Yes, Georgetown should fire an academic for a racist tweet

Opinion | Yes, Georgetown should fire an academic for a racist tweet

A student ascends the steps to the McDonough building on campus of Georgetown Law School in D.C. on Oct. 12. (Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post)

Shapiro recommended that Biden select Sri Srinivasan, chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, who is of South Asian descent: “But alas [Srinivasan] doesn’t fit into the latest intersectionality hierarchy so we’ll get lesser black woman. Thank heaven for small favors?”

Shapiro soon deleted the tweet and apologized for it, calling it “inartful.” But the damage was done. William M. Treanor, the law school’s dean, described Shapiro’s words as “antithetical to the work that we do here every day to build inclusion, belonging, and respect for diversity.” A large coalition of Georgetown student organizations called for Georgetown to rescind his employment. Now he is on paid leave, pending an investigation into whether he violated the university’s policies on “professional conduct, non-discrimination, and anti-harassment.”

I’ve been a tenured law professor at Georgetown for more than a decade. Let me make this easy for the dean. Yes, Shapiro violated those principles. 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 evidences 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.

Maybe for conservatives, Shapiro’s bias would be easier to understand in another context. Louis Brandeis was the first Jewish person confirmed to the Supreme Court in 1916. Much of the opposition to his appointment was blatantly antisemitic. Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge stated, “If it were not that Brandeis is a Jew … he would never have been appointed.” If someone had complained that a more qualified gentile had been passed over for a “lesser Jew,” it would be obvious that comment was antisemitic.

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.

When President Barack Obama nominated Sonia Sotomayor to the court, Shapiro wrote that “she would not have even been on the short list if she were not Hispanic,” and used dog whistles, such as claiming that lawyers question her “abilities as a judicial craftsman” and “erratic temperament.” But when President Donald Trump announced that his replacement for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg would be female because, in the president’s words, “I think it should be a woman because I actually like women much more than men,” Shapiro apparently tweeted not a peep.

The problem with the academic freedom argument is that it proves too much. It is true that Shapiro has the “right” to say anything he pleases, including any stupid racist or sexist thing. But a university should not be indifferent to the meaning and impact of those words, especially on students.

Allowing Shapiro to teach would force Black women — and other Black students and other women — to make the kind of wretched choice no student should have to make: accept 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.

Two weeks after Shapiro insulted Black women, another Georgetown law professor addressed an Asian student in class as “Mr. Chinaman.” After the predictable outcry, the professor half-apologized, saying he was sorry for any pain he caused but, as a European, hadn’t realized his words were racist.

The academic freedom crew would say the student should have just patiently explained to the professor why the slur was wrong, and the university should have embraced the teachable moment. Kumbaya, “we are the world,” yadda yadda yadda.

Students who think their education should be free of racist slurs from professors are not illiberal snowflakes who don’t understand academic values. They simply want to learn in an environment where their teachers don’t judge them by their race or gender.

There is a necessary — and difficult — line drawn when free speech conflicts with anti-racism values. Shapiro’s “lesser black woman” tweet falls on the wrong side of that line. Being a member of the Georgetown community is a privilege that Shapiro has proven he does not deserve.