Amy Wax to Speak at AmRen Conference

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American Renaissance is delighted to announce that Professor Amy Wax of University of Pennsylvania School of Law will be speaking at our conference this fall. The title of her talk will be “Can America Handle ‘Race Realism’? Can It Survive Without It?” I have written elsewhere that Prof. Wax is “the most fearless academic in America.” Her willingness to speak proves it; the Penn Faculty Senate has formally recommended that she be punished severely for hurting the feelings of BIPOCs, immigrants, women, and homosexuals, and a final decision has not yet been made.

It would be impossible to list all the people in the last few years who have been pilloried for being provocative or merely factual. Almost always, they apologize — even crawl — and are then fired or silenced anyway. Not Prof Wax. She has fought her tormentors every inch of the way, at a cost of thousands of hours of her time and tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees.

In January 2022, the law school began a formal investigation of Prof. Wax’s “pervasive and recurring vitriol and promotion of white supremacy,” “since at least 2017 and most recently again two weeks ago.” The Penn student newspaper explained that:

Wax’s statements have included claiming that Black students never graduate at the top of the Penn Carey Law class and that “non-Western groups” are resentful towards “Western people.” Among other allegations, Wax has also faced criticism for hosting white nationalist Jared Taylor for a guest lecture and allegedly telling a Penn Carey Law student that she was only accepted into the Ivy League “because of affirmative action.”

After a grueling year of investigations, discovery, and hearings, the Penn Faculty Senate sent its findings to then-president Elizabeth Magill. It duly noted Prof. Wax’s free-speech rights and tenure protection but called for serious punishment for “flagrant disregard of the standards, rules, or mission” of the university. “Various groups of students” claimed the senate, “most significantly Black students, but also Asian students, Hispanic and immigrant students, LGBTQ students and women — are not only harmed but also wronged by this treatment.”

Here are just two of dozens of cited examples of alleged statements that “not only harmed but also wronged” them:

I think the crime problem in this country, I’m sorry it is true, is overwhelmingly, certainly within cities, it is a black problem. It is a minority problem, okay? Overwhelmingly. I mean your chance of being, you know, a victim of gun violence by a white person in New York City, is essentially non-existent.

And:

As long as most Asians support Democrats and help to advance their positions, I think the United States is better off with fewer Asians and less Asian immigration.

The faculty senate stopped short of urging that Prof. Wax be stripped of tenure and fired outright, but recommended loss of her named chair, one year’s suspension at half pay, and loss of summer pay for the rest of her career. The senate also suggested remedial teacher training, that her office and classes be exiled off campus, and that an additional faculty member babysit her classes.

President Magill rubber-stamped these recommendations but resigned later that year after charges that her free-speech policies had been too liberal in the case of supporters of Palestine.

Prof. Wax has appealed these sanctions, and a final determination has not yet been made. Her willingness to address our conference while her fate is still undecided is yet another example of consistency and courage.

It will be an honor to host her.