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I never intended to become a poster boy for cancel culture. Nor do I intend to let those four months of Georgetown farce define my life or career. But I’m using this chance to expose the institutional rot in academia and trace it to the illiberal winds blowing across America.

Those words are from  latest book, about which more will be said in a moment. But a few “set up” words first.

Today,  is a senior fellow and director of constitutional studies at the Manhattan Institute. Previously he was executive director and senior lecturer at the Georgetown Center for the Constitution, and before that a vice president of the Cato Institute and director of Cato’s Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies. And as before, Shapiro continues to file  in the U.S. Supreme Court.

But his today comes against the backdrop of a quarrelsome yesterday involving at Georgetown Law School where he was slated to work with Professor Randy Barnett and others at the School’s . But things started to go south after Shapiro that “we’ll get lesser black woman” instead of Judge Sri Srinivasan. He later . Following a four-month law school investigation, Shapiro was reinstated, only thereafter to resign on June 6, 2022:

After full consideration of the report of the Office of Institutional Diversity, Equity, and Affirmative Action (“IDEAA Report”), and upon consultation with counsel, family, and trusted advisers, it has become apparent that my remaining at Georgetown has become untenable. Although I celebrated my “technical victory” in the Wall Street Journal, further analysis shows that you’ve made it impossible for me to fulfill the duties of my appointed post.

[ . . . ]

I cannot again subject my family to the public attacks on my character and livelihood that you and IDEAA have now made foreseeable, indeed inevitable. As a result of the hostile work environment that you and they have created, I have no choice but to resign.

Ilya Shapiro resigns from Georgetown following reinstatement after 122-day investigation of tweets

News

After a more than four-month investigation that led to his reinstatement last week, Ilya Shapiro resigned today from Georgetown University Law Center.

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In the midst of the controversy, ��֭����’s Greg Lukianoff and Adam Goldstein :

Shapiro’s targeting marks the 10th attempt to get a professor sanctioned for ideological reasons at Georgetown University since 2015. Five attempts have been successful, with sanctions involving investigation, resignation, suspension and termination. . . . Higher education’s credibility rests on the public belief that it is a place where all sides of every argument are subject to robust debate, disputation and discussion. If it becomes clear that these discussions are impossible on campuses, the reputation of higher education — and the shared world of facts it was intended to create — will suffer.

And now on to Shapiro’s new book. It is titled “” and it’s already getting ample notice from publications ranging from  to the , including a recent podcast exchange with Nico Perrino on “So to Speak”:

View video

The publisher’s summary:

In the past, Columbia Law School produced leaders like Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Now it produces window-smashing activists.

When protestors at Columbia broke into a building and created illegal encampments, the student-led Columbia Law Review demanded that finals be canceled because of “distress.”

Law schools used to teach students how to think critically, advance logical arguments, and respect opponents. Now those students cannot tolerate disagreement and reject the validity of the law itself. Rioting Ivy Leaguers are the same people who will soon:

• Be America’s judges, DAs, and prosecutors
• File and fight constitutional lawsuits
• Advise Fortune 500 companies
• Hire other left-wing diversity candidates to staff law firms and government offices
• Run for higher office with an agenda of only enforcing laws that suit left-wing whims

In Lawless, Ilya Shapiro explains how we got here and what we can do about it. The problem is bigger than radical students and biased faculty — it’s institutional weakness. Shapiro met the mob firsthand when he posted a controversial tweet that led to calls for his firing from Georgetown Law. A four-month investigation eventually cleared him on a technicality but declared that if he offended anyone in the future, he’d create a “hostile educational environment” and be subject to the inquisition again. Unable to do the job he was hired for, he resigned.

This cannot continue. In Lawless, Shapiro reveals how the illiberal takeover of legal education is transforming our country. Unless we stop it now, the consequences will be with us for decades.

A few selected quotes:

• Is there anything we can do to stop or reverse . . . ill liberal tendencies? Should we — those of us who care about universities’ traditional truth-seeking mission and law schools’ commitment to the American constitutional order — just throw up our hands, gird our loins, and regroup to fight elsewhere? Surely we need to develop novel responses to heterodox challenges, ones that involve culture, legislation, and institution building.
• The real issue here is taking exclusionary action — real discrimination, not a mere assertion that someone’s position on Israel (or anything) is ‘harmful’ or denies someone’s right to exist.
• More than a 100 institutions have endorsed a version of the  at the University of Chicago (known as the Chicago Statement), which is the gold standard. The problem is that, as I experienced personally, so many of these speech-and-expression policies aren’t worth the paper (or pixels) they’re written on, falling by the wayside when seeming to conflict with the demands of DEI.
• Cancellation victims, and others who make national news are the tip of the iceberg. As we see from survey results, self-censorship pervades academia, detracting from any intellectual mission, to say the least. Knowledge is never developed, and many old-school professors leave academia entirely — such as the famed First Amendment scholar Eugene Volokh’s move from the UCLA school of law to the Hoover Institution and the early retirement of five right-of-center law professors from the University of San Diego (which used to be a bastion of originalism). Universities are at best failing to resist these illiberal forces and at worst encouraging them.

