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Speaker 1: Welcome to the Federalist Radio Hour. I am Joy Pulman,

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the executive editor here at The Federalist. I'm joined today

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by one of our many longtime contributors, Ilia Shapiro. He

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is a senior fellow and director of Constitutional Studies at

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the Manhattan Institute, and he's also the author of the

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recent book Lawless, The Miseducation of America's Elites, and that's

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what we're here to talk about today.

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Speaker 2: Ilia, Welcome, did to be with you? Going to be

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back on the radio Hour. It's been a while.

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Speaker 1: It's great to hear your voice, great to talk to you.

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How welcome you back to our listeners. Can you start

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by giving our listeners kind of the elevator pitch version

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of your cancelation story from Georgetown Law Sure?

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Speaker 2: Sure, Well. I had worked at the Cato Institute Liberty

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thing Tank in DC for nearly fifteen years and got

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the opportunity to take my career in a new direction.

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I was hired to be the executive director of the

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Georgetown Center for the Constitution at Georgetown's Law School and

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a senior lecturer there. So I'd be teaching classes, organizing

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student programs, publishing, going on TV advocating for originalism. All

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of these sorts of good things kind of a different

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kind of impact than working at a think tank. On

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the eve a few days before I was due to

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start that job. In January of twenty twenty two, Justice

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Bryer announced his retirement. And the subject of my last book,

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Supreme Disorder, was about Supreme Court politics, judicial nominations, all

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of that good stuff. So this was my bread and butter.

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I was doing media all day, and that evening I

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was on the road. I was in Austin, Texas. If

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I hadn't been on the road, this probably wouldn't happen,

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because would have been spending time with my kids and

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gone to bed early and whatnot. But I went back

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to my hotel room after dinner with friends, and I

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was feeling festive and feisty and doom. Scrolling Twitter not

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a not a best.

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Speaker 1: Practice, something we've all done.

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Speaker 2: Getting more and more upset with President Biden hewing to

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his campaign promise of appointing a black woman. Now, nothing

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wrong with putting a black woman on a Supreme Court,

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of course, but I wouldn't call my candidate pool by

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race and sex, whether I was hiring for a janitor

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or a Supreme Court justice, and so I fired off

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a tweet hot take, as they say, saying that if

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I was a Democratic president, I would pick Chief Judge

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sries Fron of Austin of the d C Circuit, very

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well respected, happens to be an Indian American immigrant, so

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has some diversity points there. But given today's hierarchy of intersectionality,

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he's disqualified and we will end up with a quote

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lesser black woman. And those three words are what got

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me in trouble. My ideological enemies. After I had send

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on that tweet and then went to bed, my ideological

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enemies went after me, demanded that Georgetown rescind my contract,

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and away we went. Georgetown did not rescind my contract.

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That the dean didn't know what to do. It's kind

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of a profile and cowardice. So I had four days

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of hell, which I survived. So he onboarded me, but

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immediately suspended me, pending an investigation into whether I violated

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university policies on harassment and anti discrimination. You know, maybe

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I was harassing President Biden. I'm not exactly sure, but

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in any event, you would think that you could assign

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this to a junior faculty member, you know, the most

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junior law professor. Here's the law, very short, clear policies.

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Here are the facts, even shorter, tweet and be done

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with it in you know, ten twenty minutes. But no.

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It went to the DEI office, the Office of Institutional Diversity,

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Equity and Affirmative Action. They interviewed me over zoom because

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this was still COVID Mania, even though it was already

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twenty twenty two. If we had been in person, we'd

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have to be masks and none of that. So all

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zoomed and they asked me all sorts of banala questions,

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try to get me to apologize, whatnot. And I said, look,

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I could have phrased it better. This was in artful phrasing.

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But I maintained my point that you shouldn't hire people

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based on rice and sex. And and then nothing for

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four months, this one on this this, after four days

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of hell, there was four months of purgatory.

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Speaker 1: At the end, you're technically at your new job, but

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you couldn't do anything correct.

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Speaker 2: That's right. I was being paid. Their employment lawyers correctly

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advised them to keep paying me because that way I

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wouldn't have a claim. But I was. I was literally

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prohibited from being on campus or doing any work for

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the university. So I was doing all sorts of other things.

