ACLU Comment on Georgetown Law School’s Decision to Retain Ilya Shapiro

WASHINGTON — David Cole, ACLU national legal director, issued the following statement in response to Georgetown Law School’s decision to retain Ilya Shapiro:

“We applaud Georgetown Law School and its dean, William Treanor, for upholding principles of free speech and academic freedom in its decision to retain Ilya Shapiro, notwithstanding his offensive tweets criticizing President Biden’s promise to appoint a Black woman to the Supreme Court. We couldn’t disagree more with the substance of what Shapiro said, but we believe that academic freedom and principles of free-speech require universities to tolerate the expression of offensive views.

“We equally applaud the Dean’s recognition that Mr. Shapiro’s tweets did harm within the Georgetown community, and his commitment to affirmative measures to counteract that harm and to uphold the law school’s commitments to equity and inclusion.

“It is possible to be committed to both free-speech and equality, and critical to the mission of the university to do both.”