Georgetown Law Dean William Treanor is reportedly close to making a decision on whether to fire Ilya Shapiro as Executive Director of the Georgetown Center for the Constitution. Shapiro is under fire for his opposition to the pledge by President Joe Biden to limit consideration for the next Supreme Court nominee to a black female. Shapiro sent out a horrendously badly worded tweet that supported a liberal Indian-American jurist as opposed to a “lesser black woman.” He later removed the tweet and repeatedly apologized. However, Georgetown University’s Black Law Students Association and others are demanding his termination. I entirely understand the outrage over the language used in the tweet, but it does not warrant termination in my view. The controversy raises a stark choice for Georgetown in supporting or discarding principles of free speech and academic freedom.
Various politicians and commentators have raised concerns over President Biden’s use of such threshold exclusionary criteria. Indeed, the vast majority of the public (including Democrats) do not support the pledge to only consider black women for the vacancy on the Court.
On Wednesday, however, Shapiro tweeted the following:
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.
I sincerely and deeply apologize for some poorly drafted tweets I posted late Wednesday night. Issues of race are of course quite sensitive, and debates over affirmative action are always fraught. My intent was to convey my opinion that excluding potential Supreme Court candidates, most notably Chief Judge Srinivasan, simply because of their race or gender, was wrong and harmful to the long term reputation of the Court. It was not to cast aspersions on the qualifications of a whole group of people, let alone question their worth as human beings. A person’s dignity and worth simply do not, and should not, depend on any immutable characteristic. Those who know me know that I am sincere about these sentiments, and I would be more than happy to meet with any of you who have doubts about the quality of my heart.
In seeking to join the Georgetown community, I wanted to contribute to your worthy mission to educate students, inform the public, and engage in the battle of legal ideas that lead to justice and fairness. I still want to do that. Recklessly framed tweets like this week’s obviously don’t advance that mission, for which I am also truly sorry. Regardless of whether anyone agrees or disagrees with me on a host of legal and policy issues, I can and will do better with regard to how I communicate my positions.
We have previously discussed such controversial statements made by faculty members on social media. My response to these controversies is predictable. I have defended faculty who have made similarly disturbing comments “detonating white people,” denouncing police, calling for Republicans to suffer, strangling police officers, celebrating the death of conservatives, calling for the killing of Trump supporters, supporting the murder of conservative protesters and other outrageous statements. I also defended the free speech rights of University of Rhode Island professor Erik Loomis, who defended the murder of a conservative protester and said that he saw “nothing wrong” with such acts of violence.
Even when faculty engage in hateful acts on campus, however, there is a notable difference in how universities respond depending on the viewpoint. At the University of California campus, professors actually rallied around a professor who physically assaulted pro-life advocates and tore down their display. In the meantime, academics and deans have said that there is no free speech protection for offensive or “disingenuous” speech. CUNY Law Dean Mary Lu Bilek showed how far this trend has gone. When conservative law professor Josh Blackman was stopped from speaking about “the importance of free speech,” Bilek insisted that disrupting the speech on free speech was free speech. (Bilek later cancelled herself and resigned after she made a single analogy to acting like a “slaveholder” as a self-criticism for failing to achieve equity and reparations for black faculty and students). We also previously discussed the case of Fresno State University Public Health Professor Dr. Gregory Thatcher who recruited students to destroy pro-life messages written on the sidewalks and wrongly told the pro-life students that they had no free speech rights in the matter.
Georgetown has been the focus of a number of free speech controversies in recent years (here and here and here). Terminating Shapiro would cause lasting damage to the university and its express support for free speech. While he is a lecturer rather than a tenured professor, he is entitled to the protection of both academic freedom and free speech.
Shapiro is an accomplished scholar, writer, and commentator. His books include Supreme Disorder: Judicial Nominations and the Politics of America’s Highest Court (2020). He regularly provides commentary in the media and is a legal consultant to CBS News.
Dean Treanor should refuse to take this step not due to any agreement with Shapiro but rather due to Shapiro’s right to disagree with others. Free speech is both the obligation and the solution in this controversy. Critics are free to protest or condemn his views. What they should not be able to do is to silence him as a member of the faculty.
The best most highly qualified candidate for SCOTUS exists in the yellow or white (i.e. American) candidate pool.
The best most highly qualified candidate for SCOTUS does not exist in the black, brown or red candidate pool.
This is a physical axiom.
Yes, the cold hard truth can be difficult (Funfact: the people for whom that cold hard truth is most difficult were not allowed to vote by the Founders, per their design and intent).
Joe Biden is intent on diminishing America and preparing it for subsumption by the global communist hegemon and his benefactor, Communist China.
