Well, he does! My Cancel-Culture Nightmare Is Over, writes Ilya in the Wall Street Journal, which, I’ve discovered, lets you read a “limited” number of articles for free, which I find convenient, since I would never support such a nauseatingly right-wing rag financially. Sez Ilya
My long public nightmare is over. Tomorrow I assume my duties as a senior lecturer at Georgetown University Law Center and executive director of its Center for the Constitution. A four-month investigation by the human-resources department and the Office of Institutional Diversity, Equity and Affirmative Action determined that I wasn’t yet an employee when I posted a tweet to which some at the school objected (which the Journal covered from the beginning) and so wasn’t subject to the relevant policies on antidiscrimination and professional conduct.
It was an experience I wouldn’t wish on anyone except perhaps the instigators of the Twitter mob that launched this tempest—particularly the first few days, which were truly terrible for me and my family. Although my administrative leave was paid, the uncertainty made it a roller coaster of emotions and instability, a personal and professional purgatory. I’m grateful to the many allies who supported my cause. I found out who my friends are, even if I would’ve preferred not to have had the need to know.
It does sound awful, for sure, and I’m glad Ilya is through it, and has his job. So, yes, no one should have to go through what Ilya went through for what was basically one smart-ass tweet, but, frankly, Ilya should be dude enough to admit that it was a smart-ass tweet, which, unfortunately, he doesn’t, which is why I’m going to take a poke at him.
Actually, this my second poke at Ilya, the first occurring several months ago, in a post labeled Political Notes From All Over, under the subhead Yo, Ilya Shapiro! You can be a dick or you can be a dean. But you can’t be both!, which I still think is sound advice.
I’m taking my second poke because Ilya is still pretending that he was viciously harassed for using “inartful” (his word) language in making an otherwise unobjectionable statement upholding the integrity of law. But his language wasn’t “inartful”. It was artful as hell, a man gleefully “taking a poke”, one might say, at a political adversary. Here’s what Ilya wrote in that fateful tweet:
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.
Does Ilya sound like a man just a wee bit full of himself? A man who, you know, enjoys being a dick? Well, you be the judge. Here’s just a sample1 of what Ilya wrote in 2009, on the selection of Justice Sonia Sotomayor:
While Judge Sotomayor exemplifies the American Dream, she would not have even been on the short list if she were not Hispanic. She is not one of the leading lights of the federal judiciary, and far less qualified for a seat on the Supreme Court than Judges Diane Wood and Merrick Garland or Solicitor General Elena Kagan.
Early in his first term, Richard Nixon explicitly set out to put a southerner on the Supreme Court, saying that the south deserved to be represented. Was this “wrong”? Was Sandra Day O’Connor the most qualified conservative available? Was Clarence Thomas? After noted racist Woodrow Wilson appointed Louis Brandeis to the Court, it became accepted that there was a “Jewish seat” on the Court. Why? Where in the Constitution does it say that non-Christian minorities deserve their own seat on the Court? What about a Muslim seat? A Buddhist seat?
Ilya concludes his piece, a lot of which I liked, with what I will, artfully and dickishly, describe as a self-dramatizing sigh:
It’s ironic that what got me adjudged a racist and misogynist by the illiberal mob was a tweet expressing opposition to hiring people based on race and sex. Regardless, all are invited to my Georgetown events. It’s a new day.
Well, yeah. As I say, I am glad that Mr. Shapiro has his job and sympathize with anyone who, like Mr. Shapiro, is subjected to Twitter hysteria. But, if he truly believes in "clear communication", he should acknowledge that his language was not “inartful”, but rather “snarky”. He was a conservative ridiculing the political correctness of a liberal president. Aristotle, in a celebrated passage in the Ethics, said that a gentleman—that is to say, a megalo psyche2 kind of guy—is careful never to give offense in his speech, unless he intends to give offense, in which he does so as clearly as possible, so there can be no mistake. Mr. Shapiro meant to give offense: he should own up to it.
Afterwords
Actually, there is nothing Georgetown Law School needs more than a libertarian devotee of free speech in a position of power, even a dickish one. Sandra Seller, formerly an adjunct professor at Georgetown Law, was fired for, you know, speaking the truth, to wit:
You know what? I hate to say this. I end up having this angst every semester that a lot of my lower ones are blacks—happens almost every semester. And it's like, ‘Oh, come on.’ You know? You get some really good ones. But there are also usually some that are just plain at the bottom. It drives me crazy.
Ilya and I are both free speech absolutists and both enjoy being dicks. I’m just a little bit more open about the latter.3
UPDATE: SHAPIRO RESIGNS!
Okay, that was quick. Ilya has resigned, the National Review’s Dan McLaughlin tells us:
Shapiro is not a fool, and rather than work under such conditions [that is to say, the sort of obsessive/compulsive wokeness that is SOP at any prestigious post-secondary institution] he submitted his resignation this morning. National Review has obtained a copy of his letter of resignation, citing the “hostile work environment you . . . have created.” “You’ve made it impossible for me to fulfill the duties of my appointed post,” he writes; “you’ve painted a target on my back such that I could never do the job I was hired for.” By allowing any student to claim offense without proving that offense was intended or that comments were objectively offensive, “all sorts of comments that someone — anyone — could find offensive would subject me to disciplinary action. This would be a huge Sword of Damocles over my head as I try to engage in my educational mission.”
Well, as I said a couple of paragraphs earlier, Georgetown Law needed someone like Ilya, with all his warts and carbuncles, which in fact are no more unseemly than those of his detractors, by a long shot. But apparently a tart champion of free thought and free speech is more reality than Georgetown Law can bear.
Honesty compels me to note that Ilya still isn’t meeting the measure of a true Aristotelian, claiming that “No reasonable person acting in good faith could construe what I tweeted to be ‘objectively offensive.’” Sorry, Ilya, but I think you “meant” to say “Any reasonable person acting in good faith would construe what I tweeted to be ‘objectively offensive.’” There’s no question but that you meant to say that President Biden was weakening both the Supreme Court and what one may vaguely call the cause of judicial liberalism by going with a transparently political pick. You were strongly implying that Ketanji Brown Jackson, whose actual selection had not yet been announced when you made you fatal tweet, did not “deserve” to be on the Court. As you said, “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 ”right” to free speech includes the right to sneer and snicker, to be “unfair”. You were exercising that right. Do us all a favor and admit it.
1. Shapiro wrote a whole column for CNN trashing Sotomayor, but I’m only linking to a Newsweek article, because the column has disappeared.
2. Literally, “great souled”, translated into Latin and then into English as “magnanimous”, though “our” word doesn’t really capture the sort of aristocratic elegance and reserve that Aristotle valued more highly than we do, if indeed we even understand it at all.
3. There is something about Ilya that makes me wax philosophical. In my last post about him I ended up quoting Spinoza. Well, they’re both good.
