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SUN NGUYEN University of Pennsylvania professor Amy Wax |
Law professor Amy Wax is being rebuked by the University of Pennsylvania for anti-Asian racist remarks she made during an interview but that might not curb the calls for her immediate dismissal.
The dean of the University of Pennsylvania Carey School of Law said he would seek sanctions against tenured law professor Amy Wax over racist remarks she made about Asian Americans.
The UP professor said early this month that the U.S. is “better off with fewer Asians and less Asian immigration.” Dean Ted Ruger said in a statement Tuesday that he had received multiple complaints since 2017 citing Wax’s behavior as disruptive to students and the school community.
“Professor Amy Wax has repeatedly made derogatory public statements about the characteristics, attitudes, and abilities of a majority of those who study, teach, and work here,” Ruger wrote. “The complaints assert that it is impossible for students to take classes from her without a reasonable belief that they are being treated with discriminatory animus.”
However, the law school's action may not satisfy community groups and UP students who asked for Wax's dismissal.
In a letter delivered to Penn President Amy Gutmann and Ruger, OCA called for the university to take “appropriate steps” to “ensure her immediate removal.” While Penn has cited Wax’s tenured status in the past as reason for her continued employment, the nonprofit argued that “to allow her to hide behind [tenure] without any repercussions is simply unacceptable.”
The full letter is available here.
“Penn Law has already acknowledged that Amy Wax’s xenophobic, racist views harm its Asian American students, faculty, and staff. Yet the school has offered little transparency around how students are being protected,” said Linda Ng, National President of OCA-Asian Pacific American Advocates. “It is stunning that in 2022, an openly white supremacist professor continues to teach at a prestigious American university, with the school claiming it is powerless to stop her.”
Ruger released a statement on the university’s website two weeks ago condemning Wax’s comments as “thoroughly anti-intellectual and racist.” A spokesperson for the university declined to comment further.
“At this time, as required by the University Handbook, and to preserve the integrity of the process, we will not make any public statements about the charges and proceedings until they have been completed,” the spokesperson said in a statement to NBC News.
Wax has a history of making increasingly bigoted remarks thinly disguised as academic speech, writing in a 2017 op-ed that “all cultures are not equal,” arguing without evidence in 2018 that Black law students “rarely” graduate at the top of their classes, and stating at a 2019 conference that the U.S. would be “better off with more whites and fewer nonwhites.”
In a December 2021 podcast, Wax stated: "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 also baselessly claimed that people of South Asian descent “just love to bash America” and that Asian Americans possess “lack of thoughtful and audacious individualism.”
It was in an interview last month on the economist Glenn Loury’s website, Bloggingheads.tv, that Wax made her comments about Asians immigrating to the U.S.
“If you go into medical schools, you’ll see that Indians, South Asians are now rising stars. In medicine, they’re sort of the new Jews, I guess, but these diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives are poisoning the scientific establishment and the medical establishment now,” said Wax.
While Wax was barred from teaching mandatory first-year law courses in 2018, she is scheduled to teach at least two courses during the spring 2022 semester and reportedly retains a vote for faculty hiring. Neither the University of Pennsylvania nor Penn Law have indicated that she will face further, meaningful disciplinary action—raising questions of whether students are being adequately protected.
"Free speech should no doubt be protected in all settings in America, and vigorous debate that stems from opposing viewpoints is the lifeblood of the academic experience," said Norman Chen, Chief Executive Officer of The Asian American Foundation. "But academic institutions should not be havens for hate. Dean Ruger was right when he said this week that Professor Wax’s comments were ‘anti-intellectual,’ ‘racist,’ and ‘denigrating.’ "
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