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Ilya Shapiro’s new book ‘Lawless’ calls out dysfunction in higher education

The conservative legal scholar specifically scrutinizes law schools, which he argues have grown hostile to free speech and inquiry

Legal scholar Ilya Shapiro had a personal run-in with cancel culture in 2022, when a tweet he later admitted was poorly worded sparked an online uproar and allegations of racism, leading to an official investigation by Georgetown University Law Center, where he had been hired to lead the university’s Center for the Constitution. 

Months later, the university closed its investigation and cleared Shapiro’s name. But too much damage had been done, Shapiro said, and he resigned just days after formally taking the helm of the center. 

Now, three years after he posted the ill-fated tweet that criticized President Joe Biden for promising to name a Black woman to the Supreme Court, Shapiro has many more allies in his criticism of the “illiberal takeover” of higher education and legal education in particular, a problem he describes in his new book, Lawless: The Miseducation of America’s Elite.

The aftermath of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks in Israel and the rise in antisemitism that followed at many top American universities proved to be a tipping point, Shapiro argued.

“It raised the issue of the dysfunction and pathologies in our institutions of higher education to a national level,” Shapiro, a senior fellow and director of constitutional studies at the Manhattan Institute, told Jewish Insider in an interview on Thursday. 

Shapiro, whose career has been spent in libertarian and conservative institutions, asserts that his critique of legal education today is not about the fact that most law school faculty at the nation’s top universities lean to the left politically. In other words, he insists that his concerns are not just the grievances of someone whose views place him firmly in the minority in the legal sphere. 

“I want to emphasize that this is not the decades-long complaint that conservatives have with the hippie takeover of the faculty lounge, if you will,” said Shapiro. 

Instead, Shapiro is sounding the alarm about what he fears is the corrupting of the legal profession, a field that is crucial to so many facets of American life, by a culture of silence and groupthink. 

“[Law students] are being acculturated into the idea that inquiry is not a high value, that certain topics can’t even be broached, that certain perspectives shouldn’t be raised,” said Shapiro. “It’s antithetical to the idea that you train lawyers to understand the other side of the issues so they can better advocate for their clients.” 

“What happens at law schools matters,” Shapiro added, “because lawyers, for good or ill, are overrepresented among our political leaders, among the gatekeepers of our institutions.” 

He drew a distinction between why people outside of academia should care about the shift away from nuance and openmindedness at America’s top law schools versus similar challenges in other academic disciplines.

“While it’s sad and unfortunate for the development of human knowledge and such if an English department or a sociology department goes off the rails, the law schools are more directly connected to our public life, so it matters what kind of lawyers are turned out,” Shapiro argued.

He pointed to early career associates pressuring their law firms to take them off cases with certain clients, or firms parting ways with prominent partners who worked on conservative cases — such as former Solicitor General Paul Clement, who in 2022 won a major gun rights case at the Supreme Court but then had to start his own firm when his employer decided it no longer wanted to work on Second Amendment issues. 

In his book, Shapiro outlines some high-profile incidents that occurred in recent years at top law schools. In 2022, several student groups at Berkeley Law School said they would not allow any Zionists to give talks to their members, which prompted outrage by Berkeley Law’s dean, Erwin Chemerinsky — who last year faced antisemitic hate from his own students. 

“I think a lot of people have come to realize that there really are issues, and it’s not just conservatives whining about this or that,” said Shapiro, who attributes many contemporary challenges on university campuses to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion bureaucracies that have increasing power over many parts of campus life. 

As President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration approaches, some major companies are doing away with their DEI programs, a “vibe shift” that Shapiro says hasn’t yet come to American law schools. 

What Shapiro wants to see at law schools is more commitment to showcasing diverse viewpoints, and a recommitment to teaching America’s future lawyers that the legal system, though imperfect, is not broken beyond repair, even as many students now learn that the rule of law in America is “irrevocably spoiled with racism, sexism, inequality, imbalances.” He thinks fixing the problem isn’t actually that hard, if law school administrators can muster the courage to do it. 

“This is not rocket science,” said Shapiro. “It’s just a matter of enforcing your own policy and applying common sense and standing up to the mob. But all too few university leaders are willing to do that.”

Shapiro is on a book tour this spring, which includes a speaking gig at Georgetown. He hasn’t been back since his ignominious departure.

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