An Interview with Amy Wax

Contributed by Declan I.M. Deady

Source: Will Figg for WSJ

Amy Wax is a Professor of Law at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. Her research has focused primarily on the intersection of economics and social welfare policy, including how such factors affect family and workplace relations. She previously worked as an Assistant to the Solicitor General in the U.S. Department of Justice, where she argued fifteen cases before the Supreme Court. She received her BS from Yale before receiving an MD from Harvard Medical School and a JD from Columbia Law School.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

SALIENT: What is the institutional incentive to censor conservatives?

WAX: The purity tests are closely related to the desire to maintain hegemony. Those who are censoring conservatives certainly have an iron grip on the elite Ivy Academy. That's been decades in the making, and they're not about to give it up without a fight. They have psychologized harm to the point where any offense–any ideas that are seen to impugn or disrespect your identity–are now seen as harm that can be regulated and punished. They created a carve-out from free speech principles and free expression for those kinds of harm. That's an enormous carve out that can be trotted out anytime someone says something that they don't agree with or that doesn't line up with the dogma of the far left–that's outside what they call the Overton window, and right now, the Overton window is very, very small. To maintain their ideological hegemony, it's absolutely essential that they censor because much of what their ideology rests on is dubious, or even overtly, false propositions. If those are exposed to be false or doubtful, that undermines their dogma. It's a matter of thought control.

SALIENT: Do you think it's possible for conservatives to retake institutions in the current climate? What does it look like?

WAX: Conservatives have taken themselves out of the running. They've gone to think tanks, Silicon Valley, and other areas or places that are much more conducive to free thought. I think there is a generation of young people, especially young men, who avoid academia because they do not see it as a hospitable place where they can survive. Will that change? I am cautiously pessimistic about this because I am one of the very few real conservatives–not housebroken establishment conservative types, which they let in a few of as long as they don't touch the hot-button issues. I'm not of that ilk who is still in the Academy. There aren't very many of us, and of those who are there, most keep their head down. They do not discuss their actual positions; they're not overt about it. The reaction to me–the furiously angry reaction, the name calling, the tarring, the labeling with no apology and no hesitation–makes me very pessimistic. I just haven't seen much movement in terms of the people who are already there allowing the camel's nose under the tent. It may be that things might change or loosen up with this administration, but I haven't seen any evidence of it.

SALIENT: Do you think we can expect to see progress in other institutions, beyond academia and tech, under Trump?

WAX: I do see, even in my institution, a little bit more of a spirit of rebellion among students. Students are the most vulnerable in many ways, especially to peer pressure, but they are the most likely to speak out lately. As far as other institutions outside academia, we have seen companies like Google drop their DIE (Transcribers’ note: Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity) programs and announce that they're no longer going to look at diversity elements when they hire, that they're just going to hire the best people. Are there other companies that have followed suit? I don't have a full survey, so I don't know what percentages we're talking about, but these are very salient examples. I consider that a very positive sign.

SALIENT: There are a lot of visible problems with DIE, but are there any pernicious effects that tend to go unnoticed, even by people on the right, that we should be concerned about?

WAX: This is a very sensitive topic. It's very divisive–it pits people against each other. It highlights identity issues instead of our common humanity. But what doesn't get talked about, is verboten to be talked about, is that different groups have different levels of competence and achievement in this country–that's called race realism, and race realism is forbidden. There was a comic New York Times article that just exemplified that. It starts by saying what we're hearing with this tragic plane crash is that DIE has put less than fully competent people in jobs where there shouldn't be, and they said, ‘This is just the same racism coming back.’ ‘This is racism rearing its ugly head through this rhetoric. Let's never hear that again.’ You’re not allowed to say that–they are the arbiter of what can and cannot be said about DIE.