Joe Biden is pursuing the least qualified candidate out of cowardice and a misguided sense of milquetoast, dastardly, nonexistent, phantom and factitious guilt.
Americans do not need to supplicate and bow down with deference to provide affirmative action or unearned and undeserved, elevated status to unworthy, constantly caterwauling, parasitic dependents, and assume false guilt for winning the battle of history.
Americans do NOT need to make any apology for the incapacity and failure of others.
MAASHCA (Make America A S— H— Country Again).
You go, Joe!
George,
I have reserved judgement on your outlandish comments on the theory that it is better to err in a person’s favor than itt is to err against them.
However, your last post has made clear. To me that you, sir, are a racist.
Nice word salad.
What I am is an observer of law. A law of physics is an axiom. It is a physical axiom that not all individuals perform at the same level. Biden is arbitrarily and unconstitutionally precluding four races of high-performing and meritorious individuals of fear of failure of his affirmative action poster girl.
Free and open competition in free markets always produces the best product; Biden eschews that proven methodology.
Here’s some more “law.”
Can we get rid of this law, can we get rid of matriculation affirmative action, grade-inflation affirmative action, employment affirmative action, quotas, welfare, food stamps, minimum wage, rent control, social services, forced busing, public housing, utility subsidies, WIC, SNAP, TANF, HAMP, HARP, TARP, HHS, HUD, Agriculture, Commerce, Education, Labor, Energy, Obamacare, Social Security, Social Security Disability, Social Security Supplemental Income, Medicare, Medicaid, “Fair Housing” laws, “Non-Discrimination” laws, etc., now?
I mean, unconstitutional means illicit and illegal; it’s bad and it’s wrong.
People embarrass themselves, taking other people’s money – for 57+ years now.
The American thesis is freedom and self-reliance.
Ray, yes, George is racist. He’s also sexist, frequently arguing that women should not have the right to vote.
And Anonymous is “Anonymous the Braveheart,” entirely bereft of efficacious argument or intellect, and compelled to immediately resort to ad hominem.
Interacting with porcupines is also dubious and problematic for many Americans.
Please cite the Constitution where porcupinism, racism and sexism are prohibited, or where otherwise holding an opinion on any subject is precluded.
Next, you’ll preposterously fabricate that Americans have no ability to assess relevant data, discriminate and choose while negotiating life’s several situations and circumstances.
The question begs, are you at all familiar with the Constitution and Bill of Rights?
Mark Joseph Stern: “Bill Treanor, dean of @GeorgetownLaw, says Ilya Shapiro will be placed on administrative leave pending an investigation into whether he violated policies and expectations for professional conduct.”
Full letter from Treanor is attached: https://twitter.com/mjs_DC/status/1488204730505519107
In other words, an “investigation” is buy Treanor time. He’ll keep his finger in the wind to see how this plays out between the radical black student mob vs. the alumni and donors, before he makes his courageous decision. What a p….!
Why stop with loss of employment? Let’s take his law license (after all several bar associations have speech codes for lawyers) and adopt other laws to ensure this sort of thing doesn’t happen again.
And don’t give me this stuff about “free speech”. Free speech is a code word for “white supremacy”.
antonio
I would think if you are looking at affirmative action – look at how few conservative black lawyers there are in country and how George HW Bush found one to appoint to SCOTUS. Basically, he was looking for a black person who represented almost no other black people in viewpoint. That was really his only qualification for the office.
So … now the test of this FOOLish poster is that, for a black person to become a Justice of the USA Supreme Court, he or she must somehow “represent” the “viewpoint” of other black people. Wow! What a test! Definitions of both terms are feverishly awaited.
Yet he is the best Justice on the Court.
Is that how that “black person who represented almost no other black people in viewpoint” was able to win his case, and get an all-white, male SCOTUS to overrule its own precedent- and rule in favor of those “other black persons” – in Brown v. Board of Education? Yes, that was Bush’s nominee.
The entire argument against Affirmative Action is that it lowers the bar. By doing this, one denies opportunities to the qualified, and gives them to the unqualified.
When there is no favoritism based on race or gender, then whoever gets the position, deserved the position. They can hold their head up, because the world knows they earned it.
When someone says they are going to disregard all other candidates, and only hire a black woman, then the world will believe that the bar was lowered. She got the job because she was black, and a woman, and without race and gender discrimination, it would have gone to someone else.
Instead of “lesser” he should have clarified “less qualified.”
People can get offended. They can say it’s rude. But the argument is that racial discrimination is against the meritocracy. Would you want a black neurosurgeon who had the bar lowered every step of the way, and was only in that operating room because he was black, or would you not care what your neurosurgeon looked like, just that he was the best of the best? When your life is on the line, you support a meritocracy. The Supreme Court should follow no less of a standard.
