Former Northwestern University President Dr. Morton Schapiro dropped out of his planned Georgetown Law School commencement speech after facing backlash from students over his pro-Israel views.
Interim Dean Joshua C. Teitelbaum announced last month that Schapiro would speak at the May 17 ceremony, citing Schapiro’s “uniquely informed perspective on American society and the challenges facing colleges and universities today.”
Schapiro quickly faced backlash from students who opposed his selection for his lack of connection to the law school and his “harmful” opinions.
“The selection of Morton Schapiro as our commencement speaker is an absolute shame,” student Matt Latibashvili wrote to Georgetown Law’s student paper The Voice on Friday. “His views on the genocide of Palestinians are despicable and disqualifying; instead of holding Israel accountable for the horrors it has perpetrated, he blames the media and universities for allowing people to speak the truth.”
After a petition circulated to have him removed, Schapiro pulled himself from the ceremony on Wednesday.
“I have presided over 28 commencements as a president and dean, and those ceremonies are about celebrating the graduates and their supporters. I was looking forward to giving a talk about humility and gratitude, but I don’t want my presence to distract from the day’s festivities,” Schapiro wrote.
Schapiro had previously written about several topics for the Jewish Journal, including his criticism of universities failing to crack down on antisemitic protests during the height of the Israel-Gaza war.
“College administrators ignored myriad excesses by students and faculty alike, turning a blind eye when the humanities embraced a political agenda, or when student affairs personnel became more interested in excusing behavior that violated school rules than in preparing students for the world,” Schapiro wrote in October. “The pronoun police fiddled while the university burned.”
Fox News Digital reached out to Georgetown Law School and Schapiro for comment.
After Schapiro pulled his commencement speech, Georgetown Law School replaced him with Georgetown law professor and former ACLU National Legal Director David Cole.
Last year, Cole released a statement criticizing the congressional hearing on rampant antisemitism on college campuses and argued that defending “Hamas’s right to fight back” does not qualify as antisemitic.
GEORGETOWN PROFESSOR SAYS ‘GET OVER IT’ TO MUSLIM RAPE GANG CONCERNS
“Most criticism of Israel is not antisemitic; indeed, many Jews are deeply critical of how Israel has responded to the terrorist attacks of October 7, and of how Israel has managed its long-term conflict with the Palestinian people. Nor is defense of Hamas’s right to fight back antisemitic, even if it seeks to justify terrorist actions—just as defense of Israel’s bombing and killing of civilians in Gaza is not Islamophobic,” Cole wrote.
Schapiro expressed surprise at the new choice of speaker.
“Given Georgetown Law’s desire to keep politics out of its commencement ceremony, I am a little surprised by their choice of a speaker to replace me,” Schapiro told the Jewish Journal Wednesday.