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I was writing, I was going to conferences, you know,

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I was doing other things. It was actually a fairly

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productive part of my of my career, if if surreal,

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because I never intended to become the poster boy for

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cancel culture or what have you. But at the end

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of this this four month period, this this some junior

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associate at this expensive law firm that they hired to

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advise them, looked at a calendar and found that, oh,

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I wasn't employed by Georgetown yet when I tweeted, and

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so none of these pauls even apply. So there was

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a jurisdictional defect, as lawyers would say. And so they

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reinstated me on that technicality, which I celebrated. But then

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I got the fine print from the DEI office from Idea,

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these ten pages, single spaced, making clear that the next

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time that I offended someone, I would be creating a

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hostile educational environment. And I realized in consultation with my lawyer,

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professor Randy Barnett, who hired me, who founded the center,

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my wife, who's a better lawyer than any of us,

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that I'd have to quit, that I could not do

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the job that I was hired to do. You know,

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think about saying something in class about a controversial Supreme

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Court case going on TV, discussing some opinion or some argument,

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some issue in the news, and that would offend someone

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and I'd be back in the inquisition. So I made

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what lawyers call a noisy exit. I wrote up a

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four page indictment of what Georgetown was doing, published it

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in the as a resignation letter in the Wall Street Journal,

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as one does, and then announced my move to the

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Manhattan Institute on Fox News, as one does. And so

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ever since this is now just over three years ago,

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I've been using this spotlight that I didn't ask for,

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but that I've been given, to shine a light on

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the rot in academia. So very soon after that, my

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publisher approached me to create this book, to use my

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experience as a jumping off point for a broader discussion

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of the failures of higher education, and especially legal education. Because,

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after all, while it's sad if an English or sociology

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department goes off the rails, law schools produced the next

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generation of the gatekeepers of our legal and political institutions.

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So that's a that's a real danger.

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Speaker 1: And one of the things that I found interesting. So,

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you know, we at the Federalist kind of had a

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front row seat to this situation. You know, I remember,

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you know, you kind of going through it and you know,

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being there paying attention to all of the developments. So

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but so it was somewhat familiar to me. But there

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were still a lot of things that I learned from

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reading your book that the account that you put in there,

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and one of them that I found really noteworthy is

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you wrote that fire. So the Foundation for Individual Rights

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and Education, it's kind of a libertarian sort of advocacy

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for free speech, largely on campus.

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Speaker 2: It's what the ACL you used to be before it

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became a left wing activist.

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Speaker 1: That's a great yeah, great description. So but so they

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are obviously involved here because they have an interest in

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advocating for free speech, especially on campus. And they advised

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you not to make an apology, even though you do

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think you know, you've said many times and it's in

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the book. You think you could have you know, better worded,

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more clearly, you know worded that tweet because the reason

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you're right there that they gave you this advice is

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because apologies are seen as an admission of guilt. Can

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you explain? So? You know, for me, a traditional Christian

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who believes that, you know, apologies and forgiveness should be

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happening many times throughout the day, and it's actually a

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sign of integrity to apologize if you've done something you

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know wrong, or even I tell my kids, right like,

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even if you didn't mean to, you know, stumble over

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and fall on your brother, you know it was an accident,

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you should still apologize, right, So that's basic human decency.

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Speaker 2: So why should we in Canada? So I'm used to apologizing.

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Speaker 1: For decent people are kind of taught that by their parents.

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So why in these sorts of situations?

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Speaker 2: You know what?

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Speaker 1: Actually, you know, you have to basically withhold basic human

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decency for to be prudent.

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Speaker 2: Actually, so I wrote up all of this what you

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should do when when when you're canceled. A big part

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of it was should you apologize? What does that mean?

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I wrote that up in the City in City Journal,

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Manhattan Institute's magazine last year, so you can read all

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this in long long form. That was actually originally a

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chapter in the book, but it got cut because it

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wasn't part of the narrative. It was kind of a

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slightly separate issue. But the point is, an apology makes

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sense if you have wronged someone and you want to

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say my bad, make amends. I didn't you know, sorry,

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I was wrong, Please forgive me. In the era of

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cancel culture, when it's unclear who you've wronged, you know,

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some people are offended, what have you. But it really

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doesn't make sense to apologize to the mob or kind

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of to social media, to kind of issue this general

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apology because a it is seen as that admission of guilt,

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be it's seen as a as a sign of weakness,

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which might be even worse. And see, there's nobody to

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accept this apology. So if it was just a matter of, oh,

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I had a bad tweet, this is embarrassing, people are

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going after me, then I wouldn't have just apologized for that.