Racial and gender discrimination is wrong. You shouldn’t get fired for saying that.
Karen S–
“The entire argument against Affirmative Action is that it lowers the bar. By doing this, one denies opportunities to the qualified, and gives them to the unqualified.”
I agree that this has been a consequence of Affirmative Action. I see it frequently in my profession. What I don’t get is why progressives and Blacks don’t reject all kinds of Affirmative Action because it is based on the premise that Blacks are not capable of competing with whites and Asians and therefore must be pushed to the front of the line whether in employment, academics or even vaccines. One can only conclude that Progressives and Blacks are willing to embrace racism when it is to their benefit.
honestlawyermostly:
I have known black people who were quite bitter about AA. These were brilliant people, who earned all their opportunities. Yet they said people looked at them, and assumed they were unqualified. That the bar was lowered, because it was lowered for other black people. They got painted with the same brush.
Karen S: I have had the same experience, representing many Blacks over the years who have excelled in their professions and resent the assumption that they achieved their positions only because of AA. BTW, your posts always are excellent and informative. In Texas, most of us think that keeping company with horses makes you smarter. Is that your secret?
honestlawyermostly,
Do you also wonder why people (mostly white and wealthy) who are admitted to Ivy League universities as legacy admits don’t reject that? Do you think it is based on the premise that those applicants are not capable of competing with non-legacy admits and therefore must be pushed to the front of the line? Do legacy admissions lower the bar?
Kavanaugh is an example of a legacy admit to Yale (he lied about this in his hearing, claiming that he had “no connections” there). Seems to me that wealthy powerful people and their kids often embrace preferences that benefit them.
I don’t know any facts about Justice Kavanaugh but I do think that Legacy admissions are wrong. I can understand universities doing it because it keeps the money flowing but to me, from a student’s point of view, it is just as bad as affirmative action in that such admissions deprive hard working students who were not born into legacy an equal shot. The bedrock of American ideals in this century should be equal opportunity for all– not equality, but equal opportunity. In my opinion, with some exceptions, anything that gives advantage to a person or group of people on any basis other than merit should be avoided.
Honestlawyer says:
“In my opinion, with some exceptions, anything that gives advantage to a person or group of people on any basis other than merit should be avoided.”
Would the huge advantage afforded to wealthy suburban whites as opposed to poor urban blacks in terms of the quality and access to private and public schools be a basis upon which to justify Affirmative Action to redress this societal unfairness?
The premise of legacy admissions is that alumni support the school; that they’ve likely made 25 years of annual (or more frequent) contributions by the time their child is eligible for consideration. In any case, did Obama’s eldest daughter get into Harvard as a triple-legacy (both parents and paternal grandfather), or as a disadvantaged black who overcame terrible hardships and pulled herself up by her bootstraps?
She’s a legacy admit at Harvard, just like Brett Kavanaugh is at Yale. Do you object to both? one? neither?
“Do you object to both? one? neither?”
None of which is relevant to the original argument.
Anonymous is always irrelevant. One prefers a person to stand on their own two feet, but a legacy admission isn’t excluding another because of race and religion that anonymous doesn’t understand.
A legacy is meaningful to admissions because it means the person has some allegiance to the school, provides history and frequently provides money often used as scholarships for those that do not have sufficient funds.
When one calls someone else a liar, one should have solid reasons. If one doesn’t, it is they whose character is flawed. His grandfather went to Yale. Most applications limit the family history to parents and siblings, so Yale may not have known his grandfather attended. I don’t love legacy admissions, but I dislike those who impugn the integrity of others without solid justification even more.
“less qualified.” was exactly how I understood his meaning in the original tweet.
He had just previously offered his opinion that Sri Srinivasan was the most highly qualified for the nomination. And (paraphrased) that to exclude his “minority” status in favor of a separate “minority” status, in lieu of prioritizing their comparable legal qualifications, would be wrong.
Ilya is not my favorite Volokh blogger, for his open-border preferences, but good golly — finding offense in his simple phrasing here seems undeserved, and IMHO, intentional.
When SloJoe was importuned to make his “pledge” (to help him get votes in the SC primary) he did not – and does not now – consider any candidates other than those who meet the test of being black and woman. Non-candidates are men of any heritage and anyone who does not lay claim to black heritage. What a short list!! PS: I blame the FOOLish and small-minded voters in the SC primary, in other primaries and in the 2020 Presidential election for this nonsensical way to nominate someone for the highest federal court. .
Going further afield, why isn’t there a member of the Nooksack Tribe on the Supreme Court?
Certainly has dark enough skin, most of them…
Interesting data from Steve Vladeck (chaired prof at UT Austin law school):
28 Justices have been appointed to #SCOTUS since 1950.
7 (1/4) had no prior judicial experience.
