Administrators at Georgetown Law are considering implementing a “cry room” on campus, so that offended students have a place to go to if they “need to break down” over comments made by law scholar Ilya Shapiro, who has been placed on administrative leave by the university this week after daring to question Joe Biden’s “affirmative action” Supreme Court nomination process.
The call for a cry room comes after students took offense to constitutional law scholar Ilya Shapiro’s tweets criticizing President Joe Biden’s “affirmative action” Supreme Court nomination process.
Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden wishes Barbara Moroney, of Rocky Point, N.Y., a happy 80th birthday on the phone during a campaign rally, Tuesday, Feb. 4, 2020, in Nashua, N.H. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer) Georgetown University
Georgetown University (Alex Wong/Getty)
Shapiro, a libertarian who was a vice president of the Cato Institute, was scheduled to begin his role as executive director and senior lecturer of the Georgetown Center for the Constitution on Tuesday, but was placed on administrative leave Monday pending the outcome of an investigation into his tweets.
In his tweets, Shapiro had suggested that Biden nominate Sri Srinivasan, the Indian-born chief judge on the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, to replace Justice Stephen Breyer on the U.S. Supreme Court, and commented that choosing a Supreme Court nominee based solely on race and gender would make it so that she “will always have an asterisk attached.”
Law students became outraged over these comments, with one calling on the university to implement a designated crying room on campus, for students to go to when they “need to break down,” according to a report by National Review.
“Is there an office they can go to?” the student asked. “I don’t know what it would look like, but if they want to cry, if they need to break down, where can they go? Because we’re at a point where students are coming out of class to go to the bathroom to cry.”
And administrators reportedly took this inquiry seriously. Associate vice president and dean of students Mitch Bailin agreed with the student, telling her, “It is really, really hard to walk out of class or a meeting in tears, and you should always have a place on campus where you can go.”
“If you’re finding that you’re not getting the person that you want to talk to or not getting the space that you need, reach out to me anytime — anytime — and we will find you space,” Bailin added.
The concept of a “safe space” has transpired on college campuses across the country amid an ever-increasingly sensitive and irascible society.