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That's that playbook is sound. You don't you know crisis

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management one oh one now, and I certainly got a

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crash course in crisis management during this experience. Yeah, an

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apology like that is pointless or kind of abnegation, just

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bending the knee prostrating yourself saying do what you may.

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You know, No, that that's pointless. I didn't so much

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issue an apology for you know, the substance of my point.

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I just said to the dean specifically that sorry, I

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phrased this poorly. This was a failure of communication. I'm

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a professional in that regard. You hired me for my

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verbal and written communication skills, and and in that I failed.

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And so my apology was directed to the dean because

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my goal, and this is also an important part when

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you're when you're figuring out what to do when you

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have some kind of crisis situation, you have to set

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your goal because your strategy. Uh, obviously it seems obvious,

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but uh, you know a lot of people don't. Don't

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don't pursue this. Your strategy follows from your goal. So

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if my goal had been to monetize the moment, become

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a martyr, get a you know, I don't know, contributorship

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with Fox News or who knows what, then I would

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have acted differently. If if my goal had been to

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simply kind of blend in and not make any news whatsoever,

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I would have acted differently. But my goal was to

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keep my job and to kind of go back to

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the same path that I was on as much as possible.

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And I was advised by Randy Barnett by kind of

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you know, academic insiders that look, your only audience is

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the dean. He's the one who's making the call on

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whether to fire you, punish you, you know, whatever it is.

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So I said, okay, so I have to, you know, say, look,

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I understand that words matter, and I failed in my communications,

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but you know, I was I was asked by other

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Georgetown officials, the DEI office, others whether I would issue

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further apologies and start talking in these critical theory tropes

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about systemic racism and doing the work and all of

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these things. Literally you think that these are at this

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point memes, which they are, but this was what I

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was asked, and I said, no, no, I'm I'm you know,

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if you want to, if you want to reinstate me

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and say you don't agree, but this is free speech,

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then we can work on a joint statement of some sort.

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But no, I'm not going to issue any further apologies.

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I've already said what I had to say about this incident,

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and that kind of flummekes them you know, both the

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Dean who was like a deer in headlights throughout this

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whole thing because they didn't want to have to make

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a decision of any kind, and and the HR office

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in d I because they're used to people just you know,

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prostrating themselves, not for forgiveness but some sort of absolution,

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because it's quasi religious ceremony of sorts.

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Speaker 3: Here's what happens when you pick winners and losers in

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a free market economy. The Watch Dot on Wall Street

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podcast with Chris Markowski. Every day, Chris helps unpack the

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connection between politics and the economy and how it affects

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your wallet. Biden gave car manufacturer Rivian six billion dollars.

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Now Rivian is losing forty one thousand dollars for every

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car sold. That is not a business model. Whether it's

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happening in DC or down on Wall Street, it's affecting

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you financially. Be informed. Check out the Watchdot on Wall

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Street podcast with Chris Markowski on Apple, Spotify, or wherever

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Speaker 1: Well, I would say, you know, I also say to

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my children, I mean, I actually don't think you necessarily

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needed to make an apology because you didn't actually do

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something wrong. You know, maybe there's a slight inelegance you know,

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of wording, but it's your intention I think was still clear.

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You were upholding the basic American principle that we fought

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a civil war to defend right, that we don't select

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people or we don't privilege them or underprivilege them based

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on the color of their skin. And you were supporting that.

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You were saying, we shouldn't you know, pick people, We

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shouldn't advance them based on their race, We shouldn't discriminate

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against them based on race. We should treat them, you know,

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basically on the unqualifications for the position that is a

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fundamental American you know, precept going all the way back

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to the founding. You know, so I didn't you know,

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you actually don't have anything to apologize for, and you know,

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I think it's really elev you know, the whole entire

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thing was basically the fact that you were offending today's

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leftist pieties that do say that some races are better

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than others. And so you know, you're pointing out that,

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you know, your skin color is not a disqualification or

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qualification for pretty much any job. And so the next

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question here. So you're writing about, you know, Georgetown administrators,

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they cooperated with students sit ins protesting you working here.

