Tangle - Ilya Shapiro's free speech fight.

Episode Date: June 8, 2022

In January, Shapiro — a prominent lawyer who had just been hired as a law professor at Georgetown — became the center of controversy over his tweet about President Biden's Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson. Plus, a question about how Tangle diversifies its voices.You can read today's podcast here.You can subscribe to Tangle by clicking here or drop something in our tip jar by clicking here.Our podcast is written by Isaac Saul and produced by Trevor Eichhorn. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75.Our newsletter is edited by Bailey Saul, Sean Brady, Ari Weitzman, and produced in conjunction with Tangle’s social media manager Magdalena Bokowa, who also created our logo.--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tanglenews/message Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. The flu remains a serious disease. Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada, which is Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. yourself from the flu. It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages six months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur, and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at flucellvax.ca.

From executive producer Isaac Saul, this is Tangle. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, and welcome to the Tangle podcast, the place where you get views from across the political spectrum, some independent thinking without all that hysterical nonsense you find everywhere else. I'm your host, Isaac Saul, and on today's episode, we're going to be talking about Ilya Shapiro, the, well, going to be a Georgetown law professor who became the center of a pretty big controversy that has some free speech and campus culture issues tied into it. And we're going to talk about what happened, some views from across the spectrum, and obviously my take. Before we jump in,

we'll start off with some quick hits. First up, San Francisco voters recalled District Attorney Chesa Boudin, a progressive who was considered soft on crime. Meanwhile, Representative Karen Bass, the Democrat from California, will face billionaire and former Republican Rick Caruso in a race for mayor of Los Angeles. Rick Caruso in a race for mayor of Los Angeles. Number two, the World Bank lowered its 2022 global economic growth forecast and projected inflation to remain high. Number three, Moderna has released data showing a modified version of its COVID-19 vaccine better protected against the Omicron variant than the original booster shot. Number four, actor and Uvalde, Texas native Matthew McConaughey pleaded for gun reform in a speech at the White House yesterday. Separately, an 11-year-old survivor of the Robb Elementary School shooting will testify

before Congress today. Number five, John Allen, a retired four-star general and the head of the Brookings Institution, is being investigated for undisclosed lobbying for Qatar. All right, that's it for our quick hits, which brings us to today's main topic, which is Ilya Shapiro. In January, Shapiro, a prominent lawyer who had just been hired as a law professor at Georgetown, became the center of controversy over his tweet about President Biden's Supreme Court nominee, Katonji Brown Jackson. Objectively, best pick for Biden is Sri Srinivasan, who is a solid progressive and very smart, Shapiro tweeted, even has identity 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, he said. After immediately coming under fire, Shapiro apologized for the tweet, deleted it, and described it as poorly worded and inartful. Shapiro was accused of racism and many, including students and professors at Georgetown, called his status into question. Georgetown suspended Shapiro and launched a four-month investigation. It ultimately cleared him for reinstatement last week on a technicality that he was not yet working for the university when the tweet was posted. Shapiro proclaimed victory in what many have described as a campus free speech issue, but on Monday he

reversed course, announcing he had decided to resign from the job. I would have to be constantly walking on eggshells, he said in an interview after publishing an op-ed about his case in the Wall Street Journal. Shapiro's story has become a flashpoint in the debate about whether college campuses are becoming too ideologically rigid and censorious. In particular, the story gained traction because of Georgetown's speech and expression policy, which calls for free and open inquiry, deliberation and debate and all matters, and the untrammeled verbal and nonverbal expression of ideas. Shapiro, who calls himself a classical liberal but has been often described as a libertarian or conservative,

criticized Georgetown's Office of Institutional Diversity, Equity, and Affirmative Action, which was responsible for investigating him. It is one of the most pernicious parts of recent developments in academia where it's kind of an Orwellian situation where, in the name of diversity, equity, and inclusion, bureaucrats enforce an orthodoxy that stifles intellectual diversity, equity, and inclusion, bureaucrats enforce an orthodoxy that stifles intellectual diversity, he said. William M. Triner, the dean of Georgetown's law school, defended the investigation. His tweets could be reasonably understood and were in fact understood by many to disparage any black woman the president might nominate, Triner said. As I wrote at the time, Mr. Shapiro's tweets are antithetical to the work that we do at Georgetown Law to build inclusion, belonging, and respect for diversity. They have been harmful to many in the Georgetown Law community and beyond.

