlam. So are most law faculties at most U.S. and Canadian Universities.

Sebastian said...

The letter is excellent.

It also won't make a difference, except to reinforce the message progs meant to send.

They rule. They will celebrate.

Rick67 said...

I attended Cornell for nine years (1985-1994 and didn't officially graduate with my doctorate until 1998). Was it sometimes challenging to be a moderately evangelical and moderately conservative student? Yes. Were many professors biased? Yes and no. They found ways to make their views known although usually outside the classroom.

My larger point is yeah evangelicals and conservatives (those groups aren't the same but they do overlap) experienced varying degrees of pressure to conform. But with very few exceptions not conforming didn't hurt our grades. And we had tremendous freedom to express our less popular views and convictions. I am shocked by some of the views express by other Georgetown Law faculty. The political opposition is not even a party? it's a cult? they don't want students to law clerk for Trump appointees? That crosses the line into open hostility.

Leland said...

Why would I spend money to get a law degree from Georgetown University that required me to take a course from a professor who expects me to recognize the Republican party as either a cult or criminal enterprise?

That's the concern that Georgetown University claims they cannot tolerate while actually tolerating it just fine. Good on Ilya Shapiro to seek employment elsewhere.

n.n said...

Diversity, Inequity, and Exclusion (DIE), not limited to affirmative discrimination.

Mike Sylwester said...

A college can enroll a few unqualified students and then help them along.

Beyond a certain point, however, too many unqualified students ruin the college. Rather than being grateful and humble, they become resentful and demanding. Furthermore, some of the administration becomes invested in promoting those students' resentments and demands.

Pandering to those resentful, demanding, unqualified students will not enable them to succeed academically.

No matter how many building names you change, how many conservative professors you denounce and how many racist rocks you removed, those students still will fail academically.

Michael K said...

Somebody ask those students and administrators to define "Woman ."

Mike Sylwester said...

Back in the old days, every college had a so-called "Dean of Students". When a student misbehaved, he would be summoned to that Dean, who would tell the student, essentially, to "shape up or ship out".

For example, the students who made a huge deal about Shapiro's tweet would be summoned one-by-one to the Dean of Students, who would threaten expulsion for disrespecting a professor.

The Dean of Students was important part of the educational experience at colleges.

Temujin said...

Makes you wonder how Georgetown Law is ranked above U Wisconsin Law, doesn't it?

loudogblog said...

The whole game changed in the workplace when "causing offense" shifted from intending to cause offense or saying something that a reasonable person would find offensive to: If anyone finds what you did to be offensive, it is automatically offensive,(and grounds for disciplinary action) even if a reasonable person would not find it offensive.

What's funny is that this kind of dovetails into that Washington Post Twitter drama over the weekend. A reporter re-tweeted a bad joke and another reporter found it so offensive that they've engaged in personal Twitter wars with anyone who tells them to just chill out because the first reporter sincerely apologized for re-tweeting the bad joke. And, as far as I know, the Washington Post Twitter outrage drama is still going on.

Buckwheathikes said...

"Hostile work environment" based on one's "sincerely held beliefs" and "associations."

Sounds like a tort, to me.

Why, he should sue that institution.

Joe Smith said...

Were I him, I would get hired and keep tweeting on my private account on my own time.

If they fired me, I would sue their asses off.

At least he'd have a lawyer he loves working his case...

Greg The Class Traitor said...

He should have taken the job, and then filed an immediate lawsuit against IDEAA for creating a hostile work environment

Humperdink said...

Awesome resignation letter by Shapiro. He should have a postscript: "Stronger message to follow".

Ampersand said...

It takes courage to be Ilya Shapiro. But consider the impact of l'affaire Shapiro upon the less courageous, which is to say 90+% of the law school professoriate. Each one of these people now understands that all comments, in and out of class, will be meticulously analyzed by the student stasi for adherence to left wing ideological norms. We are living through a massive shift in academic freedom, and in expressive freedom. It is not a shift for the better. These students are the judges and legislators of tomorrow.

hawkeyedjb said...

The attitudes of Georgetown Law and the Democratic party are identical where constitutional rights are concerned: “Spare me the bullshit about constitutional rights.”

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

His letter is a detailed indictment of Georgetown's disregard of free speech that *it claims to uphold* and how the university created an hostile work environment for Shapiro before he even had a chance to teach a class. Amazing.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

One of his best lines from the letter, referring to the fact his employment at GULS had not yet begun when his allegedly "offensive tweet" was sent, is that it all "could have been resolved with a quick look at a calendar." The committee took four months to rule he shouldn't be disciplined because he "was not yet employed" by Georgetown. Doh!

wendybar said...

You can't work with people who despise you because you have different opinions then they do. The left is getting more and more intolerant every day.

Pettifogger said...

Good for Shapiro. I wish him well. We need more people of principle such as he. Of course, he's now unemployed. Ouch!

Kevin said...

Shorter Georgetown: Diversity under the law is our strength.

Kevin said...

