She Is Outrageous, Demeaning, Dangerous. She Shouldn’t Be Punished.

For years now, Amy Wax, a University of Pennsylvania law professor, has attracted attention for her statements about race and gender. You might have heard some of them:

“Our country will be better off with more whites and fewer nonwhites.”

“Women, on average, are less knowledgeable than men. They’re less intellectual than men.”

Black people from the United States and people from non-Western countries feel shame about the “outsized achievements and contributions” of Western people.

There are not too many Black people in prison but too few.

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In response to complaints from students and faculty members, in 2018 the University of Pennsylvania said she would no longer teach required first-year classes. Last week it increased the penalty, suspending her for a year, removing her from her endowed position and ending her summer pay permanently.

Wax’s contributions to public discourse have been stunningly numb to compassion, courtesy and sometimes even to coherence, often recalling those of a certain former president. But though her statements (some of which she has attempted to distance herself from) are egregious and then some, so is her punishment.

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The reality is that today, elite universities like the University of Pennsylvania are among the least racist places on the planet. But what are Black students to think, for example, when on top of everything else, Wax brings in the avowed white supremacist Jared Taylor to a seminar? Taylor’s specialty is statements such as “We have Africa in our midst, that utterly alien Africa of roadside corpses, cruelty, and anarchy that they thought could never wash up on our shores.” To the extent that having Taylor guest-lecture a class qualifies as engaging in debate, the proposition is that Black people are white people’s inferiors.

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But upholding the ideals of free speech means living with the discomfort — or even anger and injury — that offensive ideas can cause. Of late, universities have experienced this kind of discomfort firsthand amid ongoing protests against the legitimacy and actions of Israel. Identifying the line between legitimate protest and threats or harassment has been difficult. Student clubs have been suspended, demonstrations have been pushed off campus and at least one professor has been fired for sharing anti-Israel sentiments. But no university has categorically prohibited criticism of Israel. {snip}

The idea that racism is so uniquely toxic that it should be an exception to the ideal of free speech is not self-evident. It is specific to this moment, and will probably seem unwise and arbitrary to future chroniclers. Especially for universities, if exposing people to potential discomfort is permissible when it comes to geopolitics, then it must also be permissible when it comes to race.

Amy Wax loudly espouses views that most reasonable people find repellent. This does not justify punishing her for expressing them. Her suspension, with the other penalties, is a kind of ritual act, an unconvincing performance of moral purity. She should be exonerated.