15 had < 5 years of prior judicial experience.
3 had served on state courts.
4 had served on trial courts.
Average prior experience = 5 years.
Median prior experience: < 3 years.
https://twitter.com/steve_vladeck/status/1487896843430371330
His tweet includes all of the raw data, and he notes in a subsequent tweet that “If you look at all 58 of the Justices appointed to #SCOTUS since 1900, the data is even more telling re: lack of prior judicial experience. 25/58 (43.1%) had no prior state or federal judicial experience. Average prior experience: < 5 years. Median prior experience: 2.5 years."
For which of these appointments would Shapiro judge them to be "objectively best"?
Since 1900? Seriously? Yes, Abe Lincoln studied law by candlelight instead of going to law school. But what was considered “qualified” for a lawyer or judge well over a century ago is irrelevant to today’s standards.
Abe Lincoln died well before 1900 and is irrelevant to the data Vladeck’s is discussing.
Perhaps you talk about him because you’re unwilling to look at the data from 1950 on, which are the more detailed data in italics. Are you going to argue that they’re irrelevant too, or simply ignore them again?
Don’t like 1950? Choose your own start date. As I said: he included all of the raw data in his tweet, and I’ve already given a link to it.
The first mark of distinction and character any of the jurists being considered can make is to announce, “I insist on competing for the position of Associate Justice without help from an exclusionary rule based on race and gender. If the President wishes to keep me on the list, the exclusionary rule must be relaxed — otherwise remove me from consideration”.
That would move a candidate into top consideration to stand up for EOE Law as a matter of integrity.
But an exclusionary rule that only accepts people approved by the Federalist Society is OK?
Should Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Coney Barrett all have said “I insist on competing for the position of Associate Justice without help from an exclusionary rule based on Federalist Society approval. If the President wishes to keep me on the list, the exclusionary rule must be relaxed — otherwise remove me from consideration”?
“But an exclusionary rule that only accepts people approved by the Federalist Society is OK?”
So you see no difference between criteria based on *ideas* and one based on race and gender?
Maybe this will help: One is based on ideas. They other is racist and sexist.
I absolutely recognize the difference between Biden’s exclusionary rule (“I have made no decision except one: the person I will nominate will be someone of extraordinary qualifications, character, experience, and integrity. And that person will be the first Black woman ever nominated to the United States Supreme Court” — a rule with 6 conditions, including the 2 you focus on to the exclusion of the other 4) and Trump’s exclusionary rule, choosing among names on a list generated by a couple of private organizations.
You may personally believe that Trump’s own “criteria [were] based on *ideas*,” but Trump certainly didn’t specify any ideas. I doubt that you can provide a quote specifying what ideas determined Trump’s list.
“I doubt that you can provide . . .”
I doubt you can stay focused on an argument without deflecting.
It’s not a deflection. You said that Trump’s list “is based on ideas,” but you are apparently unwilling to provide evidence specifying what ideas his list is based on. You are clearly free to refuse, but don’t be dishonest about it and call my request a “deflection” when it is so obviously related to your claim.
But an exclusionary rule that only accepts people approved by the Federalist Society Senate is OK?
html tag missed supposed to strike out Federalist society and replace with Senate.
Just to show how the anology was so awful.
Ha! What you’re referring to as an “exclusionary rule” is a constitutional requirement. Apparently you also have difficulty distinguishing between nomination and confirmation. I was discussing the former, and you’re discussing the latter.
If it didn’t take energy to get out of my chair, I’d be ROFLMAO! The key word here is “lessor.” Blacks, formerly referred to as “coloreds”, feel so inferior that they go ballistic whenever someone uses a word that reminds them of just how inferior they feel. Shapiro’s point is very valid. After all, the late MLK (whose philosophies were all over the place) claimed he wanted EQUAL treatment but his successors want special treatment because of the color of their skin. Whenever they’re put up against someone with similar skin tones, they go to ancestral origin. In reality, it’s baloney. (That’s not the word I’d use but the censors wouldn’t approve the word that really describes the situation.)
I don’t know how strong the Black Law Students Association is at Georgetown, but they’re clearly grooming a generation of race ambulance chasers. The Tweet could have been worded better, but no one on social media ever gives much thought to precision. If you didn’t have a chip on your shoulder or a malicious agenda, you would have just passed over that single word because the context was clear. But the left doesn’t do “context.”
Shapiro is wrong that his is an “objective” assessment, and he shouldn’t pretend that his personal opinion is objective.
Shapiro has been oddly silent about related issues on the right: whether John Roberts was “objectively” the best choice to become Chief Justice.
Georgetown is named after a king.
Change the name.