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You know, they're making all their usual ridiculous claims like

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they're unsafe, like you know, like you're some kind of

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axe murder or something, you know, And the administrators were

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discussing making sure that students who needed to break down

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and cry could have a safe place to go. But

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I just wonder, you know, should people who cry over

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encountering ideas that they don't like, should they become lawyers?

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And what happens when they do become lawyers.

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Speaker 2: That's one of the failures of higher education, and especially

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legal education. For the reason you're elucidating here. Lawyers, I

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talk about my book or these issues to law school

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audiences and I say, you know, spoiler alert, you're going

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to face a lot more challenging issues in your legal

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career than speakers you don't like or things you find offensive.

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And you'd think that that law students, you know, would

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be young lawyers, would be more resilient than undergrads. But

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you know the explosion of this kind of this cancel

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culture and this offense culture, the safetyism in law schools

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in the last few years really is a terrible development,

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and it shows not just you know, this is my

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larger point. What I've been documenting, my broader arguments about

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the failures of legal education or higher education is not

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just the latest in a litany of decades long conservative

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concerns or complaints about the hippies taking over the faculty lounge, right,

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the left wing faculty bias, which absolutely exists, and you know,

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the ideological bias and hiring is nefarious, and it's it's bad.

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It's bad for higher education, let alone for those individuals

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who are detrimentally affected. But those original hippies that the

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Berkeley free speech movement in the sixties, they'd be considered

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retrograde white supremacists now by today's radicals. And that's why

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I emphasize that this is about the illiberal takeover. This

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is not about you know, living constitution versus originalists. This

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is not about what the best policy is in a

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given area, or the best legal policy or an interpretive method.

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This is about the legitimacy of the enterprise of law altogether.

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And if, as some of these critical legal studies, folks

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believe such cherished values as free speech, do process equality

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under law? If these are white supremacist tropes, if these

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are illegitimate, then all of the pillars of our society

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are in danger. Like I said, this is not just

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left and right, this is illiberals against you know, preserving

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are often classical liberal ideals, especially in terms of the

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core mission of higher education to seek truth and create

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knowledge and have civil discourse.

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Speaker 1: Now you observe that the law is the domain where

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critical theory first arose, and of course critical theory is

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where we got critical race theory and all the other,

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you know, the parts of communist identity politics. So could

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you explain to a listeners how you know your Chapter

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eleven heading I think is a great bullet or bullet

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point or bumper stick or kind of description. It says,

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critical theory destroys the law. How was that the case?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not. The critical theory originated in the law,

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and it originated actually from German and Austrian emigrats during

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the World War two era that came to America. A

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lot of them settled at Columbia University. So you know,

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there's history rhymes sometimes to what's going on at Columbia now.

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But yeah, they thought institutions are illegitimate for various ways

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power imbalances the truth there's no objectivity in the truth,

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and that came out in all sorts of postmodern philosophy

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when it came to the law that became known as

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critical legal studies, and that said that power imbalances white, black, male, female,

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rich poor, all of these different kind of privileged dichotomies,

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if you will, meant that even seemingly neutral legal structures

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or rules, you know, forget civil rights laws or constitutional

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stuff that is the most politically salient, but securities regulations

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even they are questionable because they have underlying assumptions about

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property ownership and you know, things like that. So they're

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really about tearing down all of these institutions a year

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zero moment is sometimes called, and being rebuilt according to

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other kind of understandings of power imbalances.

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Speaker 1: They were really talking about revolutionary politics, right, absolutely. Yeah,

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rather than competing you know, visions of what is good

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and how to get there, they're kind of the burn

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it all down school.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not you know, what are the conditions under

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which there can be an exception to the need for

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a warrant to search somebody's house. No, the police themselves

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are illegitimate. What are you talking about. Yes.

