So far, 106 professors from all points on the ideological spectrum have signed a letter to Georgetown Law Center’s Dean Treanor, telling him what should not have to be explained to a Top 20 law school dean: that “academic freedom protects [Illya] Shapiro’s views, regardless of whether we agree with them or not. And debate about the President’s nomination, and about whether race and sex play a proper role in such nominations more generally, would be impoverished—at Georgetown and elsewhere—if this view could not be safely expressed in universities.”

Shapiro, as discussed here, has been suspended (“put on leave pending an investigation”) by Treanor, and if past behavior by Georgetown Law Center is any indication, he is likely to be fired, forced to resign, or to have to humiliate himself by submitting to “sensitivity training” after a public confession of WrongThink.

Here is the letter, which appears to have been coordinated by the Foundation For Individual Rights in Education. Those seeking to add their names to the signatories can email facultyoutreach@thefire.org.

Disgracefully, no member of the GULC faculty has signed the letter to support their colleague—and the principles of freedom of expression and academic freedom at their own institution—as of this writing.

Dear Dean Treanor:

We understand that some have called for Ilya Shapiro to be fired from his position as Executive Director of the Georgetown Center for the Constitution, because of his tweet criticizing President Biden’s pledge to appoint a black woman as a Justice. We think such a firing—or subjecting Shapiro to disciplinary action of any kind based on his tweet—would be contrary to basic academic freedom principles, which Georgetown rightly applies (1) to “all faculty,” including “lecturer[s]” such as Shapiro, and not just tenure-track faculty, and (2) to “professional service” and “all the domains of [faculty] academic activity,” which would include public commentary by public intellectuals, and not just “research” and “teaching.”

We agree that the reference in the tweet to “a lesser black woman” was a poor way of expressing the message (and Shapiro’s apology seems to agree as well). “[Sri Srinivasan] doesn’t fit into the latest intersectionality hierarchy so we’ll get [a less-qualified] black woman” is presumably what Shapiro meant to say. But setting aside that one mistake—which should not be seen as a fireable offense—the substance of the message, which is that Sri Srinivasan is the most qualified progressive nominee, and that it’s wrong for the President to pass him over because of race and sex, is a position that is most certainly protected by academic freedom principles of “[f]ree inquiry and unconstrained publication of the results of inquiry.”

To be sure, the substantive position about the President’s pledge, and about the relative qualifications of the various possible appointees, is not a position that all of us endorse. Indeed, some of us have publicly disagreed with it.

But academic freedom protects Shapiro’s views, regardless of whether we agree with them or not. And debate about the President’s nomination, and about whether race and sex play a proper role in such nominations more generally, would be impoverished—at Georgetown and elsewhere—if this view could not be safely expressed in universities. Indeed, to the extent that people do think it’s proper for a President to promise to fill a position with a member of a particular group, they can only have real confidence in that conclusion if they know that the contrary view can be freely supported and discussed, and has been found unpersuasive on the merits rather than silenced by fear of firing. That is famously the way academic discourse about science operates. And it is true for moral and political judgments as well.

More broadly, firing Shapiro for expressing his views will send a message to others in Georgetown—both faculty (and especially untenured faculty) and students—that debate about matters having to do with race and sex is no longer free; that the promises of academic freedom are empty; and that dissent from the majority views within the law school is not tolerated. That will chill far more than just honest discussions of this particular Presidential nomination.