In a moment, you're going to hear some arguments from the right and the left about Shapiro's case and then my take. A small note, we typically rotate who goes first each day, but today we are starting with what the right is saying for the second day in a row, so we can begin with Shapiro's own writing. So, to begin, what is the right saying? Shapiro argues that Georgetown created an untenable and hostile work environment for him. The right argues that he took a moral high ground and didn't reward Georgetown for its actions. Many say the school caved to a mob mentality by suspending Shapiro in the first place. In the Wall Street Journal, Shapiro himself said he quit because the university yielded to the progressive mob, abandoned free speech, and created a hostile environment. IDEAA, the Office of Institutional Diversity, Equity, and Affirmative Action,

speciously found that my tweet criticizing President Biden for limiting his Supreme Court pool by race and sex required, quote, appropriate corrective measures to address my objectively offensive comments and to prevent the recurrence of offensive conduct beyond race, gender, and sex, end quote. But IDEAA makes clear that there is nothing objective about its standards, Shapiro wrote. 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 claimed to have been is enough for me to have

broken the rules. IDEAA 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, he said. Consider the following hypotheticals. I laud Supreme Court decisions that overrule Roe v. Wade and protect the right to carry arms. An activist claims my comments deny women's humanity and make her feel unsafe and directly threaten with physical violence. I could go on, but you get the idea. It is Georgetown administrators who have created a hostile work environment for me. 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. The Washington Examiner said Ilya Shapiro outclassed Georgetown. The suspension itself breached decency and common sense as it punished Shapiro for a single substantively inoffensive but poorly worded tweet that Shapiro had quickly removed and for which he quickly apologized, the board wrote. Treanor's mealy-mouthed reinstatement, fully parsed, was just as objectionable as the original missed punishment. There's no need to rehash the tweet itself, which reasonably, if unartfully, objected to President Joe Biden's use of identity politics to select a Supreme Court justice. At issue here are academic liberty and freedom of speech.

Treanor and Georgetown made a mockery of both, thus betraying themselves as petty commissars of a national leftist thought police. The suspension always was a sham. It sought to penalize Shapiro for something he tweeted before he even took the Georgetown job on the grounds that he may have violated our policies and expectations on professional conduct, non-discrimination, and anti-harassment. Even if Shapiro had been subject to those policies and expectations before joining Georgetown's faculty, his handling, including quick removal of his single brief tweet, actually showed high professionalism while manifestly discriminating against and harassing absolutely nobody, the board said.

What followed was a laundry list of hoops through which Shapiro would be expected to jump, including the woke indoctrination of yet more programming on implicit bias, cultural competence, and non-discrimination. In not one sentence did Triner credit Shapiro's original motives, his explanation for the tweet, or his prerogative to push back against identity politics in any way. In the Washington Free Beacon, Aaron Sabarium said the university used Shapiro's apology against him. The report, submitted to the dean's office on June 2nd, framed that apology as evidence of guilt, Sabarium wrote. Shapiro's plain words not

only explicitly identified the race, sex, and gender of a group of individuals, the report said, but also categorized black women as lesser. Though Shapiro did not himself describe his comments as offensive or acknowledge that his comments could reasonably be interpreted to denigrate individuals, he promptly removed the tweet and apologized after others expressed their criticism. The report shows how contrition can empower the mob rather than placate it, legitimizing online outrage and creating cover for diversity bureaucrats. The 10-page report suggests that the university faced tremendous pressure to ostracize Shapiro, not just from students but from his fellow professors, Saberiam added. A lot of faculty expressed deep concern and outrage about his tweet, according to the report,

as did several administrators who said they would not participate in any program or activity involving him. It would be, quote, disruptive, they told the diversity office, if Shapiro were physically present on campus. The report even implied that allegations of a hostile environment are themselves proof of it. Alright, that is it for what the right is saying, which brings us to the left's take. The left is divided on the issue, though many called for Shapiro's firing or supported his suspension. Some say Georgetown is violating its own free speech policies and ideals. Others say the school should not elevate free speech over the rights of students and its other values.

