Stephen Kershnar
A Tale of Two
Professors
Dunkirk-Fredonia
Observer
January 23, 2022
In two cases, administrators and academics
are trying to silence high profile professors.
Recently, the University of Pennsylvania Law
School’s dean, Ted Ruger, announced that he will try
to sanction law professor Amy Wax. In a 2017 Philadelphia Inquirer article,
Wax and University of San Diego law professor Larry Alexander said that
the country is paying a price for breakdown of the country's bourgeois culture.
They argued that since the 1950s, the decline of bourgeois values - such as
hard work, marriage, respect for authority, and self-discipline - contributed to
societal problems such as opioid abuse, half of all children being born to
single mothers, male labor force participation rates down to Great-Depression-era
levels, and many college students lacking basic skills.
In a 2017 interview with The Daily Pennsylvanian,
Wax argued
that not all cultures equally prepare people to be productive in an advanced
economy. She said, "everyone wants to go to countries ruled by white
Europeans" because of their superior norms. Wax added that she did not
believe in the superiority of one race over another but was describing the
situation in various countries and cultures. Again, with the exception of a few
East Asian nations, no adult seriously doubts this claim. By the millions, people
vote with their feet in favor of Wax’s claims.
In 2021 on Glenn Loury’s
website, Wax wrote “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 argued that Asians
are ungrateful for the advantages of living in the US. This can be seen, she
claimed, because they vote disproportionately for the “pernicious" Democratic
Party. She further noted that this voting pattern is "mystifying"
because the Democratic Party pushes equal outcomes despite well-known group
differences. Regardless of whether one agrees, the claims are plausible.
In a 2017 interview with Loury, Wax said regarding
affirmative action: "Take Penn Law School, or some top 10 law school... Here's
a very inconvenient fact ... 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
... I can think of one or two students who scored in the top half in my
required first year course.” This claim surprises no one who is familiar with
elite law schools. Penn is ranked 6th.
In 2017, a petition to fire Amy Wax was
started. Today it has 76,000
signatures. 33 of
her Penn Law colleagues denounced her Philadelphia Inquirer
and Daily Pennsylvanian statements. Ruger later banned her from teaching required
first-year courses.
In England, Kathleen Stock, a professor of
philosophy at the University of Sussex recently resigned. She argued that people cannot change their sex. She also argued that many trans women are males – consider,
for example, ones with penises who are sexually attracted to females – and, as
a result, they should not be in places where females undress or sleep in an unrestricted
way. She said ad nauseum that she thinks trans people should live free
from fear of violence, harassment, or discrimination, but that her claims about
identity are distinct from the need to protect these rights.
When Stock was made an Officer of the Order of
the British Empire, philosophers from the most elite universities – for
example, Cambridge, Harvard, MIT, Oxford, Princeton, Stanford, and Yale – and
others denounced
Stock. The professors said, “We are dismayed that the British government has
chosen to honour her for this harmful rhetoric.”
Stock’s resignation followed her
having been told by police to stay away from her campus for safety reasons. Students at her university, put up
posters and graffiti demanding that she be fired. The
Sussex branch of the University and College Union called for an investigation into
transphobia. An
ironic fact is that Stock is a left-wing lesbian
and sex-nonconforming woman. Some of the
elite philosophers who denounced her used to be her friends and allies. The
revolution always eats its own.
Were Wax or Stock to teach at
a public American university, the Constitution would make it illegal for the
schools to sanction them. Their speech and writing were not pursuant to their official
duties. See Garcetti v. Ceballos, 547 U.S. 410 (2006). Even if their speech
and writings were pursuant to their official duties, and it was not, their
speech is still protected because it would easily pass the Pickering test. Pickering
v. Board of Education, 391 U.S. 563 (1968). Specifically, their speech
is a matter of public concern and their interest in commenting on matters of
public concern outweigh the state’s interest of the State regarding the public
services it provides.
Note two things. First, regarding Wax, no one seriously doubts that the
country would be better off with bourgeois values or that – with the exception
of a few East Asian countries - Western culture is better.
Second, regarding Stock, it is hard to dispute
that biologically, trans women are not women. Whether trans women are
gender-women – that is, women according to cultural norms – depends on what we do
and should think a woman is. At the very least, it is worth discussing Stock’s
careful-and-technical arguments. There are additional reasons to be wary of
radically revising our view of gender. Consider athletics, gender-transition
contagion, and the percentage of people who change their minds about
transitioning.
The mean-spirited bullying of Wax and Stock is not
unique. Professors from Colorado, Cornell, Oxford, Princeton, Rutgers, etc.
have been blackballed, publicly denounced, or pressured to retract articles. The
elite schools matter because they have an enormous influence on the country’s
commanding heights. Consider, for example, Big Tech, government, Hollywood, mainstream
media, and Wall Street. What the elites believe will flow down to culture, law,
and the rest of academia. This abuse will continue until alumni cut off
donations, boards of trustee fire disgraceful administrators (for example,
Penn’s Ruger), and federal and state governments defund these institutions.
