A Georgetown Law School administrator has resigned days after he started the job, saying the school has "created an unacceptably hostile work environment" for him since he posted tweets that many students called racist and misogynistic.
Ilya Shapiro was supposed to start leading the Georgetown Center for the Constitution in February, but he came under fire for tweeting complaints about President Joe Biden pledging to nominate a Black woman to the Supreme Court.
Shapiro suggested his own pick for nominee, and said that person “doesn’t fit intersectionality hierarchy, so we’ll get lesser Black woman.”
In response, 21 student groups at Georgetown Law signed a petition calling for Shapiro to be fired.
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He was placed on paid leave for four months while the school investigated.
Georgetown announced Thursday night they found since he wasn’t an employee at the time of the tweets, he couldn’t be disciplined for them.
But on Monday morning, Shapiro announced his resignation.
“You have created an unacceptably hostile work environment for me on account of my political views and affiliations," he said in a letter to the dean. “You’ve painted a target on my back such that I could never do the job I was hired for.”
“Georgetown urges members of our community to engage in robust and respectful dialogue," Georgetown Law said in a statement. "Our speech and expression policy … does not prohibit speech based on the person presenting ideas or the content of those ideas, even when those ideas may be difficult, controversial or objectionable.”
The Georgetown Black Law Students Association sent an open letter to the school after it announced it would not discipline Shapiro, saying, “We write to express our outrage, offense, and disheartenment over [this] decision … [It] reinforces that there are no repercussions for demeaning Black women.”
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Shapiro published an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal Thursday night titled “My Cancel-Culture Nightmare Is Over,” writing, “It was an experience I wouldn’t wish on anyone expect perhaps the instigators of the Twitter mob that launched this tempest.”
He also said in a statement, “All students and participants in my programs can expect to be accorded the freedom to think and speak freely and to be treated equally.”
Georgetown Law said Shapiro would be required to take bias and discrimination training and meet with student leaders who “have concerns about his ability to treat students fairly.”
