On Tuesday, at the University of California, Hastings College of the Law, law students harassed, bullied, and shouted down Georgetown professor and constitutional scholar Ilya Shapiro (readers can find the full video here). The antics were presumably a lot easier than debating the learned Shapiro on uncomfortable conversations of racial quotas and judicial philosophy. The shameful display continued the unprincipled assault to which Shapiro has been subjected over the past month, ever since he criticized President Biden’s announcement that Biden would be adhering to strict race and gender criteria in selecting his Supreme Court nominee.

In late January, Shapiro assessed Biden’s possible picks, tweeting, “Objectively best pick for Biden is Sri Srinivasan, who is [a] solid prog[ressive] & v[ery] smart.” Shapiro added, Srinivasan “even has [the] identity politics benefit of being [the] first Asian (Indian) American. But alas [that] doesn’t fit into [the] latest intersectionality hierarchy so we’ll get [a] lesser black woman.” Online commentators quickly noted that it was unfair and demeaning for Shapiro to broadly describe black female jurists as “lesser.” Shapiro agreed, deleted the tweet, issued multiple apologies, and said: “I regret my poor choice of words. A person’s dignity and worth simply do not, and should not, depend on any immutable characteristic.”

Unfortunately, Shapiro’s apologies haven’t slowed the efforts to use a poorly-phrased tweet as an excuse to cancel him. Georgetown law students have sought to have him dismissed by the university. Georgetown Law’s dean has gone out of his way to denounce and impugn Shapiro. And the long-scheduled Hastings appearance was a travesty.

Nate Hochman offered a devastating description of the goings-on at National Review:

Shapiro’s repeated attempts to speak were silenced by yells from the assembled students, who unleashed a stream of profanity and insults as he stood silently at the front of the room. (“When did you start balding? Are you sad that you’re balding? I would be,” one said mockingly to laughter from the audience. “You’re a f***ing coward!” another yelled). Multiple student activists physically confronted Shapiro; one moved to block his access to the lectern and later began clapping in his face as students chanted, “Say it to her face, coward.”

Coward? Let’s talk about
cowardice. Here, on one side, we have a solitary, embattled scholar flying
across the nation to visit a hostile campus in order to talk about ideas; on
the other, we have a throng of self-righteous cosplay bullies hurling insults
and engaging in threatening behaviors, confident that there’s safety in numbers
and in the protective embrace of a woke institution.

For a conservative scholar
to speak forthrightly on an elite campus today is no longer just an anomaly.
Sadly, it’s become a statement of courage — offered in the full knowledge that
retribution and professional ruin may lurk behind every corner.

One can only hope that Hastings will take appropriate action against the students who trampled its code of conduct, even after being (half-heartedly) reminded by an official that their behavior violated institutional policy. At the very least, Hastings should identify the miscreants who engaged in truly outrageous conduct so that, when they apply to the bar, they will, at a minimum, have to explain why the bullying and silencing of professional peers ought not to constitute a disqualifying incident of moral turpitude.

Correction: The original version of this post stated that the events transpired at the University of California-Berkeley Hastings School of Law. In fact, the story occurred at the University of California, Hastings School of the Law, which is distinct from the University of California-Berkeley.

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