In the Washington Post, Georgetown professor Elisa Plurhopples said free speech can't trump every other value on campus. every other value on campus. On campuses and in other public squares across the country, free speech rallying cries typically come at extraordinary cost to marginalized groups, Pleropoulos said. Elevating freedom of speech while discounting every other value often means accepting the denigration of women, people of color, and indigenous people. After Shapiro posted his tweet, many faculty members, including me, called for the rescission of his employment contract. Shapiro had not yet begun working at the school, and we felt he had already defied Georgetown's, quote, commitment to more fully embraced diversity, equity, and inclusion, end quote. Others came to Shapiro's defense, citing Georgetown's policies on speech and expression,

which upholds the untrammeled verbal and nonverbal expression of ideas. These supporters were the expected conservatives and libertarians, but liberals too. The lionization of free speech cuts across ideology, she wrote. Shapiro would have headed a major program at Georgetown Law that conducts lectures and conferences on constitutional law, sponsors student fellows, and serves as a clearinghouse for judicial clerkships. These are critical opportunities for law students. Retaining Shapiro in the role would have closed off the center's offerings to our black female students and probably to many other women and students of color who saw and understood his tweet to mean that black people and women are of lesser intelligence and import. These students would have not only suffered mental anguish as they internalized yet another authority

figure belittling their capacities based solely on race and gender, but also possible adverse career consequences should they have avoided Shapiro's center, as might have any rational person who wished to avoid amplifying the discrimination they already face. In New York Magazine, Jonathan Chait said Georgetown abandoned its free speech policy. I don't agree with the idea conservative lawyer Ilya Shapiro expressed in January when he objected to President Biden's promise to appoint a Black woman to the first Supreme Court opening. Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who

dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. The flu remains a serious disease. Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada, which is nearly double the historic average of 52,000 cases. What can you do this flu season? Talk to your pharmacist or doctor about getting a flu shot. Consider FluCellVax Quad and help protect yourself from the flu.

It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages 6 months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur, and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at FluCellVax.ca. I wrote a column attacking his position. But, rather than simply refute his easily refutable argument, Shapiro's critics demanded he be fired from Georgetown, which had just hired him to teach at its law center, Chait wrote. Georgetown agreed on principle with the demand that he could be fired for his opinions, but kept him on staff

on a technicality. Shapiro is quitting his position on the grounds that Georgetown refuses to grant his opinions the same protection afforded to people with progressive points of view, and I have to admit, he appears to be correct about that. Georgetown has previously and correctly allowed left-leaning scholars to express ideas that could certainly be construed as offensive or threatening, Shade wrote. Shapiro cites Professor Carol Christine Fair of the School of Foreign Service, tweeting during Justice Kavanaugh's confirmation process, quote, look at this chorus of entitled white men justifying a serial rapist's arrogated entitlement. All of them deserve miserable deaths while feminists laugh as In practice, Georgetown is revealing a double standard in which conservatives must avoid giving

offense while progressives are free to express any unguarded thought. Conservatives don't generally care about free speech. They use the cause to cynically defend their allies. But we shouldn't take the fact that conservatives don't care about free speech to mean liberals shouldn't either. Just the opposite, in fact. In February, Paul Butler, a tenured law professor at Georgetown, said the university should have fired Shapiro for his tweet. Let me make this easy for the dean, Butler wrote. No, he should not be employed at our school, which educates more black women than virtually any top law school in the country. The problem is not that Shapiro is opposed to Biden's selection criteria. Shapiro is unfit for

our community not only because he called black women lesser, but also because his tweet evidence is a pattern of bias that isn't just a poor choice of words. An interesting mix of conservatives and mainly white progressives has risen in Shapiro's defense. Those on the right deny that Shapiro's tweet was racist. Some liberals concede that point but claim academic freedom includes the right to describe black women pejoratively. The fact that Shapiro's tweet isn't, to some, as obviously biased demonstrates the hurdles facing women of color. They are presumed incompetent, even when Biden's two leading candidates graduated from top law schools, clerked for Supreme Court justices, and have unimpeachable records as appellate judges,

