Georgetown Law School Protects Racist Comments, Punishes Anti-Racist OnesIt would be the height of employing a double standard if Georgetown Law School Dean William Treanor took any additional adverse action against Ilya Shapiro.
By Mark Paoletta
February 11, 2022
Constitutional law scholar Ilya Shapiro is on administrative leave from Georgetown Law School amid being investigated for criticizing President Biden’s choice to select a Supreme Court nominee on the bases of sex and race. His suspension is outrageously hypocritical in light of many law professors’ ugly, racist attacks heaped upon conservative judges, especially Justice Clarence Thomas, that received little or no criticism in the legal academic community.
In contrast to Shapiro’s opposition to racism, many law professors have engaged in openly racist attacks on justices, with little to no professional repercussions. Such criticism of Thomas is an especially clear example of this double standard in the profession and at Georgetown.
Many law professors, including at Georgetown Law, have been unapologetically vicious in their racism towards Thomas. According to a review by Georgetown Law Professor Charles Abernathy of the book, “We Won’t Go Back: Making The Case For Affirmative Action” (1997) by then Georgetown Law professors Charles R. Lawrence III & Mari J. Matsuda:
[Justice Thomas] is said to be “a ‘handkerchief head’ and ‘a chicken-and-biscuit-eating Uncle Tom.’ While these slurs against Justice Clarence Thomas are quoted as the words of others, Lawrence reports them — repeatedly — with the same mixture of glee and anger common in epithet calling. Finally, in the author’s own words, Justice Thomas is lashed for the ‘extremity of his betrayal’ of blacks. [footnotes omitted]
That is what racism actually looks like, in full bloom. Proper outrage over such sentiments ought to far exceed the faux uproar over Ilya’s opposition to racial and sexual preferences in hiring. Yet I am unaware of Lawrence being publicly chastised or put on administrative leave by the dean of Georgetown Law School, or of anyone at Georgetown, other than Abernathy, saying a word of public criticism about his statements.
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Source:
https://thefederalist.com/2022/02/11/georgetown-law-school-protects-racist-comments-punishes-anti-racist-ones/