Some film company fired an actress over a deplorable tweet regarding the police funeral in New York. That was just as wrong as firing this professor. However, there is some joy in seeing the left eating its own
Do you suffer from the same sickness you’re criticizing? Good political mental health is maintaining a feeling of co-citizenship, if not warmth and empathy, for Americans you disagree with. To “personalize” disagreement is how a 5-year-old is expected to deal with conflict. Adults are expected to think and act like adults.
Whig98,
I, for one, take no pleasure in watching Trumpists vilify Liz Cheney as a traitor to their cause. Unlike you, I don’t enjoy demonization. That’s the difference between you and I.
Demonization? Who did I demonize? I enjoy seeing the left cancel their own, but that is more akin to schadenfreude than demonization. Maybe you need to read things a little closer – that may be the difference between us
Admittedly no fan of Liz – who is a neo-con, but I have no issue with how she voted. The only issue I have with her is that she was a member of the Leadership Team and proved not to be a team player after all was said and done. If she disagreed with Leadership, she should have either gone along with the policy or left and tried to challenge the Minority Leader in a vote. She proved to be not a team player. You have to acknowledge that Nancy would have booted her out of leadership for the same type of action
I didn’t say YOU demonized. I said the TRUMPISTS demonized Cheney. And you get off on it. How sick is that?
If you think Shapiro is on the left, you’re either ignorant of his actual legal views or you’re a right-wing extremist.
Turley should know better than to label that a “badly worded tweet”. It’s a prime example of what those who support free speech don’t always mention, it offers no protections from the consequences of exercising it.
The tweet was more likely a Freudian slip than a “badly worded tweet”.
Students demanding he get fired for it is also free speech. Ultimately it’s up to the school to decide on what action to make. Censure, reprimand, or termination. It was a stupid thing to say and it certainly came with equally deserving consequences.
It was neither badly worded nor a Freudian slip. Shapiro clearly said only that Srinivisan was more qualified than the black women candidates Biden had mentioned. Nothing wrong with that.
Turley will commend and support any black female judge Biden happens to select.
Always a good idea to sleep overnight on a particularly controversial or vitriolic e-mail, tweet, letter. Painful experiences over the years has taught me that. I suggest that to others.
Twitter has been the ruin of many and an accelerant to the division in our country. Can you imagine had it existed at the time of our Founding Fathers?
The founding fathers used more than the number of characters allocated by Twitter, but they had incredible debates in the Federalist and Anti-Federalist Papers.
Liberals eating liberals, what a delicious meal. Pick my candidate based on flavor, no no pick my flavor. Forget qualifications, give the mob their flavor.
Margot:
It’s like that saying, “Never interfere with an enemy while he is in the process of destroying himself.”
I keep hearing these conservative pundits who say that Democrats could turn poll numbers around if they did X, Y, and Z. I say, leave them to it.
Seems like Georgetown has a lot of firing to do…..starting at the top and working down to the bottom.
“The tweets are at odds with everything we stand for at Georgetown Law and are damaging to the culture of equity and inclusion that Georgetown Law is building every day.”
“Equity”…..is a Woke notion that is a radical Leftist abandonment of “Equality”….and is part of the CRT Agenda.
Words give you away if you are not conscious of what you write….and Treanor is just as guilty as Shapiro.
If Shapiro goes….so should Treanor.
There should be zero tolerance for Racism…..no. matter which direction it is directed…..but we have to ensure those accused of it are in fact guilty following a fair impartial investigation.
I would suggest Treanor is incapable of the latter….being fair and impartial judging by his very own wording of his comments.
“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?”
****************************
I wouldn’t fire him for the tweet. I’d fire him for suggesting a “prog & v smart” – a contradiction in terms – and playing the ethnic background card. In all candor, this guy is so drunk on the lib koolade he ought to be chuckled at more than terminated. By the way, that always gets them madder than an actual job action. There’s always some fool lib around to hire them and they know it.
ROFL that you think he’s “drunk on the lib koolade.” Apparently you’ve never read his work. He’s extremely conservative, worked for the Koch-funded Cato Institute.
Wow. Thanks for demonstrating yet again your inclination to jump to unwarranted conclusions.
Anybody taking into account one’s race or national origin or ethnicity in recommending them for a job has drank the Lib Koolade no matter how many articles they’ve written for the National Review.
Once again, you need to work on your reading comprehension. His statement was “Objectively best pick for Biden is Sri Srinivasan, who is solid prog & v smart.”
He subsequently noted “Even has identify [sic] politics benefit of being first Asian (Indian) American,” but he did not say that he took that into account in coming to his conclusion that “Objectively best pick for Biden is Sri Srinivasan”
I hope you’re more attentive in your reading when you carry out work for your clients.
