It would be impressive enough that Amy Wax is a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania. But her background is even more impressive.
Raised in an observant, conservative Jewish family, she received a bachelor’s degree from Yale and a medical degree from Harvard.
On a podcast, she said she realized medicine was not for her, and in 1987, received a law degree from Columbia University. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, as an assistant to the U.S. solicitor general, she argued 15 cases before the Supreme Court. And after seven years at the University of Virginia, she joined Penn with tenure in 2001.
That’s quite extraordinary, and checks a lot more boxes of being very smart, if not brilliant, than most of us. So what’s the problem?
[In 2017], she co-wrote an opinion article in The Philadelphia Inquirer. She argued that many of the country’s social problems could be traced to veering from 1950s norms, like getting married before having children, respecting authority and avoiding coarse language.
The article said “all cultures are not equal” and lamented “the single-parent, antisocial habits, prevalent among some working-class whites; the anti-‘acting white’ rap culture of inner-city blacks; the anti-assimilation ideas gaining ground among some Hispanic immigrants.”
Controversial, for sure, but her “bourgeois values” op-ed raised issues that many considered legitimate and worthy of consideration. After all, “American values” got us to where we are and many, such as stable two-parent families, have long been considered crucial in the success of young people. But then she went off the rails in 2018.
“Here’s a very inconvenient fact, Glenn,” Wax said in the discussion titled ‘The Downside to Social Uplift,’ which was part of a series hosted by Brown professor Glenn Loury. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a black student graduate in the top quarter of the [Penn Law School] class and rarely, rarely in the top half,” Wax said of her belief in the downside of affirmative action in universities. “I can think of one or two students who’ve graduated in the top half of my required first-year course.”
The uproar was loud, and Wax was removed from teaching first year students. But she wasn’t done.
She has described some non-Western countries as “shitholes” and stated that “women, on average, are less knowledgeable than men.”
Speaking with Mr. Carlson last year, she said “American Blacks” and people from non-Western countries feel shame for the “outsized achievements and contributions” of Western people.
On a recent podcast, she said, “I often chuckle at the ads on TV which show a Black man married to a white woman in an upper-class picket-fence house,” she said, adding, “They never show Blacks the way they really are: a bunch of single moms with a bunch of guys who float in and out. Kids by different men.”
That pushed Dean Theodore Ruger, who had supported Wax’s academic freedom right to express controversial opinions to that point, over the line.
After long resisting the call of students, the dean of the law school, Theodore W. Ruger, has taken a rare step: He has filed a complaint and requested a faculty hearing to consider imposing a “major sanction” on the professor.
For years, Mr. Ruger wrote in his 12-page complaint, Professor Wax has shown “callous and flagrant disregard” for students, faculty and staff, subjecting them to “intentional and incessant racist, sexist, xenophobic and homophobic actions and statements.”
The complaint said she has violated the university’s nondiscrimination policies and “standards of professional competence.”
Free speech and academic freedom groups have challenged any action against Wax for her speech, much as student groups demand her firing.
Her statements, the complaint added, “have led students and faculty to reasonably believe they will be subjected to discriminatory animus if they come into contact with her.”
Students have asked: Aren’t these statements relevant to her performance in the classroom? Don’t they show the potential for bias? And does this professor, and this speech, deserve the protection of tenure?
Granted, there have been quite a few academics who have made outrageous, offensive, and even violent assertions about white people which suggest that they have issues that don’t belong in a classroom, not to mention not be intellectually up to snuff. And they, too, have received the support of organizations like FIRE despite expressing a desired to emasculate white men with a sharpened blade that could give rise to a concern on campus. Then again, under the reimagination of improper discriminatory speech, the oppressed can’t be mean to the oppressors. And Amy Wax, gender notwithstanding, is an oppressor.
Many free-speech advocates say that Dean Ruger’s complaint overstepped by including the professor’s public statements.
Jonathan Friedman, an official at PEN America, said the idea that off-campus comments can lead to an investigation “is concerning.”
Those who want heavy sanctions, he said, “have to think about how the same powers can be wielded in other ways, against other professors whose comments can be deemed offensive or hostile.”
And some professors say her interactions with students are enough to warrant punishment.
Is there a line that can’t be crossed? The complaint alleges that Wax made statements that were directed at particular students that went too far.
“There’s a bright line between ‘I don’t like affirmative action’ and ‘You, African American student, only got in because of affirmative action,’” said Jonathan Zimmerman, a Penn history professor who had previously defended Professor Wax against calls for punishment.
The latter comment, if true, he said, is “singling out a student for abuse.” But students question the professor’s free-speech protections. Andrew Bookbinder, of the university’s Asian Pacific American Law Student Association, said Professor Wax was using tenure to be intentionally offensive in ways that do not further academic speech.
Wax denies the statements were made, and challenges the lack of detail proffered against her. A hearing will be held to determine whether Wax made the comments, though the capacity of a law school or university to conduct a meaningful hearing providing basic due process and reaching an impartial outcome is certainly in doubt. Still, what the hell is Amy Wax thinking? Isn’t she smarter than to court this flagrant outrage no matter what her personal opinions may be?
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Like Scott Adams, perhaps, another alienated high school dropout fed up with the sham and disrupting the American cafeteria. Unlike him, there is little wiggle room to take her racist comments about Black people in commercials as a badly judged attempt at deconstructing a toxic discourse. Either way, it’s “screw this place” and maybe off to work at the uncle’s body shop.