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Speaker 1: Something I do think is very interesting about our current

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political times is that the lawyers, judges and law professors

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who you know are aligning themselves with the side of

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the so called living constitution, that majority side of the

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legal profession now you know, are being taken over or

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you know, having their kind of institutions controlled by people

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who support undermining the very existence of law itself. It's because,

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like you said, you know, the idea is coming to

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take over. You know, you point out the like the

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younger folks in legal profession, and this is a course

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rising through the ranks. Currently, this is the future of

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the legal profession and all the rest of academia. The

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idea of law is a tool of power, and it's

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a tool of manipulation based on political considerations like skin color,

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rather than an equal objective reality that everyone you know,

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applies equally to everyone. So we're in a moment where

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kind of the future of the legal profession is working

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to erase the objectivity and stability in very existence of

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law itself. And I think that's part of the reason.

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While supporting the constitution and rule of law, which used

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to be kind of something that like you say, classical liberals,

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people on the right, people on the left, the Berkeley

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free speech folks really largely agreed on. But now that

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is coded kind of as a conservative thing and smeared

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as white supremacists when it used to be virtually universal.

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What are your thoughts on that and the implications of

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that for you know, the future of the United States.

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Speaker 2: Well, I think there's a correlation between that and you

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know what, the news that's come out, the polling that's

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come out this week that the Democratic Party is at

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historically unpopular levels because the left hand doesn't know how

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to deal with the far left hand, I think, and

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there's a there's a crack up there. You see that

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in the legal front or in the jurisprudential front, in

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the differences between Justice Soda Mayor on one hand and

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Justice Jackson on the other, they're about a generation apart.

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And when you look at not in all cases, but

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in some cases where you see the difference between this

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sixties seventies liberalism and the modern you know, postliberal illiberalism.

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For example, the Harvard Affirmative Action case, Justice Soto Mayor

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wrote a dissenting opinion in kind of classic social justice,

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we need to remedy past wrongs by considering being race conscious. Now,

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you know, very you know, you can agree, you disagree

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with that. I disagree with it, but it's very standard,

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you know, lots that that's the standard argument from the

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left for affirmative action. Justice Jackson talked about systemic racism,

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and you have to you know, institutional problems, I mean,

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very much of a different ilk. And that's dangerous because, yeah,

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if all that's come before is illegitimate, then essentially you're

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inviting judges to write law on a blank slate and

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to rewrite law and to create new law. It's it's

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very dangerous. That's not the way that our system is

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supposed to work well.

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Speaker 1: And I believe, you know, the American founders directly would

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have called that tyranny.

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Speaker 2: Right.

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Speaker 1: They didn't believe that the role of judges was to

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legislate from the bench, or really the role of any

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branch of Congress, right, or branch of government. You know,

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they each had specific roles that were delineated for them

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by the Constitution, and they weren't to step outside them.

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And so if you have. You know, judges thinking of

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themselves essentially as petty little dictators is the phrase that

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I like to use, right, But basically they're unbounded, right,

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there isn't anything that restrains them but their own creativity.

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Then we're in a completely different situation, you know, and

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have much more difficulties I think in kind of navigating

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how to dial that back in.

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Speaker 2: That's right, and you know, it's not just about judges.

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It's also actually makes it into the content of the law.

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So in Canada and certain provinces, they have legislated that

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judges are to take race into account and kind of

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ethnic background and hardship in their hassed into account when

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giving sentences. So two people who have committed the same

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crime with the same you know, criminal priors will get

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sentenced to different levels based on what skin color they are.

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You have it in the private sector and in law

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firms where you know, valuable you know, money making partners

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are fired because their clients make junior associates uncomfortable. It's

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it really is. It threatens a disruption of everything we

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know about how our institutions work.

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Speaker 1: And now you do have a couple of thing ideas

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in the book for what are at least some beginnings

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of ways to approach this problem? Do you want to

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kind of sketch out for listeners who should read the

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book for the more fuller, you know, kind of elucidation.

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But what kind of a couple of bullet points would

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you give that you really think are crucial ways to

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improve that frightening situation.

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Speaker 2: Well, I don't think these institutions are going to reform

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out of the goodness of their hearts, just internally, because

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they'll see the light if we just make the right

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arguments to the right people, they'll change. Most academic leaders, deans, presidents,

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department chairs are not woke radicals. They are spineless cowards.

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As I saw personally with it with the dean of

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Georgetown Law, who's a very good legal historian. It's unfortunate

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that became a dean, although he's thought of as a

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successful dean because he raises a lot of money, but

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completely incapable of real leadership. And so they placate these

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illiberal mobs that dominate cultures on campus and including law schools.

