One of the most depressing parts of the past several years has been the realization that all the elite institutions I once looked up to are really just hollow caricatures run by cowards.
Such is the case for Georgetown Law School, widely considered one of the best law schools in the country — and now one of the most feckless.
The school’s dean, Bill Treanor, announced on Monday he had placed Ilya Shapiro, a legal expert for the Cato Institute and a recent hire for a position at Georgetown, on administrative leave because of a tweet in which Shapiro criticized President Joe Biden’s decision to consider only black female judges for a nomination to the Supreme Court.
Shapiro had argued that Sri Srinivasan, a Barack Obama-appointed chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, was the best pick but would be overlooked because Biden had already pledged to nominate a “lesser black woman.” Sure, Shapiro could have chosen his words more carefully. But the point he made was self-explanatory: He believes that any judge who is not Srinivasan — white, black, female, male, etc. — would be a worse appointment because Srinivasan is the best option out there.
As if on cue, along came the leftist mob eager to read racism into every single thing a conservative says. Shapiro was smeared as a “racist troll,” even though a glance at Shapiro’s writing and work in the legal field proves he is anything but, and activists made sure to let Georgetown Law know their recent hire was a bigot.
Georgetown Law had the chance to do the right thing and stand by Shapiro after he apologized and clarified his comments. They know he’s not a racist or a bigot because they would never have hired him in the first place if he were.
Instead, we’ve been treated to yet another craven apology from Treanor, who apparently has no morals other than the ones the Left has set for him.
“Over the past several days, I have heard the pain and outrage of so many at Georgetown Law, and particularly from our black female students, staff, alumni, and faculty,” Treanor said in a statement. “I am writing to inform you that I have placed Ilya Shapiro on administrative leave, pending an investigation into whether he violated our policies and expectations on professional conduct, non-discrimination, and anti-harassment, the results of which will inform our next steps. Pending the outcome of the investigation, he will remain on leave and not be on campus.”
Shame on Treanor and shame on Georgetown Law. Shapiro has done nothing wrong and is only being targeted because leftists can’t stand the thought of someone who disagrees with their ideology being invited into one of their institutions. In their minds, Shapiro should never have been hired in the first place. His tweet was just a convenient way to make sure he never got to start.
If Georgetown moves forward and fires Shapiro after its investigation, it will have exposed itself as an unserious farce of a university that doesn’t value free expression and is eager to punish those who do. And if that’s the case, then perhaps Georgetown will have done Shapiro a favor — because that’s an institution undeserving of his efforts to save it.