Butler wrote. Allowing Shibiro to teach would force black women and other black students and other women to make their kind of wretched choice no student should have to make, except that one of their school's courses is off limits to them because of credible evidence the instructor is prejudiced, or enroll and serve as test cases for whether Shapiro's claims to the contrary are correct. Alright, that is it for what the right and the left are saying, which brings us to my take. One of the most popular and controversial Tangle pieces I've ever written was titled Confessing My Sins, in which I wrote about some of the horrible things I said and did as a teenager and young adult. The point of that piece was to elucidate the repercussions of a graceless society

and to call for one that allowed for more room for human error, especially in a world where so much of what we think, say, and do is now public. This does not just go for a 16-year-old teenager like me, or a famous 44-year-old law professor like Shapiro, but in my mind, it extends to criminals, addicts, politicians, and, well, everyone. We just need a lot more grace. Personally, I thought Shapiro's tweet was stupid and, and, well, everyone. We just need a lot more grace. Personally, I thought Shapiro's tweet was stupid and, to a degree, offensive, for a few reasons, but I don't think he should have been as suspended, and I certainly don't

understand why a nearly four-month investigation was necessary for a single, long-since-removed tweet. So, first, the tweet. I saw Shapiro's post pop up in my timeline when it happened, before he deleted it. I did not read or interpret the post to mean that any black nominee would be lesser than or that black women were generally lesser than. His meaning seemed quite obvious to me. He felt a different nominee was better qualified and he believed a lesser candidate was going to take the post because Biden had promised to nominate a black woman to the court. To me, this was a rather idiotic assertion, for a few reasons. For starters, the wording just made me

cringe. If you're typing the expression, quote, lesser black woman for a public post, you might want to pause and think about your language. Worse, though, was Shapiro's arrogant claim that his preferred candidate was objectively the best choice, as if such a distinction were possible. preferred candidate was objectively the best choice, as if such a distinction were possible. It isn't, as evidenced by the fact many pundits, including me and law experts, viewed Jackson as the most qualified candidate, regardless of race. Ironically, as Chait noted, Georgetown later called Shapiro's tweet objectively offensive, which makes me think neither Georgetown nor Shapiro know what the word objective actually means. But was it racist? I really don't think so. In fact, I'd wager that you'd have to take his tweet and read it in the most uncharitable form

possible to conclude that he was publicly describing black women as lesser than. Of course, it'd be one thing if the tweet was part of some larger kaleidoscope of questionable language and views or affirmed a pattern of racist or misogynistic dog whistles. But in all the criticisms I've seen of Shapiro, I haven't once seen evidence brought forward that he'd be a racist or sexist professor or that this tweet was part of some ongoing pattern for him. And absent that context, the tweet far from qualifies as proof of racism. The most compelling part of Shapiro's self-defense,

which I confess ruffled me a little bit and called back to another piece of mine, you are not a victim, was his reference to the tweets of other liberal Georgetown professors, ones where they called the Republican Party a cult and a crime syndicate and insisted more aggressive tactics be used to protest a potential striking down of Roe v. Wade. None of these tweets drew any criticism from the school, let alone any suspensions, and they shouldn't have. It's impossible to honestly, dare I say objectively, look at those tweets together and conclude that Shapiro's is so much more grievously offensive that it deserved the kind of attention it got. Of course, part of the reason for the school's actions was the chorus of faculty and people online calling for swift punishment, which, again, strikes me as a deeply

toxic and counterproductive way for a society to comport itself. The punishment, which, again, strikes me as a deeply toxic and counterproductive way for a society to comport itself. The result, actually, is self-evident. Georgetown lost a highly qualified professor who would have brought ideological diversity to its campus. The school's reputation has been tarnished, and its diversity and equity division got harpooned as hypocritical in national news outlets. Shapiro himself appears to be so offended by his treatment that he's now moved further to the right. So, what did we gain, really? The best potential answer is that students at Georgetown, especially black students, were somehow protected by Shapiro's decision not to teach there, and avoided being passed over for opportunities their white

counterparts allegedly would have received instead. But even that notion is tenuous at best. It both implies Shapiro was an actual racist or sexist, of which there is scant evidence, and it infantilizes black law students to the degree that they would or could not muster the emotional energy to join Shapiro's classroom because of a single offensive tweet he deleted and apologized for months ago. That trade, in exchange for everything else, strikes me as a bad deal for everyone. All right, that is it for my take, which brings us to your questions answered. This one comes from Summer in Los Angeles, California. She said, I know Tangle focuses on offering a diverse range of

opinions across the political spectrum. I was wondering if you also try and represent voices from a diverse range of backgrounds, especially in regards to race, culture, and gender identity. Would you be willing to share the percentage of podcast guests that identify as female, non-binary, and or non-white? When you're citing other journalists in your newsletter, what percentage come from minority voices? Thank you for the incredible work you are doing. So I honestly have no idea about percentages. I'm not sure calculating it would be a great use of anyone's time. Honestly, we have published over 700 newsletters with roughly six opinions in each newsletter. That amounts to identifying the race, gender, and sexual orientation of roughly 4,200 writers. Given the amount of work Tangle already requires,