Shapiro’s four main recommendations in “Lawless”: 

1. Abolish DEI bureaucracies
2. End mandatory diversity training
3. Stop political coercion
4. End identity-based preferences.

Related

View video

• Paul Caron, “,” TaxProf Blog (April 24)
• Ron K.L. Collins, “Falsely claiming a First Amendment right at a dinner party at private home,” FAN 419.1 (April 12)
• Stuart Kyle Duncan, “,” The Wall Street Journal (March 17, 2023) (See also: )

Forthcoming book on ideology, science, and free speech

• Lawrence M. Krauss, ed., “,” Post Hill Press (July 2025)

An unparalleled group of prominent scholars from wide-ranging disciplines detail ongoing efforts to impose ideological restrictions on science and scholarship throughout western society.

From assaults on merit-based hiring to the policing of language and replacing well-established, disciplinary scholarship by ideological mantras, current science and scholarship is under threat throughout western institutions. 

As this group of prominent scholars ranging across many different disciplines and political leanings detail, the very future of free inquiry and scientific progress is at risk. Many who have spoken up against this threat have lost their positions, and a climate of fear has arisen that strikes at the heart of modern education and research. Banding together to finally speak out, this brave and unprecedented group of scholars issues a clarion call for change.

“Higher education isn’t what it used to be. Cancel Culture and DEI have caused many to keep their mouths shut. Not so the authors of this book. This collection of essays tells of threats to open inquiry, free speech, and the scientific process itself. A much-needed book.” — Sabine Hossenfelder, Physicist and Author of Existential Physics: A Scientist’s Guide to Life’s Biggest Questions

Campus speech conflicts continue

• Hannah Metzger, “,” Westword (Feb. 18)
• “After FIRElawsuit, California community colleges will not enforce DEI mandate in classroom,” FIRE(Feb. 10)
• Laura Spitalniak, “,” Higher Dive (Sept. 20, 2024)
• “,” Campus Safety (Nov. 4)

Campus free speech podcasts

• Keith Whittington, “,” The Volokh Conspiracy (Feb. 18)

In recent weeks, the  has released two new episodes focusing on campus free speech issues.

 with Timothy Zick, the John Marshall Professor of Government and Citizenship at William & Mary Law School. He is the author most recently of . The episode focuses on the law surrounding public protests on and off college campuses.

 with Jennifer Ruth and Michael Berube about their recent book, . They are both long-serving leaders in the American Association of University Professors, and the book develops a provocative proposal for patrolling the acceptable boundaries of extramural speech by university faculty.

More to come.

White House Associated Press controversy

• “,” First Amendment Watch (Feb. 18)

The White House barred a credentialed Associated Press reporter and photographer from boarding the presidential airplane Friday for a weekend trip with Donald Trump, saying the news agency’s stance on how to refer to the Gulf of Mexico was to blame for the exclusion. It represented a significant escalation by the White House in a four-day dispute with the AP over access to the presidency.

The administration has blocked the AP from covering a handful of events at the White House this week,  and several times in the Oval Office. It’s all because the news outlet has not followed Trump’s lead in renaming the body of water, which lies partially outside U.S. territory, to the “Gulf of America.”

Volokh weighs in on AP exclusion controversy

• Eugene Volokh, “” The Volokh Conspiracy (Feb. 16)

[1.] The Administration has no First Amendment obligation to provide any press conferences or interviews. The question, though, is whether, once it starts doing that, it may exclude the press based on its viewpoint, or on its supposedly unfair coverage, or on its use of terms that are seen as expressing a viewpoint.

[2.] It seems pretty clear that government officials can choose — including in viewpoint-based ways — whom they will sit down with for interviews. The President may choose to give interviews to journalists whose views he likes, and to refuse to speak with those whose views he dislikes. Indeed, a government official may even order employees not to talk to certain reporters, without thereby violating the reporters' rights.  (4th Cir. 2006).

[ . . . ]

[3.] It also seems pretty clear that government officials, even in large press conferences, can choose to ignore questions that express views they dislike, or to ignore questioners who have expressed those views. . . 

[4.] This having been said, there are precedents (Sherrill, TGP, and John K. Maciver Inst. for Public Policy v. Evers (7th Cir. 2021)) that recognize a right not to be excluded based on viewpoint from large press conferences that are generally open to a wide range of reporters. Those precedents treat those press conferences more or less like "limited public fora" or "nonpublic fora" — government property where the government may impose viewpoint-neutral restrictions but not viewpoint-based ones.

[ . . . ]

[5.] But what about in-between events, which are open only to a small set of reporters? Air Force One apparently has , and I take it the Oval Office is likewise limited.

[ . . . ]

[6.] So I think that for Air Force One and Oval Office appearances, the best I can say is that the First Amendment analysis is unsettled.

