Suspension of Georgetown lecturer shows weakness of free speech policy

Georgetown lecturer Ilya Shapiro was reinstated last week after the university suspended him for a tweet saying that President Joe Biden was not nominating the best pick to the Supreme Court but a “lessor Black woman.” (The Hill, June 2, 2022, by Monique Beals)

Rather than accept his reinstatement and the conditions it specifies, Shapiro choose to resign. “IDEAA [Georgetown’s Office of Institutional Diversity, Equity and Affirmative Action],” writes Shapiro, “asserts that if I ‘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.’ All sorts of comments that someone could find offensive would subject me to disciplinary action.” The dean had cleared Shapiro since his offending tweet was made before his contract began. (Wall Street Journal, June 6, 2022, by Ilya Shapiro)

While objecting to Shapiro’s viewpoint, Jonathan Chait in New York Magazine, June 6, 2022, writes that the school’s free speech policy pledges to protect “free and open inquiry, deliberation and debate in all matters, and the untrammeled verbal and nonverbal expression of ideas” and requires assessment of the “purpose or effect” of conduct. Shapiro was suspended for “objectively offensive comments,” but writes Chait, “The emphasis on effect allows anybody to claim that ideas they find offensive have harmed or threatened them, and obligates the University to punish whoever has uttered them.”

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