Georgetown Law won't fire scholar accused of racist posts

(Reuters) - Conservative legal scholar Ilya Shapiro has been cleared to join the Georgetown Law faculty, four months after he was placed on administrative leave following a series of controversial tweets that suggested President Joe Biden’s commitment to nominate a Black woman to the U.S. Supreme Court would result in a “lesser nominee.”

Law dean William Treanor wrote in a Thursday message to the law school that university investigators concluded Shapiro is not subject to discipline because the tweets in question were published a week before he was set to begin his employment as leader of the school’s Center for the Constitution.

Shapiro can now take up the post as originally planned and serve as a senior lecturer, Treanor wrote. Still, investigators determined the tweets "had a significant negative impact on the Georgetown Law community," he said.

Hundreds of Georgetown law students and alumni called on the school to rescind Shapiro’s job offer after his Jan. 31 tweets questioning the use of race in Supreme Court vetting, calling them “racist rhetoric.”

Shapiro deleted the tweets in question and later described them as "inartful." But he maintained that he did not violate any university rules or policies. The incident drew national attention amid a series of free speech debates that have roiled law school and university campuses.

Shapiro said in a statement Thursday that he is “gratified” to be able to take the job for which he was hired, adding, "all students and participants in my programs can expect to be accorded the freedom to think and speak freely and to be treated equally."

In one of his tweets, Shapiro wrote that his own favored candidate to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer “doesn’t fit into latest intersectional hierarchy so we’ll get (a) lesser black woman." In another, he said Biden's pledge to pick a Black woman meant the nominee would have an "asterisk attached.”

Among those who defended Shapiro was Judge James Ho of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, who in a February speech to Georgetown’s chapter of the Federalist Society argued that Shapiro’s detractors should debate him on campus, not attempt to “cancel” him.

In addition to taking part in anti-bias training as required of all senior staff, Shapiro has been asked to make himself available to meet with student leaders who are “concerned about his ability to treat students fairly," Treanor said Thursday.

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