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They let the de i deans run the show, or

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as well the admissions offices, which put a thumb on

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the scales for activists, Like if you write in your

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application essay for Yale Law School that you want to

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you know, burned down institutions, rewrite legal structures. That's a

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plus against someone who just says I want to prosecute

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child molesters or I want to advance anti trusts so

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prices are cheaper for consumers or something like that. So

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it's an institutional problem, so they're going to have to

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be external actors that force change. Part of that for

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public schools at least is state legislatures and have to

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get into the act and cut DEI offices and make

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certain other kinds of changes. Part of it is employers

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deciding that they're not going to hire people from schools

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that don't train lawyers to look at all sides of

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the problem because half of those sides are outside the

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Overton window inappropriate triggering. You can't look at things that way.

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Part of it is a number of federal judges aren't

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hiring from Yale, Stanford, and Columbia law schools because of

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their dearth of a free speech and academic freedom culture.

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For example, there can be exoginous shocks of various kinds,

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but even just a little bad publicity, because again, these

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leaders are responding to the incentives that are posed in

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front of them. Bad pr leads to lower donations, leads

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to congressional investigations, all these things things they want to avoid.

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00:26:15,559 --> 00:26:19,920
And so that is the way of forcing change. My

474
00:26:20,039 --> 00:26:24,319
colleague at the Manhattans to John Saylor, who's an investigative journalist,

475
00:26:24,599 --> 00:26:26,920
has now made kind of a cottage industry out of

476
00:26:27,000 --> 00:26:30,000
using FOYA Freedom of Information Act to look at hiring

477
00:26:30,039 --> 00:26:33,480
practices and other policies at public universities. And then he

478
00:26:33,519 --> 00:26:35,720
publishes like one op ed in the Wall Street Journal,

479
00:26:35,880 --> 00:26:38,039
and all of a sudden the next day the chancellor

480
00:26:38,079 --> 00:26:40,119
has to say, no, this is not appropriate. We're changing

481
00:26:40,160 --> 00:26:42,880
our ways. This has happened like four or five times already.

482
00:26:43,279 --> 00:26:46,240
John's doing brilliant work in that regard. So that gives

483
00:26:46,279 --> 00:26:49,319
me some i won't say optimism, but less pessimism than

484
00:26:49,359 --> 00:26:52,720
when I left Georgetown. That just some of these structures

485
00:26:52,759 --> 00:26:57,039
are to mix metaphors, Potempkin villages guarded by paper tigers.

486
00:26:58,200 --> 00:27:01,599
But it's not going to be an overnight thing. And

487
00:27:01,880 --> 00:27:05,480
some institutions will fail or will continue to decline, while

488
00:27:05,559 --> 00:27:10,960
some ascend relatively Because I think savvy academic leaders or

489
00:27:11,000 --> 00:27:14,880
law school deans will want to change their ways to

490
00:27:15,559 --> 00:27:19,599
continue to draw better people things like that, but some

491
00:27:20,160 --> 00:27:21,440
won't be capable of doing it.

492
00:27:21,960 --> 00:27:23,799
Speaker 1: So it's kind of like a very naughty little child.

493
00:27:23,880 --> 00:27:26,079
If they'renaughty, give them a little spanking or send them

494
00:27:26,119 --> 00:27:28,160
to their room, put them on time out, and they

495
00:27:28,200 --> 00:27:29,119
will be less naughty.

496
00:27:30,799 --> 00:27:34,240
Speaker 2: Benefits Absolutely, it's public choice theory. And I mean, this

497
00:27:34,319 --> 00:27:38,200
is the thing about about academic bureaucracies. Just like bureaucracies

498
00:27:38,240 --> 00:27:41,279
in the public sector or corporate hr offices. They are

499
00:27:41,359 --> 00:27:45,200
there to justify and expand their authority and grow their budgets.