Sincerely,

1. Eugene Volokh, Gary T. Schwartz Distinguished Professor of Law, University of California, Los Angeles
2. Samuel J. Abrams, Professor of Politics and Social Science, Sarah Lawrence College
3. Jonathan H. Adler, Johan Verheij Memorial Professor of Law, Case Western Reserve University
4. Albert W. Alschuler, Julius Kreeger Professor Emeritus, University of Chicago Law School
5. Luis Alvarez, Jr., President and CEO, University of Virginia Law School Foundation
6. Anthony Anadio, Visiting Assistant Professor in History, SUNY Empire State College
7. Kenneth Anderson, Professor of Law, American University Washington College of Law
8. Howard Baetjer Jr., Lecturer, Department of Economics, Towson University
9. William Baude, Professor of Law, University of Chicago
10. David E. Bernstein, University Professor, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
11. Bernard S. Black, Chabraja Professor, Northwestern University, Pritzker Law School and Kellogg School of Management
12. Josh Blackman, Professor of Law, South Texas College of Law Houston
13. Walter E. Block, Harold E. Wirth Eminent Scholar Endowed Chair and Professor of Economics, Loyola University New Orleans
14. Frank Widar Brevik, Professor of English, Savannah College of Art and Design
15. Kingsley R. Browne, Professor of Law, Wayne State University Law School
16. Douglas B. Brumm, Professor Emeritus of Electrical Engineering, Michigan State University
17. Edward Cantu, Associate Professor, University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law
18. Paul G. Cassell, Ronald N. Boyce Presidential Professor of Criminal Law and University Distinguished Professor of Law
19. Lee R. Cerling, Associate Professor of Clinical Business Communication, Marshall School of Business, University of Southern California
20. Joseph Cesario, Professor of Psychology, Michigan State University
21. Nicholas A. Christakis, Sterling Professor of Social and Natural Science, Yale University
22. Jack Citrin, Emeritus Professor of Political Science, University of California, Berkeley
23. Stephen L. Clark, Chancellor’s Professor, Mathematics and Statistics, Missouri University of Science and Technology
24. Matthew R. Cleary, Associate Professor of Political Science, Syracuse University
25. Kevin Cope, Associate Professor of Law and Public Policy, University of Virginia
26. Marc J. Defant, Professor of Geochemistry, University of South Florida
27. Andrew R. DeLoach, Associate Professor of Law and Director, Center for Human Rights, Trinity Law School
28. Gregory Dolin, Associate Professor of Law, University of Baltimore School of Law
29. Richard F. Duncan, Sherman S. Welpton, Jr. and Warren R. Wise Professor of Law, University of Nebraska
30. C. Christine Fair, Professor, Security Studies Program, Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University
31. Richard W. Garnett, Paul J. Schierl/Fort Howard Corporation Professor of Law, University of Notre Dame
32. Stephen P. Garvey, A. Robert Noll Professor of Law, Cornell Law School
33. Robert P. George, McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence, Princeton University
34. Mark Grabowski, Associate Professor of Communications, Adelphi University
35. Daniel Greco, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Yale University
36. Philip Hamburger, Maurice & Hilda Friedman Professor of Law, Columbia University
37. Steven F. Hayward, Senior Resident Scholar, Institute of Governmental Studies and Visiting Lecturer, University of California, Berkeley, School of Law
38. M. Todd Henderson, Michael J. Marks Professor of Law, University of Chicago
39. Gail Heriot, Professor of Law, University of San Diego
40. Robert W. Hillman, Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus, University of California, Davis
41. Cooley Howarth, Emeritus Professor of Law, University of Dayton School of Law
42. Thomas D. Howes, Lecturer in Politics, Princeton University
43. James Huffman, Professor and Dean Emeritus, Lewis & Clark Law School
44. William A. Jacobson, Clinical Professor of Law and Director, Cornell Securities Law Clinic, Cornell Law School
45. Rob Jenkins, Associate Professor of English, Georgia State University – Perimeter College
46. Andrew L. Johns, Professor of History, Brigham Young University
47. KC Johnson, Professor of History, Brooklyn College & CUNY Graduate Center
48. Michael Karanicolas, Executive Director, Institute for Technology, Law & Policy, University of California, Los Angeles
49. Zvi M. Kedem, Professor of Computer Science, Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, New York University
50. Randall Kennedy, Michael R. Klein Professor, Harvard Law School
51. Amna Khalid, Associate Professor, Department of History, Carleton College
52. Adam Kissel, Adjunct Instructor, Liberty University
53. Joerg W. Knipprath, Professor of Law, Southwestern Law School
54. Eugene Kontorovich, Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