FIRE weighs in on AP exclusion controversy

• Aaron Terr, “White House barring AP from press events violates the First Amendment,” FIRE(Feb. 14)

As one federal court , “Neither the courts nor any other branch of the government can be allowed to affect the content or tenor of the news by choreographing which news organizations have access to relevant information.”

And because denying press access involves the potential deprivation of First Amendment rights, any decision about who’s in or out . That means the government must establish clear, impartial criteria and procedures, and reporters must receive notice of why they were denied access and have a fair opportunity to challenge that decision.

The AP — a major news agency that produces and distributes reports to thousands of newspapers, radio stations, and TV broadcasters around the world — has had long-standing access to the White House. It is now losing that access because its exercise of editorial discretion doesn’t align with the administration’s preferred messaging.

That’s viewpoint discrimination, and it’s unconstitutional.

This isn’t the first time the White House has sent a journalist packing for reporting critically, asking tough questions, or failing to toe the government line. During Trump’s first term, the White House  CNN reporter Jim Acosta’s press pass after he interrogated the president about his views on immigration. After the network sued, a federal court ordered the administration to restore Acosta’s pass.

Related

• (Feb. 12, 2025)

Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs sues NBC

• Philip Marcelo, “,” Associated Press/First Amendment Watch (Feb. 13)

 is suing NBC Universal over a documentary that he says falsely accuses him of being a serial murderer who had sex with underage girls as he awaits trial on federal sex trafficking charges.

The lawsuit filed Wednesday in New York state court says the documentary, “,” included statements that NBC Universal either knew were false or published with reckless disregard for the truth in order to defame the founder of Bad Boy Records.

“Indeed, the entire premise of the Documentary assumes that Mr. Combs has committed numerous heinous crimes, including serial murder, rape of minors, and sex trafficking of minors, and attempts to crudely psychologize him,” the complaint reads. “It maliciously and baselessly jumps to the conclusion that Mr. Combs is a ‘monster’ and ‘an embodiment of Lucifer’ with ‘a lot of similarities’ to Jeffrey Epstein.”

Executive Watch

• Ross A. Lincoln, “,” The Wrap (Feb. 18)
• Sarah McLaughlin, “60 Minutes and Vice President Vance put Europe’s worrying speech restrictions into the spotlight: Vance warns Europe against censorship as President Trump pursues critics here at home,” FIRE(Feb. 18)
• Jennifer L. Richter, Douglas I. Brandon, Steven A. Rowings, Virginia Hiner Antypas, Joseph S. Calascione, and Sharanya Sriram, “,” Akin (Feb. 18)
• Rex Huppke, “,” USA Today (Feb. 16)
• Steff Danielle Thomas, “,” The Hill (Feb. 15)
• “,” Fox News (Feb. 15)
• Leah Sarnoff, Mark Crudele, Aaron Katersky, and Kiara Alfonseca, “,” ABC News (Feb. 14)

View video

• Nick Paton Walsh, “,” CNN World (Feb. 14)
• David Bauder, “,” Free Speech Center (Feb. 13)
• Trevor Timm, “,” Freedom of the Press Foundation (Feb. 12)
• Jacob Mchangama, “,” The Bedrock Principle (Feb. 10)
• Kate Ruane, “,” Center for Democracy & Technology (Feb. 10)
• Darlene Superville and Joshua Goodman, “,” Associated Press/First Amendment Watch (Feb.7)
• “,” ACLU (2025)

Secretary Rubio on free speech and the Holocaust

View video

More in the news

• “,” NewsNation (Feb. 18)
• Debra J. Saunders, “,” Newsmax (Feb. 18)
• John Coleman, “Wave of state-level AI bills raise First Amendment problems,” FIRE(Feb. 13)
• Laurie Kellman, “,” Associated Press/First Amendment Watch (Feb. 13)
• John Coleman, “FIRE opposes Virginia’s proposed regulation of candidate deepfakes,” FIRE(Feb. 13)
• “,” Institute for Free Speech (Feb. 13)

2024-2025 SCOTUS term: Free expression and related cases

Cases decided

•  (Petition granted. Judgment vacated and case remanded for further consideration in light of Gonzalez v. Trevino, 602 U. S. ___ (2024) (per curiam))
•  (“The petition for a writ of certiorari is granted. The judgment is vacated, and the case is remanded to the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit for further consideration in light of Gonzalez v. Trevino, 602 U. S. ___ (2024) (per curiam).”)
• (The challenged provisions of the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act do not violate petitioners’ First Amendment rights.)

Review granted

• (argued Jan. 15)
• (argued Jan. 10)
• (argued Jan. 10)

Pending petitions

Petitions denied

Last scheduled FAN

FAN 457: “Timothy Zick’s ‘Executive Watch’: Introduction”

This article is part of First Amendment News, an editorially independent publication edited by Ronald K. L. Collins and hosted by FIREas part of our mission to educate the public about First Amendment issues. The opinions expressed are those of the article’s author(s) and may not reflect the opinions of FIREor Mr. Collins.