Over the years, elite institutions shifted from
fostering open debate to enforcing ideological conformity. But as
guest Ilya Shapiro puts it, “the pendulum is swinging back.” He
shares his firsthand experience with cancel culture and how the
American Bar Association’s policies influence legal education.
Shapiro also opines on major free speech cases before the Supreme
Court, including the TikTok ownership battle and Texas’ age
verification law for adult content.
Shapiro is a senior fellow and director of
constitutional studies at the Manhattan Institute. He previously
(and briefly) served as executive director and senior lecturer at
the Georgetown Center for the Constitution and as a vice president
at the Cato Institute. His latest book, “Lawless:
The Miseducation of America’s Elites,” is out now.
Enjoy listening to our podcast? Donate to FIRE today and
get exclusive content like member webinars, special episodes, and
more. If you became a FIRE Member
through a donation to FIRE at thefire.org and would like access to
Substack’s paid subscriber podcast feed, please email
[email protected].
Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
02:58 Shapiro’s Georgetown controversy
15:07 Free speech on campus
26:51 Law schools’ decline
40:47 Legal profession challenges
42:33 The “vibe shift” away from cancel culture
56:02 TikTok and age verification at the Supreme
Court
01:03:37 Anti-Semitism on campus
01:09:36 Outro
Show notes:
– “The
illiberal takeover of law schools” City Journal (2022)
– “Poll
finds sharp partisan divisions on the impact of a Black woman
justice.” ABC News (2022)
– “Why
I quit Georgetown.” Ilya Shapiro, The Wall Street Journal
(2022)
– “Georgetown’s
investigation of a single tweet taking longer than 12 round-trips
to the moon.” FIRE (2022)
–
Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard (2023)
–
Lamont v. Postmaster General (1965)
– TikTok Inc
v. Garland (2025)
–
Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton (2024)
– Ginsberg
v. New York (1968)
–
International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working
definition of antisemitism (last updated 2025)