Some of you are going to love this and some of you are going to hate it: Amy Wax is back on The Glenn Show. Amy is easily one of my most controversial guests, and it’s easy to see why. She speaks her mind, she doesn’t try to sugarcoat her views, and she refuses to back down. For years now, Amy’s home institution, Penn Law, has been trying to shut her up and keep her out of the classroom. If they had their way, they’d likely void her tenure agreement and fire her. In my view, Amy has neither done nor said anything that falls outside the bounds of protected speech and the tenets of academic freedom. That a school charged with training our future lawyers, judges, and legal scholars would take these extreme measures should chill you to the bone, no matter how you feel about her views.
Amy begins by catching me up on the present state of her case. She runs down the “offenses” Penn is charging her with, and I’m shocked. There is no verifiable statement she’s made that would warrant what’s happening to her. Hell, I’ve said some of the same things she’s said. Penn’s student newspaper leaked the Penn Faculty Senate University Hearing Board’s recommended sanctions—they’re draconian and, in my view, intended to humiliate her. We move on to Amy’s advocacy for “race realism,” one of the tenets of which is that we should acknowledge the average difference of IQ between groups and, as a society, plan accordingly. She claims it’s a necessary rebuttal to DEI overreach, but I question whether this point is as significant as she seems to think it is. After all, IQ isn’t everything, nor can we easily disaggregate it from other important measures of competency.
I imagine there’s going to be a lot of back and forth on this one, and that’s all to the good. Amy’s views are controversial in many quarters. They should be debated. But they should not be silenced. Free Amy Wax!
This post was released on Monday to paying subscribers and is now unlocked. To receive early access to TGS episodes, an ad-free podcast feed, Q&As, and other exclusive content and benefits, click below.
Sign Up for City Journal’s Newsletter
City Journal provides rigorous analysis that allows you to reach your own conclusions, rather than rehashing ideologically “safe” talking points. Explore it for yourselves and sign up for their free newsletter today.
0:00 The charges Amy faces at Penn
4:08 Glenn: I’ve said some of things that have gotten Amy in trouble myself
10:04 Amy: “You might as well erase the veritas from [Penn’s] mission statement”
18:18 What’s really at issue in the Amy Wax indictment
24:06 Amy’s race realist rebuttal to DEI
34:43 Isn’t there room for some efforts toward proportional representation?
43:46 When IQ differences matter and when they don’t
Recorded March 20, 2024
Links and Readings
The leaked Penn Hearing Board recommendations
Glenn’s 2021 conversation with Charles Murray
Charles Murray’s book, Facing Reality: Two Truths about Race in America
Share this post