Just in case anyone is under the illusion that free speech is not under attack, this story is one of many showing that our right to freely express our views is in peril.
The University of Pennsylvania has decided to suspend law professor Amy Wax after a series of statements and actions the school’s leadership deemed to be controversial, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.
The university made the announcement on Monday, saying she will face a year-long suspension at half pay and lose her named chair position. The proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back appears to be related to Wax’s decision to invite white nationalist Jared Taylor to speak to her class.
This follows controversies regarding comments Wax made about black students and Asian immigrants. During an interview with black conservative Brown University professor Glenn Loury, Wax claimed black students generally performed at levels lower than other Penn Law students. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Black student graduate in the top quarter of the class and rarely, rarely in the top half,” she said.
Loury pushed back, asking: “So you’re telling me that students of color who have served on law reviews are pretty much in the bottom half of their law classes at Penn?”
Law schools usually only invite students performing at high levels to be on the law review. Wax admitted she did not have evidence to support her argument and had never done a systematic study on the grades of black students.
During the same interview, Wax also suggested that America would be “better off” with fewer Asian immigrants.
It all started with the Dec. 20 episode of The Glenn Show, during which Wax discussed U.S. immigration, insisting that it’s difficult to welcome people into Western societies if they do not share the same values—an idea she also shared in a recent speech.
“It’s just harder to assimilate those people or to have confidence that our way of life will continue if we bring a lot of people in who are not familiar with it. These are not original ideas on the [political] right,” Wax told Loury. “This might result in a shift in the racial profile of people who come in. Obviously, we’ll have fewer people from Africa. We’ll have fewer people of some parts of Asia, and it’ll be more white—not that many white people want to come to the United States.”
Specifically, Wax referred to South Asian elites migrating to the U.S., whom she differentiated from migrants traveling from Latin America.
“[We] have to distinguish mass-immigration, which we’re getting from the Hispanics, south of the border, which I think poses different questions and challenges from the Asian elites that we’re getting,” she said. “It doesn’t mean that the influx of Asian elites is unproblematic. I actually think it’s problematic. …I think it’s because there’s this…danger of the dominance of an Asian elite in this country, and what does that mean? What is that going to mean to change the culture?
“Does the spirit of liberty beat in their breast?” she continued.
Wax also argued that “wokeness” is a dominant ideology and that “Asians tend to be more conformist to whatever the dominant ethos is.”
“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,” Wax said.
So far, it might seem to some that the university made the right call, right?
After all, Wax has clearly expressed some racist views, and she did invite one of the nation’s most prominent white nationalists to speak to her class. Her motivation for wanting Jared Taylor to address her students isn’t clear. But regardless of what prompted her to extend the invitation, the school’s decision will do more harm than good.
For starters, academia is supposed to equip students to think critically and debate ideas. Sheltering them from any ideas – even reprehensible ones – robs them of the opportunity to understand what reprehensible people believe. One cannot effectively refute these individuals if they do not understand their positions.
Moreover, stifling the views of folks like Taylor doesn’t get rid of them. It only pushes them further underground, where they can fester unopposed. This could lead to even more people embracing these viewpoints – and acting on them.
It is also worth noting that authoritarian leftists running these schools could, and will, expand the definition of what is unacceptable for students to hear. Yes, Jared Taylor is a bonafide white nationalist. But to folks on the left, you and I could easily be considered to be in the same realm as these people for espousing perspectives that conflict with progressivism.
Too many universities have become less about fostering robust dialogue and debate and more about enforcing a specific set of beliefs. It is not about opposing vile views; it is about selecting which vile views students are allowed to hear. If Wax had invited a Hamas supporter to her classroom, there likely would have been no fuss, right?
But that’s not even the scary part.
In the end, Penn’s decision not only does a disservice to its young students, it also instills the idea that authoritarianism is preferable to the free expression of ideas. Instead of showing students how to defeat bad ideas with better ideas, it teaches them to rely on authority to suppress disgusting opinions, which will inevitably translate to appealing to another authority, namely, the government, to suppress even mainstream ideas with which they disagree.
Of course, this is the point, isn’t it? Leftists running many of these institutions are not concerned with the idea of debating ideas that contradict theirs. Instead, they are hellbent on ensuring that progressive ideas maintain supremacy over public discourse. What better way to do this than to teach young Americans that suppression is more desirable than dialogue?
