Why I Quit Georgetown (an update)
Updated: 6/6/2022
As a follow-up to Ilya Shapiro’s 6/2/22 piece My Cancel Culture Nightmare is Over (below), he published a piece on 6/6/22 announcing his resignation from Georgetown: “After full consideration of the report I received later that afternoon…and on consultation with counsel and trusted advisers, I concluded that remaining in my job was untenable.”
Per the below, Shapiro was only reinstated based on a technicality—he wasn’t yet an employee when he tweeted the problematic comments. “Dean William Treanor cleared me on the technicality that I wasn’t an employee when I tweeted, but the IDEAA implicitly repealed Georgetown’s Speech and Expression Policy and set me up for discipline the next time I transgress progressive orthodoxy. Instead of participating in that slow-motion firing, I’m resigning…”
The policy, it turns out, does not take into account intent, only claimed offense. “The University’s anti-harassment policy does not require that a respondent intend to denigrate,’ the report says. ‘Instead, the Policy requires consideration of the ‘purpose or effect’ of a respondent’s conduct.’ That people were offended, or claim to have been, is enough for me to have broken the rules…”
As Shapiro says, “The freedom to speak is no freedom at all if it makes an exception for speech someone finds offensive or counter to some nebulous conception of equity.”
Read Shapiro’s Resignation Letter
Related:
Fifth Column Podcast with FAIR Advisor Erec Smith and guest Ilya Shapiro (6/8/22)
What are Georgetown’s Professors Permitted to Say (Reason, 6/7/22)
——————
June 2, 2022
My Cancel Culture Nightmare is Over | WSJ | Ilya Shapiro
A four-month investigation by Georgetown’s HR and DEI and Affirmative Action offices has determined that Ilya Shapiro wasn’t yet an employee when he tweeted comments on Biden’s race-based SCOTUS vetting criteria, “so wasn’t subject to the relevant policies on anti-discrimination and professional conduct.” The timing of the investigation’s close comes as summer break begins and on the heels of David Frum’s 5/20/22 Atlantic piece, Georgetown’s Cowardice on Free Speech.
“I’m confident that even without the jurisdictional technicality, I would’ve prevailed,” Shapiro writes. “After all, Georgetown’s Speech and Expression Policy provides that the ‘University is committed to free and open inquiry, deliberation and debate in all matters, and the untrammeled verbal and nonverbal expression of ideas.’ There’s an exception for harassment, of course, but I wasn’t harassing anyone except possibly Mr. Biden.”
He assures that in his classes, “all students and participants in my programs can expect to be accorded the right to think and speak freely and to be treated equally. A diversity of ideas will be most welcome.”
According to Shapiro, there’s a mutual understanding now— The Dean responsible for the reinstatement “said that so long as I conduct myself professionally, he’ll have my back. I’ll hold both of us to both ends of that bargain… On my part, that means muting and blocking bad-faith Twitter antagonists…and resisting the urge to correct all who are wrong on the internet… On Georgetown’s part, that means encouraging robust debate and being as committed to intellectual diversity as any other kind. Across the nation, campus cultures have been growing increasingly hostile, with students outing each other (and professors) for ideological transgressions and self-censoring to avoid potential trouble. We have to reverse that trend.”
Read the 6/2/22 Article (Reinstatement)
Read the 6/6/22 Article (Resignation)
Related:
Georgetown’s Cowardice on Free Speech (David Frum, Atlantic, 5/20/22)