Aninny:
“He subsequently noted “Even has identify [sic] politics benefit of being first Asian (Indian) American,” but he did not say that he took that into account in coming to his conclusion that “Objectively best pick for Biden is Sri Srinivasan”view.”
*************************
Neither did I. I said “[a]nybody taking into account one’s race or national origin or ethnicity in recommending them for a job has drank the Lib Koolade ….” Which means something quite different that your summary of my comment. That is to say, I did not say he took that into account in coming to his conclusion that “Objectively best pick for Biden is Sri Srinivasan”view.’ I said he “[took] into account one’s race or national origin or ethnicity in recommending them for a job ….” We can debate whether he really looked objectively or not given his subsequent statements that belie remark but what isn’t up for debate is whether or not not he took immutable characteristics into consideration in “recommending her for the job.”
Your reasoning skills match your reading comprehension which is to say equally poor.
… says the guy mistakenly referring to Sri Srinivasan as a woman.
Yeah, that matters.
😉
“Badly worded tweet,” is that the excuse we’re making here. Free speech doesn’t mean no repercussions from your employer. D.C. is considered an “employment at will state” meaning an employer can fire someone for any or no reason. If you don’t want to get fired, don’t give them reasons.
More evidence that people have lost their minds. Terminating someone’s employment for a “poorly worded tweet” is the functional equivalent of the death penalty for a parking ticket. If we are building a world where nobody can make a mistake and learn from it, and move on without suffering dramatic, out of proportion consequences, well – I’m glad that I don’t have to live in it for much longer. I’m sorry for those of you that do. Keep a bag packed for your trip to the gulag when YOU “offend” someone.
If I’m an employer and you make racist (not poorly worded) tweets, you may lose the right to interface with my customers, the students.
Enigma:
Would you employ that rule equally? If someone made racist statements about whites, for instance in keeping with BLM philosophy, would they “lose the right to interface with (your) customers, the students”?
I didn’t propose a rule, employers in many states including mine, don’t even need a reason to fire someone. We do get into the discussion of what is racist> Given the current trend of banning books by Black authors and firing teachers and principals for teaching CRT when they aren’t. Who would I trust to make that judgment? In this case, the end-users are complaining and the school will make a decision. I don’t know they will make a correct one. There are remedies.
I’m curious as to what you believe BLM philosophies are? I’ve seen what is on their website. That may be totally different than what right wing media for examples says they mean.
I didn’t propose a rule, employers in many states including mine, don’t even need a reason to fire someone.
Yes an employment at will. Meaning a person can be fired for NO reason. Not ANY reason. That’s a big difference.
I can say. You are no longer a fit for our team.
What you cant say, because you’re a women you don’t fit with our all male team .
They can be fired for any reason that isn’t specifically excluded. How many women or minorities weren’t hired or were fired because they “didn’t fit in?” Until someone makes a specific decision to hire them, it won’t happen.
The controversy about the BLM movement – in contrast to the cause – began years earlier, when movement leaders came out in support of the antisemitic BDS movement following a junket to “Palestine” organized by one of the BLM-affiliated groups called Dream Defenders that brought black activists to Israel and the West Bank to meet with BDS co-founder Omar Barghouti and other radical anti-Israel activists and militants. Among them was the BLM movement co-founder, Patrisse Cullors.
https://www.camera.org/article/the-blm-movement-and-antisemitism/
D.C. Black Lives Matter Protest Turns Anti-Semitic
https://freebeacon.com/issues/d-c-black-lives-matter-protest-turns-anti-semitic/
Part of the problem de-centralized groups like BLM face is that people with an agenda get to proclaim who the leaders are when it suits them and who is affiliated. Judging by Charlottesville, the Republican Party is affiliated with neo-Nazi’s, skinheads, and white supremacists. While that’s certainly true in some cases, it’s unfair to label the entire Party as such or say that is the official Party platform.
In the case of Republicans, it doesn’t help that they currently have no platform other that what Trump does, and they don’t disassociate themselves from those groups who some (unfairly) refer to as the Republican base. See how easy it is to taint an organization based on the actions of some?
So you don’t have to look it up, this is what BLM says their philosophy is:
We are expansive. We are a collective of liberators who believe in an inclusive and spacious movement. We also believe that in order to win and bring as many people with us along the way, we must move beyond the narrow nationalism that is all too prevalent in Black communities. We must ensure we are building a movement that brings all of us to the front.
We affirm the lives of Black queer and trans folks, disabled folks, undocumented folks, folks with records, women, and all Black lives along the gender spectrum. Our network centers those who have been marginalized within Black liberation movements.
We are working for a world where Black lives are no longer systematically targeted for demise.
We affirm our humanity, our contributions to this society, and our resilience in the face of deadly oppression.
