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Anatomy of a Low-Level Borking
When President Biden promised to nominate a black woman to the Supreme Court, he logically committed himself to the following proposition: If, hypothetically, there were a candidate who, absent considerations of race and gender, would be a superior candidate to join the Court, Biden would nonetheless select an inferior candidate who is a black woman. He would do so because of her race and gender, for better or worse. It’s all right there in the promise.
It is entirely possible that the absolute objective best candidate for a Supreme Court seat is a black woman. It is even possible that that is what President Biden meant when he said that he would nominate such a person to fill Court vacancies. It is unlikely, though, because if that were the case he could have identified who that person was in advance. He could have already nominated her as of this writing, just a few hours after Justice Stephen Breyer announced his forthcoming retirement. But he has not done so.
None of this should be remotely controversial because it is axiomatically true. Yet when Ilya Shapiro tweeted precisely the above, he was immediately pilloried on social media. Shapiro, a longtime Court-watcher and legal scholar at the Cato Institute and the incoming President of the Georgetown Law Center on the Constitution, filled in some of the blanks of the above if-then proposition. He began from the premise that Sri Srinivasan, a judge on the DC Circuit Court of Appeals is the candidate who, absent considerations of race and gender, would be the superior candidate to join the Court. Therefore, the President’s inevitable choice for Breyer’s seat will be a “lesser black woman.” Clumsily phrased, to be sure, as Shapiro admitted as he deleted the tweet. But an inescapable fact necessitated not by Shapiro, but by the President’s precommitment to intersectional goals.
Mark Joseph Stern, a writer covering courts and law for Slate, tweeted to his 106,000 followers that he was reluctant to publicize Shapiro’s tweet, but felt “an obligation to condemn his overt and nauseating racism” now that Shapiro had been hired at Georgetown, Stern’s alma mater. “Shapiro would have accused ANY Black woman nominee of having a ‘lesser’ intellect—even if Biden had not announced his demographic criteria beforehand,” Stern continued.
We see here the first pangs of a low-level Borking. Stern, his megaphone aimed at a hundred thousand anti-racists for whom right-wing racism is like truffles to a hound, regrets to inform us that a classical liberal who has recently deigned to set foot in the left-wing stronghold of the university has declared that black women have “lesser” intellects. Of course, Shapiro said no such thing. All he added to the President’s promise was that Judge Srinivasan would make the best addition to the Supreme Court. Stern knows that, and he knows his followers know that – but the imprimatur of one verified account accusing another of racism is good enough to rile up the mob.
And riled up they were. Hundreds, by now probably thousands, of comments rolled in from Georgetown students, lawyers, leftists, and Twitterati of all stripes, touting the same shopworn claims: How can we trust the bigot Ilya Shapiro to teach our future lawyers? How can we know he will be fair to minority law students? It’s a redux of the preposterous claims we heard when Christine Blasey Ford accused then-Judge Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault: How can we know Justice Kavanaugh will treat female litigants fairly? How can we trust him in abortion cases when we know he hates women?
To even answer such despicable concern-trolling gives the smear artists too much credit. No one is really worried about Shapiro’s treatment of minorities; if there happens to be a good-faith inquisitor out there, take solace in his lifetime of being a mensch and treating all people with not just respect, but warmth.
The mob will not stop until Shapiro is fired. Georgetown Law Dean William Treanor sent a school-wide email on Thursday afternoon condemning Shapiro’s “appalling” use of “demeaning language…at odds with everything we stand for at Georgetown Law.” Several left-wing legal commentators immediately took to tweeting, “what are you going to do about it?” Elie Mystal, the legal reporter for the Nation, tweeted to his 342,700 followers that Treanor had already done significant damage by hiring Shapiro in the first place. For his part, Stern now maintains that he had no intention to get Shapiro fired—which only raises the question why he tattled to Georgetown in the first place, tagging their account and kindling the firestorm.
He is pleading naivete and, having seen this act before, we should know better than to believe him. We should also know better than to accept for one second the premise that the smear campaign to ruin Shapiro’s career is about anyone’s safety or well-being, much less about lofty principles of fairness and justice. It is, as ever, about progressives resorting to whatever means are necessary to ensure that no outsider gets a foothold in their domain. If ever we should come to wonder how so many institutions became corrupt dens of ideological conformity and purity tests, look no further than this attempt to Bork a decent man.
Published in General
another great post, too bad you marked it members only, it deserves to see the main feed.
Timely and well-reasoned commentary belongs on the Main Feed. (Might be premature, but it’ll have the likes by lunchtime.)
The media is not reality. Social media doubly so. I note that the low hundreds of thousands of ‘followers’ for the journalist-types is in the same range as a not-top-range YouTube channel on a niche pastime – but without any credibility.
It is (yet another) sad indictment of the professionalism of the wokerati that the dean of a law school is willing to be so publicly responsive to what is really a tiny mob of obvious ignoramuses.
(Can we shut all the universities down now?)
[Flatter me] and you shall receive
The left has wanted to get rid of the merit system for ages. “It isn’t fair” they say, especially when they use disparate impact as the basis. I’ve said many times, “Hey, you on the left. If you apply disparate impact to professional sports, only then will I believe you’re sincere.”
Nah – the Member Feed is where the thought is. The Main Feed is for shilling pillows, razors, books and blogs.
Some people only believe in the notion of merit when its fruits are obviously and easily visible. I take the best version of leftish critiques of Shapiro to be saying that there is no such thing as an “objectively best choice” because there is no Tom Brady of jurists.
Based on his name, I’m guessing Ilya Shapiro is himself a member of a “minority” group. Oh, yeah, a group 0.2% of the world population isn’t considered minority, silly me!
Apparently Georgetown (the damnable cowards) have already placed him on administrative leave.
Is there no university willing to support the unjustly accused? They sure don’t hesitate to support liars, race-baiters, anti-semites, fools, and the lazy. I suspect I don’t need to provide links to examples for this list. Allen Bloom was right!
I’m thinking infiltration. Maybe a long march thru something or other.
A Navy friend gave me that book in the early ’90’s. I might even still have that paperbound copy somewhere.
It is curious to see the people who support overt racism and sexism, by selecting a candidate explicitly on the basis of race and sex, accusing those who object to such prejudice of being racist.
They keep using that word. I do not think it means what they think it means. :)
Quoting that movie is racist.
Edit: I meant sexist. Sorry.