Georgetown Law Official Cleared Over Tweets on Supreme Court Pick

A Georgetown Law administrator who was placed on paid administrative leave this year for his tweets about President Biden’s promise to nominate a Black woman for the Supreme Court has been cleared after a months-long investigation {snip}

School investigators found that Ilya Shapiro, who was set to lead the Center for the Constitution starting in February, was not “properly subject to discipline” for his January tweets because they were posted before his employment started, William M. Treanor, the law school’s dean, said in an email to the campus.

Days before his appointment — and shortly after Supreme Court Justice Stephen G. Breyer announced plans to retire — Shapiro tweeted Biden should nominate the chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, but instead would pick a “lesser Black woman.”

Shapiro’s remarks — for which he apologized a day after they were posted — also included a tweet that said if Biden nominated a Black woman for the high court, she “will always have an asterisk attached.” Another tweet included a poll that asked if the president’s commitment to nominating a Black female judge was racist, sexist, both or neither.

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While Shapiro has been cleared of wrongdoing, Treanor’s note to campus said the university’s offices of human resources and institutional diversity, equity, and affirmative action — which led investigations into his conduct — found his “tweets had a significant negative impact on the Georgetown Law community, including current and prospective students, alumni, staff, and faculty.”

The dean said Shapiro will participate in implicit bias, cultural competence and nondiscrimination programming  {snip}

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