500
00:27:45,759 --> 00:27:48,640
And you know, you have to cut that back, you

501
00:27:49,119 --> 00:27:52,319
have to change those things. I mean, when I was

502
00:27:52,680 --> 00:27:55,160
you know, I went to law school and college, it

503
00:27:55,200 --> 00:27:57,759
feels sometimes it feels like yesterday. Sometimes it feels like,

504
00:27:58,319 --> 00:28:01,000
you know, a long time ago in a galaxy far

505
00:28:01,079 --> 00:28:04,279
far away. But we had civil rights enforcement, we had

506
00:28:04,319 --> 00:28:09,400
Title nine officers, we had equal employment opportunity that is

507
00:28:09,400 --> 00:28:16,079
not DEI you know, we didn't have these again, non

508
00:28:16,160 --> 00:28:19,880
teaching staff that's exploded in the last twenty five and

509
00:28:19,960 --> 00:28:23,319
especially ten years that become the tail that waged the dog.

510
00:28:23,920 --> 00:28:26,720
And again you look at the incentives faculty, you know,

511
00:28:26,799 --> 00:28:29,599
the complaints sometimes that they're not empowered, that we believe

512
00:28:29,640 --> 00:28:32,440
in faculty governance, but then they willingly give up their

513
00:28:32,480 --> 00:28:34,559
power because they don't want to sit on committee meetings.

514
00:28:34,799 --> 00:28:39,400
They'd rather hire these non teaching deans and you know,

515
00:28:39,480 --> 00:28:42,200
other administrators to do all of that kind of work.

516
00:28:42,240 --> 00:28:44,240
And so we end up where we are. Where now

517
00:28:44,519 --> 00:28:48,200
at every university there are more administrators than faculty many

518
00:28:48,240 --> 00:28:51,480
times over, and even more than students. And the joke

519
00:28:51,599 --> 00:28:55,240
is that one hundred years ago Yale's came to campus

520
00:28:55,880 --> 00:28:58,640
with their own personal butler, and now we're going to

521
00:28:58,799 --> 00:29:01,359
recreate that experience for modern Danielias.

522
00:29:02,759 --> 00:29:04,799
Speaker 1: So I think we'll go out on this one. We've

523
00:29:04,839 --> 00:29:07,880
now had two full years of Justice Katanji Brown Jackson

524
00:29:07,920 --> 00:29:10,720
on the bench, and already with this term's rulings out,

525
00:29:10,759 --> 00:29:13,519
it's apparent that even her leftist colleagues are irritated with

526
00:29:13,599 --> 00:29:16,640
her level of legal abilities. Or maybe and there's probably

527
00:29:17,039 --> 00:29:19,279
you know, for I've heard legal scholars say to even

528
00:29:19,319 --> 00:29:21,599
have you know, public rebukes such as have come out

529
00:29:21,640 --> 00:29:24,000
in some of the recent Supreme Court opinions, there must

530
00:29:24,079 --> 00:29:27,599
also be some personal dislike you know they're speculating going

531
00:29:27,640 --> 00:29:30,640
on behind the scenes at the Supreme Court. So do

532
00:29:30,720 --> 00:29:34,480
you feel vindicated and losing your job for accurately predicting

533
00:29:34,519 --> 00:29:38,759
that DEI criteria would elevate a lesser qualified lawyer to

534
00:29:38,799 --> 00:29:40,319
the highest court in the United States.

535
00:29:41,599 --> 00:29:45,079
Speaker 2: Well, well, first of all, I didn't lose my job.

536
00:29:46,079 --> 00:29:49,240
They tried to cancel me. I canceled them. I think

537
00:29:49,279 --> 00:29:52,640
that I came out of this better than Georgetown did,

538
00:29:52,839 --> 00:29:55,519
and in fact, the scuttle but is that Georgetown's dean

539
00:29:55,640 --> 00:29:59,200
trainer who I mentioned, lost out on the presidency of

540
00:29:59,279 --> 00:30:01,920
Fordom because of how he handled my case. So I

541
00:30:01,920 --> 00:30:07,480
think there might be some cosmic karma. But uh, look, uh,

542
00:30:08,400 --> 00:30:12,599
Katanji Brown Jackson was by all accounts, uh uh a

543
00:30:12,680 --> 00:30:16,200
decent to good district judge, but she kept being promoted.

544
00:30:16,240 --> 00:30:18,599
I think what they used to call this the Peter principle.

545
00:30:18,599 --> 00:30:21,079
You're promoted until you're you're out of your out of

546
00:30:21,079 --> 00:30:25,640
your league. And you know, in a sense, as an originalist,

547
00:30:25,680 --> 00:30:28,720
as someone who generally agrees with those who the justices

548
00:30:28,799 --> 00:30:32,160
were appointed by Republican presidents, I think it's good that

549
00:30:32,200 --> 00:30:34,640
she's there because she's not influential, she's not going to

550
00:30:34,720 --> 00:30:38,759
move anybody. She's not going to write anything of lasting value.

