Last Wednesday, the Chicago Thinker’s managing editor, Shubh Malde, spoke to Ilya Shapiro, senior fellow and director of constitutional studies at the Manhattan Institute, about free speech, recent protests, and the state of higher education in America.
Shapiro emphasized what he describes as the structured nature of the pro-Palestine protests, noting, “It seems like there is this very organized network across so many, hundreds of campuses.” However, Shapiro observes that “among students, [the] silent majority really is turning.”
He adds, “External pressures that we’ve seen either from employers or media attention or from state and federal officials investigating potential violations of the law… are bringing institutions kicking and screaming to a sort of normality.”
Born in Moscow, USSR, Shapiro is the author of several books, including Supreme Disorder: Judicial Nominations and the Politics of America’s Highest Court, and the forthcoming work Lawless: The Miseducation of America’s Elites. He previously served as executive director and senior lecturer at the Georgetown Center for the Constitution and was a vice president of the Cato Institute. Shapiro has been at the forefront of the debate on freedom of expression taking place within American academia.
On whether the invocation of the First Amendment protects protesters’ rights to form encampments, Shapiro was clear in his assessment. “There’s a difference between speech and action, there’s a difference between protected and unprotected speech, and then there are time, place, and manner regulations.”
Malde went on to ask Shapiro whether he thought the Antisemitism Awareness Act, a bill that the House recently passed, was a fresh threat to free speech.
Shapiro argues that the bill doesn’t change any existing laws but clarifies a definition of antisemitism. “The criticism that this is some sort of instantiating DEI or chilling speech is simply false,” he says.
In light of MIT’s decision to ban diversity statements, Malde and Shapiro also discussed the future of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs at elite universities. With Christopher Rufo and Matt Beienberg, Shapiro has worked extensively on policy proposals to abolish DEI bureaucracy in public universities.
Watch or listen to the conversation now:
University of Chicago political science professor John Mearsheimer recently spoke at Australia’s Center for Independent Studies. He lays out the fact case that is the geopolitical substance of protestor motivations, that Mr. Shapiro does not, or will not address, due to conflicts of interest. See CIS.org.au