Ilya Shapiro (Manhattan Institute), Don't Let Law School Speaker Events Be Hijacked:
I refused to let my first ever visit to UMass-Dartmouth law school turn into a struggle session after a faculty commenter proved less interested in exploring "controversial" ideas than the students.
Last Thursday, I participated in an unusual event that I’m still processing. It was a Federalist Society lunch panel, one of dozens I do each year at law schools across the country. This one was at the University of Massachusetts School of Law, the state’s only public law school, located in Dartmouth on the south shore, near Rhode Island.
After discussing several possible topics with the chapter president earlier this year, we settled on “DEI, Free Speech, and the Higher-Ed Crisis.” … [T]he chapter president told me he was unsuccessful in finding a professor to debate or comment on my presentation. That was unfortunate but unsurprising; it’s become the norm for law school faculty to be unwilling to engage speakers with heterodox viewpoints, particularly if sponsored by the Federalist Society.
Then about 10 days before the event, the chapter president emailed to say that the DEI Committee (a joint student-faculty group that develops DEI programming) would be boycotting my visit as a “hate event,” hosting a counter-event, and “tabling” with flyers about how great DEI was. I was bemused, but told him that if he thought the event might be disrupted, to coordinate with the dean’s office. He said it was unlikely to come to that, which I thought was a positive sign, relatively speaking, because boycotts, counter-events, and flyer-distribution—unlike disruption and hijacking airplanes—are all perfectly appropriate ways to express disapproval of a speaker.
Last Tuesday, two days before the event, the chapter president emailed to say that he had finally secured two professors to comment, Danya Reda (a comparative/Islamic law specialist) and Lisa Owens (a sexuality/gender law specialist), but they would participate only if each of us got 5-8 minutes for comments, followed by Q&A. … [T]he die was cast, and the show would go on, with the new, neutral title, “DEI and Higher Education,” and co-sponsored by the new Law & Political Economy club (which I later learned styled itself as a progressive activist group). …
The event itself went well. More than 50 people attended, including several professors but not administrators. … I was a bit time-constricted in my opening—eight minutes is not enough to levy a full indictment of DEI—but was ultimately able during later discussion to make most of the points I wanted. Professor Reda was surprisingly critical of DEI as being overly bureaucratic and stifling academic freedom; I later learned that apparently her contract wasn’t being renewed, so I wonder if there’s a story there. Professor Owens gave a couple of minutes of intersectional platitudes, how some people needed extra help to take advantage of educational opportunities—as if the critique of DEI centers on the availability of academic support—before turning to an indictment of me. She concluded by asking me to defend my criticism of the university presidents’ congressional testimony in light of my defense of myself in the Georgetown saga.
I didn’t want to engage in gotcha questions, so quickly explained that it wasn’t the presidents’ speech that got them in trouble as such but their leadership failure after October 7—context does matter!—before making a broader point against ideological litmus tests and DEI speech-chilling. Students had some good questions and some not so good ones, but they were respectful. Again, asking critical questions is a legitimate and appropriate—and necessary!—part of the educational experience.
At one point, Professor Owens started asking me staccato questions when I rejected the idea that systemic bias was responsible for racial minorities’ underachievement. I didn’t realize UMass was so racist! Owens would pose a curt question, then cut me off when I tried to respond. After a few such exchanges, I paused, turned to the audience, smiled, and said, “let’s move on.”
Overall, and not withstanding the behind-the-scenes tumult, I thought the event went well.