Ken White’s Substack from yesterday on the Stanford Law events underscores the idea that there are plenty of “bad” facts you can tag on both sides of a culture war (“They all suck”–Mike Munger). That said, I can’t help but draw an adverse inference –that’s what you call it, right?–from Dean Ruger’s failure to bring out the STFU evidence he’d reveal if he really had it. Namely, the school has information on students’ race and grades, and “only one or two [minority] students were in the top half of the class” is an easily refutable proposition, if indeed it were false. As to the host’s question, “what the hell is Amy Wax thinking?” the answer is simply that she is not. As Dr Wax herself might have put it in an earlier life as a neurologist, her limbic system took over–at this point, it’s emotional. Whether you believe she went limbic because of her evil nature or from the gaslighting from Ruger et al simply reveals your priors.
He was my inspiration as a youngster.
I can understand that. Sammy was an inspiration for lots of guys.
You did that on purpose.
I don’t know what you’re talking about.
This may be too off topic, so please trash at will. But something has been bugging me and this may be the only chance I get to get it off my shoulders. Cadillac (and others) commercials are now directed almost exclusively toward black rappers. Is Cadillac giving up on the rest of society, or do they believe that commercials directed at black rappers will sell cars to white suburbanites? I don’t get it. What am I missing?
The shows that I watch prominently feature ads for hearing aids, Medicare Advantage plans, and reverse mortgages. They also want to know if I was ever stationed at Camp Lejeune.
You watch Motortrend too?
My equally off topic reply is that sales of the Cadillac Escalade to rappers and wannabe rappers has kept the brand afloat for 20 years while the traditional Cadillac buyers were literally dying off, or buying imports. Right now the Mercedes G-Wagen is taking away Escalade sales and GM is trying to move electric so Cadillac marketing needs to convince their target that an electric Lyriq is “Baller” Nobody in my circle of family or friends has bought a Cadillac in decades and my idea of aspirational luxury is a grey import Toyota Century.
Ooh a rabbit hole! A 1970’s Cadillac was a cloud on wheels; the quintessential American luxury car. Nothing like it exists today. The Escalade is a Chevy Tahoe with different nameplates for double the price. The target audience is people who can be fooled into paying a premium price for an inferior product.
Oh my. A ’72 Eldorado two door soft top with the monster V8 (535 cubic inch?).. You could rent out the back seat to a family of four, which was not the use I put it to. Good times., especially with gas on base at around seventeen cents a gallon.
Had a buddy with a ’70. A dream to cruise around with. 500ci. Regular Caddies were 472
We had the 500 in a ’72 Superior Coach hearse project. Good lord that thing was a hoot.
That is called “badge engineering”.
Regarding the assertion “No black Penn Law School student graduated top 25%”, it is not clear that Dean Ruger (or anyone else) has conclusively proven this false. Ok…she may not be a “nice person.” However (and here’s the clincher, brought to you by…Hollywood), in “An Officer and a Gentleman”, the Richard Gere character rises above the abuse inflicted upon him by his (military) superior. Quantum ElectroDynamics
“Still, what the hell is Amy Wax thinking? Isn’t she smarter than to court this flagrant outrage no matter what her personal opinions may be?”
So, should she self-censor to try to avoid the outrage mob? If I’m misunderstanding this question and what you think she should be doing, pls. let me know.
As far as I know, her factual statements are not flagrantly inaccurate. Her opinions are not unreasonable. So why should she keep them to herself and hand over the public square to the grifters, the terminally immature, and the broken-minded?
So it’s not flagrantly inaccurate to describe “the way blacks really are” as she did?
Dean’s comment barely made it past getting trashed. Let’s not go any further down that rabbit hole.
When assertions are beyond the Overton window, then yes, you self-censor, especially when you work in an environment like a law school where you know they are going to give rise to outrage. Whether her opinions are reasonable to you really doesn’t matter, particularly since you place the burden backwards. It’s her job to prove her assertion, not anyone else’s to disprove it. You’re not her peer or her student. You don’t get a vote.
Perhaps the dean is wishing he had been practicing “Wax on, Wax off.” In any event, I don’t see how we can trust an evil bastard who is named after a firearms company.
I doff my cap to you, good sir. And to think I was waxing poetic about what sort of insightful comment I could make.
Came to read the comments from this incredible following you’ve made for yourself greenfield. It did not disappoint.
Have you ever given any thought to your contributions to making this a free speech zone for lawyers, judges and others who see, hear and read the left wing insanity and want to be able to express themselves without fear that they might upset someone like you?
Have you considered ever saying something that anyone would find thought-provoking, maybe even persuasive, rather than just assholish?
In this instance, half the on-topic commenters are pointing out “no one proved her wrong!” So I’m not sure Jay can be blamed for this particular problem.
Jay could have point out in his usual fair, rational and detailed way why the burden of proof was on the person making the racist assertion rather than those disproving her. He could have. It would have been more informative and persuasive. Instead, he did a standard Jay empty ad hominem. He can be blamed for that.
Was it a “it’s not funny!” did not disappoint or a “discussion is complicity!” did not disappoint? Or is this about Sammy?
Amy Wax has gone quite nutty ideas in recent years. In her latest podcast with Glenn Loury, she said she likes some writing at Unz Review and American Renaissance (the latter a “race realist” web site). Even her earlier advocacy of “50s values” was a bit shallow… after all, the West’s towering geniuses such as Caravaggio, Mozart and Beethoven were hardly exemplars of bourgeois propriety.
But regarding individual student complaints of unprofessional statements directed at them, are they collaborated? If the answer is no, her crazy ideas should not jeopardize her tenure. If tenure is for anything, its to protect the crazies and weirdos. That is how academic knowledge progresses.
As for what Wax was thinking: she has been undergoing chemotherapy for cancer, which sometimes causes “chemo fog” variety of cognitive impairment.
She’s 70. The time of life where what other people think begins to matter less-and-less. Perhaps no need to go deeper than that.