A Model Reply from Georgetown Law to the Interim U.S. Attorney (District of Columbia)

The question forced on libertarians,¹ and all others who would defend the liberal democratic order² against autocracy, is What will you do? How will you respond?

Consider a coercive request,³ one that in our freer society of a generation ago would have been inconceivable, from Edward R. Martin, Jr. to William Treanor over the last month.

Dean Treanor of the Georgetown University Law Center has, of this date, responded robustly in defense of the individual rights of those attending his private institution and of their freedom of association from state interference.

It doesn't matter whether William Treanor is a libertarian; he's not. It doesn't matter whether Ilya Shapiro thinks "[a]h so the only freedom of speech
@GeorgetownLaw cares about is its own."⁴ It matters that Treanor is responding to a demand of the state.

Asked of Georgetown Law (with errors of composition displayed verbatim):

February 17, 2025

Mr. William M. Treanor
Dean, Georgetown Law
600 New Jersey Avenue, NW Suite 508
Washington, DC 20001

Dear Sir,

As United States Attorney for the District of Columbia, I receive requests for information and clarification. I take these requests seriously and act on them with letters like this one you are receiving.

It has come to my attention reliably that Georgetown Law School continues to teach and promote DEI. This is unacceptable. I have begun an inquiry into this and would welcome your response to the following questions:

First, have you eliminated all DEI from your school and its curriculum?

Second, if DEI is found in your courses or teaching in anyway, will you
move swiftly to remove it?

At this time, you should know that no applicant for our fellows program, our summer internship, or employment in our office who is a student or affiliated with a law school or university that continues to teach and utilize DEI will be considered.

I look forward to your cooperation with my letter of inquiry after request. Thank you in advance for your assistance. Please respond by Monday, February 24, 2025. Should you have further questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to call my office or schedule a time to meet in person.

All the best.

Sincerely,

Edward R. Martin, Jr.

United States Attorney for the District of Columbia*

Answered from Georgetown Law (in standard written English):

March 6, 2025

Edward R. Martin, Jr.
Interim United States Attorney
District of Columbia
Judiciary Center
555 4th Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20001

Dear Interim United States Attorney Martin:

I write in response to your letter dated February 17, 2025, which you sent to me via email on March 3, 2025.

As a Catholic and Jesuit institution, Georgetown University was founded on the principle that serious and sustained discourse among people of different faiths, cultures, and beliefs promotes intellectual, ethical, and spiritual understanding. For us at Georgetown, this principle is a moral and educational imperative. It is a principle that defines our mission as a Catholic and Jesuit institution. Georgetown University also prohibits discrimination and harassment in its programs and activities and takes seriously its obligations to comply with all federal and local
laws.

Your letter challenges Georgetown’s ability to define our mission as an educational institution. It inquires about Georgetown Law’s curriculum and classroom teaching, asks whether diversity, equity, and inclusion is part of the curriculum, and asserts that your office will not hire individuals from schools where you find the curriculum “unacceptable.” The First Amendment, however, guarantees that the government cannot direct what Georgetown and its faculty teach and how to teach it. The Supreme Court has continually affirmed that among the freedoms central to a university’s First Amendment rights are its abilities to determine, on academic grounds, who may teach, what to teach, and how to teach it.

This is a bedrock principle of constitutional law – recognized not only by the courts, but by the administration in which you serve. The Department of Education confirmed last week that it cannot restrict First Amendment rights and that it is statutorily prohibited from “exercising control over the content of school curricula.”

Your letter informs me that your office will deny our students and graduates government employment opportunities until you, as Interim United States Attorney for the District of Columbia, approve of our curriculum. Given the First Amendment’s protection of a university’s freedom to determine its own curriculum and how to deliver it, the constitutional violation behind this threat is clear, as is the attack on the University’s mission as a Jesuit and Catholic institution.

Georgetown Law has one of the preeminent faculties in the country, fostering groundbreaking scholarship, educating students in a wide variety of perspectives, and thriving on the robust exchange of ideas. Georgetown Law faculty have educated world leaders, members of Congress, and Justice Department officials, from diverse backgrounds and perspectives. We pride ourselves on providing an excellent graduate and professional education, built upon the Catholic and Jesuit tradition. Georgetown-educated attorneys have, for decades, served this country capably and selflessly in offices such as yours, and we have confidence that tradition will continue. We look forward to your confirming that any Georgetown-affiliated candidates for employment with your office will receive full and fair consideration.

Sincerely,

William M. Treanor
Dean and Executive Vice President
Paul Regis Dean Leadership Chair

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1. Something like this: Individual rights, liberty from interference, free markets in labor & capital, limited government, property rights, a spontaneous & dynamic social order, in advancement of social justice, each presumptively held and supported. (There are more conservatives, including populist ones, who call them themselves libertarians than were are genuine libertarians.)
2. The protection of individual rights within a republic of majority rule. Libertarianism, depending on the recognition of the equal moral worth of all persons, is irreconcilable with populism of either the right or left.
3. It's a demand. Even now, hard to write it that way, the vestiges of a better time still clinging to one's words now and again.
4. Shapiro resigned from a position at Georgetown Law because, although he was reinstated after an administrative leave, he felt that "[Treanor] cleared me on a jurisdictional technicality” Shapiro wrote, adding that the report from the diversity office “and your own statements to the Law Center community — implicitly repealed Georgetown’s vaunted Speech and Expression Policy and set me up for discipline the next time I transgress progressive orthodoxy.” See Lauren Lumpkin, Georgetown Law official resigns, had been cleared in probe into tweets, Washington Post, June 6, 2022. (Understandably upsetting, but private orthodoxies of this kind are lawful in a free society.)