The call for Black lives to matter is a rallying cry for ALL Black lives striving for liberation.
Enigma: “The call for Black lives to matter is a rallying cry for ALL Black lives striving for liberation.”
+++
And, mostly, a call for bags of money to buy mansions.
It’s a “Give’Me’ front.
You have no chains to lose. You are liberated.
You should probably stop shooting each other though.
Shapiro’s tweet rather obviously was intended to read “lessor qualified” (not just “lessor”), and it’s objectively true that the Indian-born Srinivasan, who has argued 25 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court is more qualified than someone whose career primarily consists of being a public defender and trial court judge. But Dean Treanor also fired a Georgetown law professor who was surreptitiously recorded in a private conversation with another professor lamenting that her black students, for the most part, rarely made it into even the top half of the class. Which, of course, is not surprising. You can’t have lower academic standards for admission, and expect them to perform as well as the regular students. But with as much melodrama as he could exude, Treanor condemned the “horrific” statement made by this professor, when in fact, she was simply expressing the truth, and her disappointment in it. Apparently Dean Treanor believes that pandering to the mob will help him retain his own job, which is more important to him than the damage he is doing to Georgetown Law’s reputation.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/03/14/black-law-students-georgetown-affirmative-action/
This opinion piece supports my premise. The author criticizes the “mismatch theory” by stating that the more elite the institution attended by a black law student, the more likely he or she is to graduate. I agree, because if you look at the socio-economic backgrounds of black law students at Harvard, Yale, etc., they are virtually all highly privileged. One of Biden’s short-list black females, for example, is Leondra Kruger. Her mother is a physician from Jamaica, her father is a white, Jewish physician. She grew-up in a mostly white and Asian exclusive suburb in So. CA, and attended elite private schools. Of course she is going to succeed! How could she not? Just like Obama, with his white Ph.D mother, and black Harvard educated economist as a father. Do these folks really need affirmative action and set asides? They represent the most privilege that America has to offer. They’ve been spoon-fed privilege since the day they were born. I do find that black graduates of non-elite law schools don’t do as well, which is true of all law students. I’ve worked with black graduates of Georgetown, all of them coming from educated, upper-middle class backgrounds, although not elite. They tend to put in a year at a top law firm and then get cut and go to work in government or a public interest job. Which is still, by any objective standard, a very enviable lifestyle. So no, they don’t need AA. Without it, the elite blacks will still be in the top schools. If they don’t get in no. 1 or 2, they’ll get in no. 7 or 8. They’ll still do exceptionally well in life!
“This opinion piece supports my premise. ”
How could I have imagined you implied less qualified Black students were getting in? Because you implied it.
” So no, they don’t need AA.”
Without Affirmative Action, they weren’t being let in at all. Yeah, they kinda did need it. Ask the old Clarence Thomas who wouldn’t have gotten into Holy Cross and Yale Law.
Would poor Clarence have starved to death if he had gone to Georgetown Law instead of Yale? Face it, 99% of lawyers in the U.S. didn’t go to H/Y. It isn’t an all or nothing situation. And as to undergraduate education, the first question is “which college did you go to?” Followed by, “okay, and what was your major?” The graduates of average, state colleges who major in engineering, computer sci, accounting, nursing and other skills that employers need will do substantially better economically than Ivy grads in fluffy majors. Like a colleague’s brother who graduated from Stanford and works as a mailman. He majored in Mexican-American Studies.
He most likey wouldn’t have been on SCOTUS without attending those schools. Besides, those other schools had similar records for admissions. SOme of those schools literally owned more Black people than they admitted before Affirmative Action.
https://www.businessinsider.com/every-supreme-court-justice-went-to-harvard-or-yale-law-school-heres-where-they-went-for-undergrad-2016-2
Shapiro’s tweet was not that offensive. It clearly meant that Srinivasan was in Shapiro’s view the best candidate “objectively” for Biden so anyone else would be lesser. The fact that this lesser choice would be a black woman was the result of Biden’s decision not Shapiro’s. Shapiro’s cringing apology is further evidence that we are now living through a version of Maoist re-education and self-criticism.
It is surprising that Shapiro could identify one person as “objectively” the best choice for Biden. Since there are a range of factors that go into this decision, and because each factor itself and the weight to be given each are matters of judgment, it is hard to imagine that there is one objectively best choice. That having been said, it seems doubtful that the best choice possible will be found by narrowing the range of eligible candidates. Biden clearly did this because of his promise to a power broker in South Carolina in exchange for his endorsement in a critical primary.
As you noted, “Since there are a range of factors that go into this decision, and because each factor itself and the weight to be given each are matters of judgment, it is hard to imagine that there is one objectively best choice,” so it’s odd that you then refer to a “best choice” yourself, when you say “it seems doubtful that the best choice possible will be found by narrowing the range of eligible candidates.”