551
00:30:39,680 --> 00:30:42,400
So that's that's good. And and in terms of you know,

552
00:30:42,480 --> 00:30:45,559
I told you so, or when when people were on Twitter,

553
00:30:45,759 --> 00:30:48,519
you know, people of the left were complaining about about

554
00:30:48,640 --> 00:30:51,759
Jackson's influence and I said, I tried to warn them.

555
00:30:51,799 --> 00:30:53,759
So yeah, there's a little bit of I told you so,

556
00:30:54,359 --> 00:30:57,880
But I think it, you know it it course and

557
00:30:58,000 --> 00:31:00,799
if if, if, if democratic president are going to continue

558
00:31:00,799 --> 00:31:03,599
in this vein, because there will be democratic presidents. It's

559
00:31:03,599 --> 00:31:08,880
not like we've you know, changed that dynamic, then that

560
00:31:09,039 --> 00:31:11,880
is not going to lead to you know, good developments

561
00:31:12,279 --> 00:31:15,400
for the judiciary writ large, Well.

562
00:31:15,319 --> 00:31:18,480
Speaker 1: If we're lucky, she'll continue to irritate Amy Coney Barrett

563
00:31:18,519 --> 00:31:21,839
and maybe Pusher further right, maybe even some effects on

564
00:31:21,920 --> 00:31:24,480
John Roberts, who knows. Maybe this guy's the limit there

565
00:31:24,480 --> 00:31:25,319
and we can all hope.

566
00:31:25,359 --> 00:31:31,240
Speaker 2: Right. Yeah, well, I mean it seems like interpersonal. Whatever

567
00:31:31,240 --> 00:31:34,400
they write in their opinions, it seems interpersonally. The collegiality

568
00:31:34,519 --> 00:31:37,640
is is okay, I don't know, we were going to

569
00:31:37,680 --> 00:31:40,240
have to wait for some some more leaks or their

570
00:31:40,279 --> 00:31:42,400
papers in well by the time we're all dead or

571
00:31:43,000 --> 00:31:48,079
or something. But historically we're not even close to bad

572
00:31:48,319 --> 00:31:53,400
levels of justices getting along with each other. We've had,

573
00:31:53,759 --> 00:31:56,359
you know, we've had justices getting fist fights. We've had

574
00:31:56,799 --> 00:31:59,480
someone like walk out of the room when their colleague

575
00:31:59,519 --> 00:32:01,519
walked into the room. Didn't want to sit for an

576
00:32:01,519 --> 00:32:05,599
official UH photograph one year, there was some anti Semitism

577
00:32:05,680 --> 00:32:09,319
involved there. I mean, lots of weird things in our past,

578
00:32:09,359 --> 00:32:11,839
as I detailed in my previous book, Supreme Disorder, but

579
00:32:13,039 --> 00:32:16,279
kind of the more doctrinal things are, if less colorful,

580
00:32:16,559 --> 00:32:20,119
potentially more dangerous than these personal disagreements.

581
00:32:20,759 --> 00:32:20,880
Speaker 3: Well.

582
00:32:20,880 --> 00:32:24,519
Speaker 1: Elia Shapiro is a Senior Fellow and Director of Constitutional

583
00:32:24,519 --> 00:32:27,319
Studies at the man had An Institute, and the author

584
00:32:27,400 --> 00:32:31,799
of Lawless, The Miseducation of America America's Elite. Ilia. Thank

585
00:32:31,799 --> 00:32:33,519
you for joining the Federalist Radio Hour.

586
00:32:34,319 --> 00:32:35,000
Speaker 2: Thank you, Joy.

587
00:32:35,599 --> 00:32:37,920
Speaker 1: This is Joy Pullman, the executive editor over here at

588
00:32:37,920 --> 00:32:40,839
the Federalists, signing out be lovers of freedom and anxious

589
00:32:40,839 --> 00:32:41,359
for the frame.

590
00:32:47,880 --> 00:32:50,119
Speaker 2: Heard of Fame by Serison