"If the revised framework for the Advanced Placement course in African American Studies had been the pilot program all along..."

"... Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis wouldn’t have objected and the proposal wouldn’t have become national news. But the College Board, which designs and administers AP classes and exams, felt the need to wave a red flag by including such 'topics' as intersectionality, queer studies and Black Lives Matter in what should have ostensibly been a high-concept history class.... [I]f you’re... going to have an AP African American Studies course, what would you put in it? Probably what can now be found in the revised framework, with units on (1) early African societies, (2) the slave trade and abolition, (3) Reconstruction and black codes, and (4) the civil rights movement and modern black culture. You don’t need an education doctorate to recognize that you shouldn’t give trendy topics like 'intersectionality and activism' and 'the reparations movement' as much space as weighty aspects of the American experience like 'disenfranchisement and Jim Crow laws' and 'HBCUs and black education'—which is what the initial framework did. The original idea was surely to advance theory and ideology, not history and culture...."

 
Writes Ilya Shapiro in "Revised AP African American Studies curriculum delivers course students deserve" (NY Post).

"Maybe we’re getting to [new support for freedom of speech] in the broader culture, but in academia, I’m pessimistic."

"We’ve always had more people on the left than on the right in academia, and I’m not sure the ratio has changed much since I was in college or law school. But what’s happening now is different from what we’ve seen in decades past. We’re seeing a rigid ideology being put into place, subversions of free speech and due process, administrators kowtowing to activists, and illiberal trends that administrators are humoring and placating.... I’ve been in a lot of media cycles through this whole process, from my initial tweet to my suspension to my being shouted down at UC Hastings, and the current one is by far my favorite media cycle. It’s good to finally be driving the narrative. I hope that my 'lived experience,' so to speak, can in some measure advance the ball in exposing and perhaps even fixing the rot at the heart of academia."

Said Ilya Shapiro, interviewed by David Lat in "Constructive Cancellation: An Interview With Ilya Shapiro/What explains Shapiro's abrupt about-face in deciding to leave Georgetown Law?" (Substack).

"I am a fundamentally principled person. I have no patience for cancel culture. None. And I don’t care who’s arguing for the cancellation."

Said Georgetown professor Carol Christine Fair, quoted in "A Conservative Quits Georgetown’s Law School Amid Free Speech Fight/Ilya Shapiro, who tweeted that a 'lesser Black woman' would get a Supreme Court nod, was cleared by a school investigation. He decided to leave anyway" (NYT).

Fair is one of the professors Shapiro quoted in his resignation letter. He used her as an example of a Georgetown professor who'd tweeted something that was offensive but was not treated as harshly as he was. As the NYT puts it:

"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: 

"At Georgetown Law, Black students are haunted by the shadow of impostor syndrome. Shapiro reinforced this phenomenon by reducing Black women’s accomplishments to 'small favors' from 'heaven.'"

Wrote The Black Law Students Association at Georgetown, quoted in "Georgetown Suspends Lecturer Who Criticized Vow to Put Black Woman on Court/Ilya Shapiro has apologized after tweeting that President Biden was poised to nominate not 'the objectively best pick,' but a 'lesser Black woman' to the Supreme Court" (NYT).

Who is responsible for "the shadow of impostor syndrome" that "haunts" black students? Not Shapiro. He is only accused of having "reinforced" it.

"The Supreme Court refused on Monday to be drawn into the spreading controversy over the right of business firms to refuse to serve gay and lesbian customers..."

"... turning aside the appeal of a New Mexico photography studio and its owners. The Court made no comment as it denied review of Elane Photography v. Willock, involving a refusal to photograph a lesbian couple’s wedding-style ceremony."

We talked about the Elane Photography case here last Thursday in a post titled "Linda Greenhouse concedes that there is 'an instinctive appeal' to the 'notion' that 'photography is an expressive medium.'"

Am I sorry the Court didn't snap up that case? The photographer lost out to the nondiscrimination principle. Perhaps this is an issue that needs more percolation in the lower courts or that the Court needs to put off until after its (inevitable) decision declaring a constitutional right to marry a person of one's own sex.

ADDED: WaPo's David Savage declares the cert. denial "a victory for gay rights."

The appeal argued that a state anti-bias law, when applied broadly, would “require individuals who create expression for a living -- like marketers, advertisers, publicists and website designers -- to speak in conflict with their consciences.”

UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh and the Cato Institute’s Ilya Shapiro had filed a separate brief urging the court to hear the case. They said the 1st Amendment should protect writers, singers, actors or artists whose work involves expression. But they said this protection was limited in scope and should not extend to “denials of service by caterers, hotels, limousine service operators and the like.”

AND: Volokh and Shapiro's brief [PDF] stresses the right to refuse to speak (including the right to refuse to take a photograph). Excerpt:

Democracy and liberty rely on citizens’ ability to preserve their integrity as speakers, thinkers, and creators—their sense that their expression, and the expression that they “foster” and for which they act as “courier[s],” is consistent with what they actually believe. 

This is why, in the dark days of Soviet repression, Alexander Solzhenitsyn admonished his fellow Russians to “live not by lies”: to refuse to endorse speech that they believe to be false. Alexander Solzhenitsyn, “Live Not by Lies”, Wash. Post, Feb. 18, 1974, at A26. Each person, he argued, must resolve to never “write, sign or print in any way a single phrase which in his opinion distorts the truth,” to never “take into hand nor raise into the air a poster or slogan which he does not completely accept,” to never “depict, foster or broadcast a single idea which he can see is false or a distortion of the truth, whether it be in painting, sculpture, photography, technical science or music.”