Every single President narrows the range of eligible candidates.
Trump, for example, narrowed his list of potential SCOTUS nominees by looking only at candidates approved by the Federalist Society. Do you say the same there?
I don’t think Trump should have narrowed his choice in advance either. He too did it for political reasons. But I think the basis for his list, which appears to have been judicial philosophy, is much more sound than Biden’s intersectional criteria.
By definition there will be a best choice for the decision maker, since in the end he has to decide on one person. My point was that there are judgments to be made about each of the many factors that go into that choice, as well as judgments to be made about the weight to be given each factor, so it is hard to say in advance that there is any “objectively” best choice. This is especially true if the candidate pool is extended out from currently sitting federal judges.
OK, so are you saying “it seems doubtful that the best choice possible [as judged by the decision maker] will be found by narrowing the range of eligible candidates”?
Because that seems like an internal contradiction: if the decision maker (in this case, Biden) determines whom he believes to be the best choice possible, using the criteria that he judges to be important, then by definition any criteria he uses to narrow the pool will only help him in finding the person he believes to best fit his own criteria.
Biden said that his criteria for the pool within which he’d choose for this single nomination were sixfold: “I have made no decision except one: the person I will nominate will be someone of extraordinary qualifications, character, experience, and integrity. And that person will be the first Black woman ever nominated to the United States Supreme Court” (the 6 being: extraordinary qualifications, character, experience, integrity, Black, woman). He didn’t say that he would use these criteria for all of his picks, should he get others; presumably he’ll keep the first 4 and not the last 2. The pool for all 3 of Trump’s picks was determined by Federalist Society approval. Does their approval really correspond to a judicial philosophy? I’m not so sure. How would you describe that philosophy? (For example, does being anti-abortion — which is clearly significant to them — derive from being an originalist? I don’t think so.)
Another interpreter dismissing that he said any Black woman would be a lesser choice.
Another interpreter dismissing that he said any Black woman would be a lesser choice.
Agreed. Equally as bad as saying only a Black woman would be the best choice.
Maybe it was “barly worded,” perhaps he should have said, after historical representation of 94% white men and 0% Black women, I’ve elected to rectify that. What I believe to be true, is that there won’t be more than two Black men or two Black women on the court at the in my lifetime because the people that control the process will deem one of each to be sufficient, regardless of qualifications.
If you believe that a seat on the highest court in the land is a matter of “representation,” then two seats for blacks is one seat too many. There are nine seats on the Court. Two / nine = 22 %. As blacks are 13% of the population, their relative “representation” is one seat.
By your standard, Catholics are overrepresented as are white men which seems perfectly acceptable to you. Representation seems to only function to hold everyone except white men and the religious right back.
TIN’s comment was in reference to your representation standard in your comment. Then you doubled-down proving the ridiculous assertion that representation is, or ought to be the standard.
He said Black people don’t deserve any more representation than their percentage of the population; whereas white men always have. What did I get wrong?
He said: If you believe… And then proceeded to give you an example of that if representation. Then you took that if even further proving how nonsensical it would be to attempt to have a court that was representative of every special interest group other than those interested in equal protection under the law.
Enigma, educated people will be overrepresented by your logic. For all practicality, to prevent overrepresentation by that group, the IQ should be close to 100. In effect, that means that 68% of the Supreme Court should have an IQ between 85 and 115. The remaining 32% would be divided between those with an IQ greater than 115 and those who are morons and idiots.
That is except the Federal Government employing approximately 400K in the DC metroplex. Also, when did DC become a State?
I don’t claim it’s a state, I just cited the prevailing standard as applies to DC. There are exceptions, but spouting racism which Turley prefers to change to “badly worded tweet” isn’t on the list.
“Pour encourager les autres.”
Shapiro isn’t that important; the left wants to instill enough fear that conservatives will self censor and leave the public forum to them.
Ugly people.
Monument,
I suppose you are against the chilling effect of defamation laws which threaten to bankrupt people who don’t self-censor themselves from damaging a party’s reputation by publishing lies.
Like you referring to Turley as “dishonest?”
Let the record show, I have NEVER stated that Turley is *dishonest.* I have said he is *disingenuous.* He always maintains plausible deniability in his statements unlike Trump who is a bald-faced liar.
Jeff,
Do you not know that disingenuous and dishonest are synonyms?
Pro Tip: When you want to introduce a new word to your vocabulary you should always first understand its meaning.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/disingenuous
Thanks for the tip. No doubt “disingenuous” has an element of insincerity, but it is not exactly synonymous with “dishonest.” You can’t prove that a person is disingenuous, but you can if they are dishonest. That’s the difference.