55. Andrew M. Koppelman, John Paul Stevens Professor of Law, Northwestern University
56. Julian G. Ku, Maurice A. Deane Distinguished Professor of Constitutional Law, Hofstra University
57. Timur Kuran, Professor of Economics and Political Science and Gorter Family Professor of Islamic Studies, Duke University
58. Kurt T. Lash, E. Claiborne Robins Distinguished Professor of Law, University of Richmond School of Law
59. Brian Leiter, Karl N. Llewellyn Professor of Jurisprudence, University of Chicago
60. Douglas B. Levene, Professor-from-Practice, Peking University School of Transnational Law
61. Tony Lima, Emeritus Professor of Economics, California State University, East Bay
62. Kate Litvak, Professor of Law, Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law
63. Eric Mack, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy, Tulane University
64. Julia D. Mahoney, John S. Battle Professor of Law, University of Virginia School of Law
65. Paul G. Mahoney, David and Mary Harrison Distinguished Professor, University of Virginia School of Law
66. Michael W. McConnell, Richard & Frances Mallery Professor, Stanford Law School
67. Kenneth B. McIntyre, Professor of Political Science, Sam Houston State University
68. John McWhorter, Associate Professor of English and Comparative Literature, Columbia University
69. Abraham H. Miller, Emeritus Professor, Political Science, University of Cincinnati
70. Geoffrey Miller, Associate Professor, Psychology Department, University of New Mexico
71. Paul D. Miller, Professor of the Practice of International Affairs, Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University
72. Vincent Phillip Muñoz, Tocqueville Associate Professor of Political Science and Concurrent Associate Professor of Law, University of Notre Dame
73. Stephen J. Morse, Ferdinand Wakeman Hubbell Professor of Law & Professor of Psychology & Law in Psychiatry, University of Pennsylvania
74. Christopher Newman, Associate Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
75. Daphne Patai, Professor Emerita, University of Massachusetts Amherst
76. Dennis Patterson, Board of Governors Professor of Law and Philosophy, Rutgers University School of Law
77. Michael Poliakoff, President, American Council of Trustees and Alumni
78. Daniel Polsby, Dean Emeritus, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
79. David G. Post, I. Herman Stern Professor of Law Emeritus, Temple University Beasley School of Law
80. Michael D. Ramsey, Professor of Law, University of San Diego Law School
81. Michael Rappaport, Hugh & Hazel Darling Foundation Professor of Law, University of San Diego
82. Glenn Harlan Reynolds, Beauchamp Brogan Distinguished Professor of Law, The University of Tennessee
83. Adam Scales, Professor of Law, Rutgers Law School
84. Stephen Sachs, Antonin Scalia Professor of Law, Harvard Law School
85. Mark S. Scarberry, Professor of Law, Pepperdine University Caruso School of Law
86. Jon D. Schaff, Professor of Political Science, Northern State University
87. Andrew A. Schwartz, Professor of Law, University of Colorado School of Law
88. Maimon Schwarzschild, Professor of Law, University of San Diego
89. John Schwenkler, Professor of Philosophy, Florida State University
90. Jeffrey Aaron Snyder, Associate Professor of Educational Studies, Carleton College
91. Alan Sokal, Professor Emeritus of Physics, New York University and Professor of Mathematics, University College London
92. Ilya Somin, Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
93. Nadine Strossen, John Marshall Harlan II Professor of Law, Emerita, New York Law School
94. Donald W Swanton, Associate Professor Emeritus of Finance and of Mathematics,  Roosevelt University
95. David Talcott, Associate Professor of Philosophy, The King’s College (NY)
96. Martha C. Taylor, Professor and Chair, Department of Classics, Loyola University Maryland
97. Fernando R. Tesón, Eminent Scholar Emeritus, Florida State University College of Law
98. Michael Trigoboff, Computer Science Department, Portland Community College
99. Emily Underwood, Associate Clinical Professor of Law and Bluhm-Helfand Director, Innovation Clinic, University of Chicago Law School
100. David R. Upham, Associate Professor & Chair of Politics, University of Dallas
101. Alexander Volokh, Associate Professor of Law, Emory University
102. E. Gregory Wallace, Professor of Law, Campbell University School of Law
103. Keith E. Whittington, William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Politics, Princeton University
104. Clark Wolf, Director of Bioethics and Professor of Philosophy, Iowa State University
105. David Zarfes, Clinical Professor of Law, University of Chicago Law School
106. Jonathan Zimmerman, Judy and Howard Berkowitz Professor in Education, University of Pennsylvania
107. Todd J. Zywicki, George Mason University Foundation Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University