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Tuesday, October 22, 2024

WSJ: Suspended Penn Law Professor Says She Has No Regrets

Following up on my previous post:  New York Times Op-Ed: She Is Outrageous, Demeaning, Dangerous. She Shouldn’t Be Punished., by John McWhorter (Columbia):  Wall Street Journal, Suspended Penn Law Professor Says She Has No Regrets:

Wax (2024)The University of Pennsylvania found Amy Wax had a long history of unprofessional conduct; she says it’s protected speech.

Amy Wax, the Ivy League law professor suspended for making racist, sexist and inflammatory comments, stands to lose half a million dollars from her punishment.

Wax said she doesn’t regret the remarks that led to her reprimand. She is considering taking legal action, she said.

Following an investigation into Wax’s conduct, the University of Pennsylvania suspended her from her tenured position with the Carey Law School last month for a year on half pay, taking effect in the fall of 2025. She also lost summer pay in perpetuity.

“I only regret that I am sufficiently frank and blunt and forthright,” Wax said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. “I stand by what I say because what I say is so much more nuanced and interesting than the sound bites they have lifted.”

The severity of Wax’s suspension is rare for a tenured professor. It comes as academic freedom and free expression on college campuses are facing heightened scrutiny from lawmakers and the public following the Hamas attack on Israel last year and the subsequent war in the region.

Wax has drawn outrage at the university for years. She has been criticized by students, faculty members and alumni for making disparaging comments about minorities and others. ...

Wax said conservative professors like herself face hurdles. Only certain conservative viewpoints are tolerated, such as some libertarian views, while others are off-limits. On immigration, she said, professors can’t talk about “the third-worldization of our country, the loss of our culture.” 

“That kind of talk is xenophobia,” Wax said. “It marks you out as an evil bad person.”

Her suspension sends a message to other conservatives on campus to keep quiet, she said, conflicting with academic freedom and a call for diversity of thought. ...

Opposition to Wax swelled upon the publication of a 2017 op-ed she co-authored [Paying The Price For Breakdown Of The Country's Bourgeois Culture] that argued all cultures aren’t equal in preparing people to be productive citizens in a modern technological society. The authors criticized “the anti-‘acting white’ rap culture of inner-city blacks; the anti-assimilation ideas gaining ground among some Hispanic immigrants.” ...

Wax acknowledged there are limits to what speech is covered by academic freedom. Epithets, name-calling and insults shouldn’t be allowed, she said. 

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