I'm struggling to find time for supper right now. I just don't know if I can do that. But that being said, I can tell you that I absolutely do look for representation across race, culture, and gender identity, as well as political identity. On the podcast, we've had Orthodox rabbis, Palestinian activists, trans women, pro-life men, Cuban immigrants, etc. I think we've featured an incredibly diverse set of guests across political, class, racial, and gender spectrums, which I think is important because those are the people who make up America. As a practice for the newsletter, I typically read pieces by quickly scrolling past and ignoring the byline. I do this to avoid poisoning my own biases about the writer, since I am already familiar with so many of them.

Then, when I find a piece I really appreciate or disagree with and want to include an entangle, I often don't know who wrote it until after the fact. That being said, I am intentional beyond just political ideology in certain places. For instance, in today's piece, I included I beyond just political ideology in certain places. For instance, in today's piece, I included Ilya Shapiro's perspective in a story about himself. So I also thought it'd be important to include the words of other professors at Georgetown, including a black woman, to respond. To my delight, Alicia Plerhopples, a black woman and professor at Georgetown, had a very compelling piece up in the Washington Post, so I included it. You'll also sometimes see

us include perspectives from abroad. I try to do this when we cover a story more than once that has to do with foreign policy, since, for the same reasons ideological, racial, gender, and class diversity are important, I think non-American perspectives are important, especially when covering international issues. In short, I don't know the numbers, but my goal in Tangle is to provide a diverse range of opinions in every issue and podcast. That, in turn, usually lends itself to a diverse set of writers and, I hope, readers. Alright, that is it for your questions answered, which brings us to a story that matters.

President Biden is hosting the Summit of the Americas on Wednesday, which will focus on the economic climate and migration issues for countries from Canada to Chile. Biden plans to lay out an economic recovery agenda that will mobilize investment in the region, beef up supply chains, and push for more clean energy jobs and increased trade. He's also expected to announce $300 million of food and security assistance for the region, according to the Wall Street Journal. After the White House said it would exclude Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela from the summit over human rights concerns and lack of democratic institutions, Mexico's President López

Obrador backed out, though he is still sending a delegation. You can read about the summit with a link to a story in the Wall Street Journal in today's newsletter. summit with a link to a story in the Wall Street Journal in today's newsletter. All right, next up is our numbers section. The percentage of America's 481 campuses and universities that have, quote, red light policies that infringe upon free speech and rights of students is 18.5%. That's according to the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, also known as FIRE, who tracks such data.

The percentage of campuses who had those red light policies last year is 21.3%, meaning there were fewer restrictive policies on campus this year than last. The percentage of students on college campuses who think free speech rights are secure is 47%, according to the Knight Foundation. The percentage who felt that way in 2017, according to the Knight Foundation, is 73%. The percentage of Republican students who say it is more important for colleges to allow students to be exposed to all types of speech than to prohibit biased or offensive speech is 71%. The percentage of Democratic students who say the same is 55%. All right, that's it for our numbers section. Last but not least there, have a nice day story.

It's not often you hear about the wealth gap shrinking, but it turns out that just happened. The wealth of America's poorest 50% nearly doubled in the last two years to $3.7 trillion, of America's poorest 50% nearly doubled in the last two years to $3.7 trillion, narrowing the inequality gap for the first time in a generation. The bottom half of American households, generally those with a net worth of less than $166,000 pre-pandemic, now hold their biggest share of U.S. wealth in two decades, according to the Fed. COVID relief measures and a labor market that is hottest for the lowest paid workers are key reasons for the improvement. Bloomberg has the story, and there is a link to it in today's newsletter. All right, everybody, that is it for the podcast.

As always, if you want to support our work, go to readtangle.com slash membership and subscribe. We'll be right back here same time tomorrow. Have a good one. Peace. Our newsletter is written by Isaac Saul, edited by Bailey Saul, Sean Brady, Ari Weitzman, and produced in conjunction with Tangle's social media manager, Magdalena Bokova, who also helped create our logo. The podcast is edited by Trevor Eichhorn, Thank you. Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently

becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages six months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur, and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at flucellvax.ca.