But, you know, I know, anybody who has worked in admissions at any sort of university knows that there are very substantial academic achievement gaps between Blacks and Whites, between Blacks and Asians. Those gaps show up in any test of cognitive ability: IQ tests, SATs, LSATs, and anything that draws on the general intelligence factors. The gaps are about one standard deviation, and they've been that way since we started measuring them in the early part of the 20th century. To expect that DIE is going to propel people into very demanding jobs cannot happen without lowering standards. But academics say DIE is an unalloyed boon to Mankind: there is no downside, there are no drawbacks, and it is 100% wonderful because it brings these diamonds in the rough out of the woodwork.

SALIENT: Do you find that students are receptive when they finally hear the truth after years of their lives, or do they reject it on its face?

WAX: Some of them. The woke mind virus teaches that the world is Manichean: that there are evil people and good people, right-thinking people and wrong-thinking people, oppressor and oppressed. This whole worldview leads a lot of students not to want to be contaminated by dealing with someone who is in that privileged oppressor class. As a result, you see all sorts of demands: when I try to bring a speaker onto campus, they need to be barred, they need to be shut down, they need to be shouted down, and they may even need to be punished. You have to be ejected from the institution–we need to purify the institution and make sure that they don't invade our institution. The faculty goes along with that. But, among the students who do seek me out and take my classes–who want to talk to me and hear from me–not all of them are on the right. I can think of a couple of students who are on the left but are curious. They are interested. They want to know what's in those books, and they want to test themselves and see if they're right.

SALIENT: A lot of pro-Palestine protesters tried to claim the banner of free speech. Do you think there's any part of this claim that is honest, or is it being used as a stalking horse for bad actors?

WAX: It's very hard for me to believe that it's honest because free speech hasn't been extended to me. They've been full steam ahead, persecuting me and punishing me and prosecuting me. Their approach to academic free expression is very cynical. I don't think they really have a deep commitment to it. The people saying anti-Israeli things, praising Hamas, advocating for the Gazans–those very people are the least likely to respect the First Amendment and free expression. Far-left women are the least tolerant of dissent of any group.

Then we have people from Arab countries, foreign students who have some kind of connection to people in Gaza. The notion that Arabs have any kind of commitment to free speech is laughable. Their culture certainly doesn't. they don't show it in the way they govern their countries. They may take on the mantle once again when they get here for cynical purposes, but I don't think it's rooted in any kind of deep-seated commitment or real understanding. Indeed, in Muslim thought, there's something called taqiyya, which is the principle that you should lie to the infidel–it's an honor, a privilege. There's also a reason why Arabs or Muslims have never accomplished anything in science.

SALIENT: Do you think it is possible for people from cultures dissimilar to ours to fully assimilate?

WAX: I think it is on a small scale but not on a large scale. I wrote an article called “Immigration: The Case For Low and Slow.” It has to be small numbers and, as Burke said, imperceptible. If you notice this group, it's sort of the opposite of what really should be going on. Immigration is too high. I think mass immigration is a disaster for our country, especially in the current climate. I would take very few people from culturally distant societies. We have here in our country a relatively small and well-functioning Muslim community, but it's growing by leaps and bounds, and that concerns me greatly.

The ruling class in this country should be European because that is our origin and our legacy. Those are the people who best understand and have experienced our system. How much of the globe is WEIRD: Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic? A tiny, tiny part of it–Europe, basically, and not all of Europe. The Teutonic, The Nordic, and the Anglo. I strongly feel that we need to preserve, protect, and defend the Teutonic, Nordic, and Anglo parts of our culture. This is immediately attacked as a nefarious form of racism and xenophobia, but to me, it just seems like common sense.

We were a 90-95% White European country. Yes, we did bring in people from many different parts of Europe. That alone caused some tension, and it did dilute the Anglo legacy, which was our founding legacy, but it more or less worked. I think it worked because they were European, and a big factor is that they were all Christian–we tend to underestimate that, but I think it's huge. There was also a very insistent ethos of assimilation to mainstream American culture, so I think it was radically different. It was more akin to Japan or Hungary today than what we have presently.