The committee took four months to rule he shouldn't be disciplined because he "was not yet employed" by Georgetown. Doh!

The committee took four months to see if there was any way to discipline him even though he wasn't yet an employee.

Had they wanted to exonerate him, it wouldn't have taken four months.

Jupiter said...

Sound. Fury. Nothing.

retail lawyer said...

University of Austin needs to start a law school so somewhere, something is able to produce lawyers who can argue, think, anticipate the opposition. You know, working lawyers . . . Before they become extinct.

Spiros said...

After a burdensome investigation and a large dose of public humiliation, Mr. Shapiro was offered a job that demanded never-ending “sensitivity” and “implicit bias” training. And he would have been fired after the next "racist" thing he said. It's a good thing he walked away from these buttheads.

David in Cal said...

When professional schools don't teach respect for Freedom of Speech, then our next generation of professionals won't believe in Freedom of Speech. I worry that Freedom of Speech may disappear.

Oso Negro said...

If I ever retire, I have the notion to return to my alma mater, The University of Texas at Austin, enroll in a dual major of Women's and Ethnic Studies and make their lives miserable every single day of the week by..... asking questions.... and...... wait for it..... offering contrarian opinions.

Just an old country lawyer said...

They checked the calendar before releasing their findings to see see when the students would leave for summer so they wouldn't have a riot to deal with in case Mr. Shapiro decided to stay.

Richard Aubrey said...

Hey! Guys! Look over here! We're hypocrites! Isn't that cool!?

Wilbur said...

As usual the silence of our resident Leftists here is deafening.

BUMBLE BEE said...

The Georgetown Law grads are currently discernable by their orange hair and red nose. They embarrass themselves.

Gospace said...

And in the Althouse comments I once again learn something. Somehow the existence of Caroll Quigley. I’ll have to find a library with his book Weaopons Systems and Political Stability.’

gilbar said...

Does This Surprise Anyone? Any One at All?
Some things are Aokay (because they're leftist), and Some things are Verboten ('cause they're Not)

Saint Croix said...

The committee took four months to rule he shouldn't be disciplined because he "was not yet employed" by Georgetown. Doh!

The wait was intentional. They waited for classes to end and the students to leave.

Georgetown is terrified of its own students. Think about that shit for a second.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

I will not join a club that would have me as a member.

rhhardin said...

Investigation sounds official. It needed time to purchase gasoline and rope.

Tom said...

I had an honors world civ class in college and we had two professors. One was flat out a communist and made that very clear. As we worked through world history, eventually working our way to the Bolshevik revolution, he clearly articulated his views. The other professed was definitely liberal but mostly in the classical sense. We had a final papers due. The papers were on “the justice of [world event]. Some wrote on Justice and British Colonization of India. I wrote on Justice and Truman’s Decision to Drop the Bombs.

My paper was due to the communist professor. I let several folks read the paper before turning it and got great feedback. Generally, everyone thought it was exceptionally well reasoned. I turned the paper in a few days early and actually got the paper back graded before the deadline.

I got the paper back with an giant F.

I was pissed.

But, I had an idea. Since the paper wasn’t due yet, I turned it into the other professor.

He graded it just like if I was supposed to turn it into him (half of us turned into professor A and half to professor B).

I got the paper back and it it was an A.

So I went to see the second professed and explained what I did. He understood but was he was definitely irritated.

Eventually, he came back to me and said Bruce disagrees with all of your conclusions and doesn’t believe you understood the assignment - that’s why he gave you an F. Prof N went on to say I think your argument was sound but I also disagree with your conclusions. The compromise is you’re getting a B on the paper.

That’s when I knew socialism really sucked. The next semester I left the honors program.

Tom said...

I had an honors world civ class in college and we had two professors. One was flat out a communist and made that very clear. As we worked through world history, eventually working our way to the Bolshevik revolution, he clearly articulated his views. The other professed was definitely liberal but mostly in the classical sense. We had a final papers due. The papers were on “the justice of [world event]. Some wrote on Justice and British Colonization of India. I wrote on Justice and Truman’s Decision to Drop the Bombs.

My paper was due to the communist professor. I let several folks read the paper before turning it and got great feedback. Generally, everyone thought it was exceptionally well reasoned. I turned the paper in a few days early and actually got the paper back graded before the deadline.

I got the paper back with an giant F.

I was pissed.

But, I had an idea. Since the paper wasn’t due yet, I turned it into the other professor.

He graded it just like if I was supposed to turn it into him (half of us turned into professor A and half to professor B).

I got the paper back and it it was an A.

So I went to see the second professed and explained what I did. He understood but was he was definitely irritated.

Eventually, he came back to me and said Bruce disagrees with all of your conclusions and doesn’t believe you understood the assignment - that’s why he gave you an F. Prof N went on to say I think your argument was sound but I also disagree with your conclusions. The compromise is you’re getting a B on the paper.

That’s when I knew socialism really sucked. The next semester I left the honors program.

RMc said...

They have two sets of rules: one for the people we like, and one for the people we don't. Just like everybody else.