On Ilya Shapiro, Cancel Culture, and Color Blindness

• Author: Hon. James C. Ho
• Position: Remarks to the Georgetown University Law Center Chapter of the Federalist Society (Feb. 15, 2022)
• Pages: 381-388

ADDRESS

On Ilya Shapiro, Cancel Culture, and Color

Blindness

HON. JAMES C. HO*

Months ago, I was scheduled to talk with you all today about a subject that I’m

very passionate about. The remarks were entitled “Fair-Weather Originalism:

Judges, Umpires, and the Fear of Being Booed.”

But I hope you won’t mind that I’ve decided to address a different topic today

instead. Depending on how it goes, you all can decide whether to invite me back

someday to deliver my original remarks. I’ll leave that up to you all.

I’m going to spend my time today talking about Ilya Shapiro, who was recently

appointed to serve as executive director and senior lecturer at the Center for the

Constitution here at Georgetown. As you all know, there is now a heated debate

—first, over the content of a recent tweet that he made and then deleted, and sec-

ond, over what, if anything, Georgetown should do in response to his tweet.

With your indulgence, I’ll briefly address both of those issues. I’ll take them in

reverse order.

I

First, what should Georgetown do?

I’ll begin with this observation: There are many, many people who love this

country deeply—who want it to succeed, and to continue succeeding—who abhor

racism with every fiber of their being—and who fall on both sides of this debate.

I would submit that, if I were a law student today, and I strongly disagreed with

remarks made by someone who had just recently been hired by my law school,

the last thing I would do is to call for that person to be fired.

In conversations like this, people will often bring up the First Amendment.

You might hear someone quote Justice Holmes, who wrote that “the best test

of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the

market.”

1

Or someone might invoke Justice Brandeis, who wrote that “[t]hose who won

our independence by revolution were not cowards.”

2

They had “confidence in the

*© 2022, Judge James C. Ho. Remarks to the Georgetown University Law Center Chapter of the

Federalist Society (Feb. 15, 2022).

1. Abrams v. United States, 250 U.S. 616, 630 (1919) (Holmes, J., dissenting).

2. Whitney v. California, 274 U.S. 357, 377 (1927) (Brandeis, J., concurring).

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