Why I Helped to Launch a Petition in Support of Professor Amy Wax
If you google the name of beleaguered academic Amy Wax of the University of Pennsylvania, you will find much outraged condemnation of her racism and white supremacy.
One petition to have her fired from her position as distinguished Professor of Law zeroed in on statements she allegedly made in 2019 about mass immigration to the United States from non-European countries—one effect of which, according to reports on her statements, was an increase in littering. The author of the petition, Luis Bravo, protested that he and other non-white students were not litter. In actuality, as might easily have been deduced, Professor Wax did not say or suggest that any person was litter. Nonetheless, the petition to fire the “racist” Amy Wax garnered 85,000 + signatures.
It seems that it is now not only politically incorrect but actually impermissible for an academic to attempt to argue that America’s immigration and other social policies would do well to ensure that America remain a white-majority country.
In response to various petitions and complaints like the one by Mr. Bravo, UPenn has moved decisively against Wax. She was first publicly condemned by her Dean of Law, Theodore W. Ruger, and then formally threatened with disciplinary action. As universities often do in such cases, UPenn invited students and colleagues to voice complaints against Professor Wax—and, lo and behold, they did.
In a bombastic letter dated March 2, 2022, Dean Ruger outlined the “charges” against Wax, telling her that she had “inflict[ed] harm” and “undermin[ed] the core values of our university.” Ruger’s letter lists a long series of unsubstantiated claims by students and colleagues, many of them based on statements by Wax in private and therefore impossible for Wax, or anyone, to disprove. The statements allegedly caused the students to feel shock and fear.
Ruger also quotes statements by Wax in public talks and interviews (a particularly inflammatory one was with black academic Glenn Loury), which include her contention that “Women, on average, are less knowledgeable than men” and “less intellectual than men;” that there are “clear individual and group differences in talent, ability and drive” between races; also that blacks have “different average IQs” than non-blacks, could not “be evenly distributed through all occupations,” and that such a phenomenon would not be “due to racism.” For allegedly hateful and bigoted statements like these (and others along similar lines), Wax must face disciplinary action “up to and including termination.”
Many of Wax’s statements seem like common sense. Some of them, taken out of their context and thus impossible to assess without further research (which I have not done), seem unnecessarily blunt and insensitive, but far from false or necessarily hateful. Recognizing group differences, including differences in interests and competencies, does not mean one hates individual members of the group or expects individual members to fail. Having read through a 45-page report on Wax by an independent investigator who accepted at face value nearly every claim made against her, some from a decade ago, I have satisfied myself that she has not been treated justly (for a short account by Wax herself, see this video segment).
One doesn’t have to agree with Wax’s positions on affirmative action, immigration, and progressive social policies to recognize that declaring such discussions off limits—upon penalty of humiliating sanctions—is authoritarian and anti-scholarly. Wax’s arguments should be debated. If her contentions are incorrect or based on inadequate research (see one such claim here), that should be demonstrated, not simply ruled “harmful.”
That’s not how universities in North America tend to operate today. While claiming to value diversity of views, they stifle dissent and punish dissenters, first by humiliating them, calling them bigots and racists, saying that they don’t speak for the university—and then, if that doesn’t work (and it does work in the majority of cases), by formally sanctioning them. All of it is done in the name of creating an equitable and inclusive university environment, though the intent is clearly to exclude and harshly punish any beliefs or arguments deemed heretical.
Dean Ruger claimed in his disciplinary letter that Wax’s various statements “have led students and faculty to reasonably believe they will be subjected to discriminatory animus if they come into contact with you.” Yet no evidence (or even claim) exists that Wax has ever graded students unfairly or otherwise demonstrated unwillingness to properly distinguish and reward individual ability and meritorious performance. There is no evidence (or even claim) that in preparing students for law placements she ever treated any individual in a biased manner or worked against their best interests. The case against Wax is based on her having said things about the superiority of western culture and its traditional civic virtues that have outraged students and colleagues. The Dean’s letter is full of melodramatic purple prose unworthy of a judicious administrator.
An ad hoc group of international academics has now launched a petition in support of Wax’s academic freedom. We believe that the University of Pennsylvania, and the academic environment in the United States as a whole, is made poorer when researchers and scholars like Wax are threatened and silenced. The petition has recently been posted on change.org, and we are hoping to attract new signatories. I link the petition for your consideration:
Another embarrassment for universities in the U.S. The principle of freedom of speech is only relevant when people disagree with its content. Also, hurt feelings do not constitute grounds for dismissal, but rather an opportunity for discourse and conflict resolution. What better learning opportunity for any college? Instead, they condemn.
gracias for bringing this example forward. it seems so crazy that i suspect that we are near when this anti-speech anti-thinking anti-life baloney will begin to be recognised as the junk food of a poisoned mind and that it begins to fall even more quickly than it is to the ground under the instability of its own stupidity.