Controversial tweets and posts about current events on various social media platforms has resulted in career repercussions for many lawyers and judges. Whether it is loss of employment, a judicial reprimand, or a suspension—It is a fact of our digital existence that lawyers and judges posting controversial tweets or posts about current events may suffer damage to their careers. ( Negative Commentary-Negative Consequences provides several more examples.)
One of the latest examples to hit the news cycle comes from Georgetown Law School. In fact, one day before constitutional scholar Ilya Shapiro was poised to assume a prestigious new role at the Georgetown Center for the Constitution, the Georgetown University Law Center placed Shapiro on leave to investigate the controversial Tweets he penned regarding President Biden’s pledge to name a Black woman to the Supreme Court.
According to the ABA Journal, the since-deleted controversial tweets included one message that read, “Objectively best pick for Biden is Sri Srinivasan, who is solid prog & v smart. Even has identity politics benefit of being first Asian (Indian) American. But alas doesn’t fit into latest intersectionality hierarchy so we’ll get lesser Black woman. Thank heaven for small favors?” In a second deleted tweet, Shapiro wrote, “Fitting that the court takes up affirmative action next term.”
Shapiro, who was to begin his new role as executive director and senior lecturer at the Georgetown Center for the Constitution on February 1, expressed to The New York Times that though his tweets were “inartful” and “undermined [his] antidiscrimination message,” they were not violative of any Georgetown university policy, and in fact were “protected by Georgetown policies on free expression.”
In a message to Georgetown’s law school community, Dean William Treanor wrote that “Ilya Shapiro’s tweets are antithetical to the work that we do here every day to build inclusion, belonging, and respect for diversity[,]” and that Georgetown Law would conduct an investigation into Shapiro’s comments and whether they violated any of the school’s policies. Treanor further wrote that “[r]acial stereotypes about individual capabilities and qualifications remain a pernicious force in our society and our profession.”
Shapiro’s controversial tweets were met with mixed reactions. Georgetown’s Black Law Students Association implored Georgetown to rescind Shapiro’s employment offer in a petition with over 900 signatures. In a letter to the law school, the association wrote that Shapiro’s comments reinforced the phenomenon of Black students being haunted by the shadow of imposter syndrome “by reducing Black women’s accomplishments to ‘small favors’ from ‘heaven.’”
Others rallied around Shapiro, like the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, which, according to The New York Times is “an advocacy group that focuses on First Amendment issues in higher education.” On January 31, the Foundation posted a Faculty Letter in Support of Ilya Shapiro, signed by over 50 college professors nationwide, which agreed that “the reference in the tween to ‘a lesser black woman’ was a poor way of expressing the message[,]” but that “academic freedom protects Shapiro’s views, regardless of whether we agree with them or not.”
The letter further stated that “firing Shapiro for expressing his views will send a message to others in Georgetown—both faculty (and especially untenured faculty) and students—that debate about matters having to do with race and sex is no longer free; that the promises of academic freedom are empty; and that dissent from the majority views within the law school is not tolerated.”
There is no report of Georgetown’s investigation having been concluded, and it seems as though Shapiro’s controversial tweets have not quite left the public consciousness. On March 1, Shapiro spoke at a UC Hastings event hosted by the Federalist Society. Student protestors reportedly heckled Shapiro for the entirety of his speech. It remains to be seen where this story ends…
