Georgetown University will not fire constitutional expert Ilya Shapiro over a tweet where he criticized Joe Biden’s pick for the Supreme Court, Ketanji Brown Jackson. The university hired him to lead its Center for the Constitution but suspended him before he started the job because of the tweet.
The “objectionable” tweet read: “Objectively best pick for Biden is Sri Srinivasan, who is solid prog & v smart. Even has identify politics benefit of being first Asian (Indian) American. But alas doesn’t fit into the latest intersectionality hierarchy so we’ll get lesser black woman. Thank heaven for small favors?
“Because Biden said he’s only consider[ing] black women for SCOTUS, his nominee will always have an asterisk attached. Fitting that the Court takes up affirmative action next term.”
The university investigated Shapiro and decided not to fire him because the tweet was sent before he joined. Now, he can return to his role.
Georgetown commits to free speech, which was supposed to protect Shapiro’s speech. Therefore, it should not have conducted the investigation in the first place.
The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education came to Shapiro’s defense, noting that the investigation was “antithetical to the tenets of liberal education and cannot be squared with [the university’s] promise to provide ‘all members’ of its community ‘the broadest possible latitude to speak, write, listen, challenge, and learn,’ even if others find it ‘offensive, unwise, immoral, or ill conceived.'”
