Amy Wax | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Wax in 2024 | |
| Born | Amy Laura Wax (1953-01-19)January 19, 1953 (age 72) Troy, New York, U.S. |
| Occupation | Law professor |
| Spouse | Roger Cohen |
| Awards | Lindback Award (2015) |
| Academic background | |
| Education | Yale University (BS) Somerville College, Oxford (MPhil) Harvard University (MD) Columbia University (JD) |
| Academic work | |
| Discipline | Social welfare Civil procedure Poverty law |
| Institutions | University of Virginia University of Pennsylvania |
Amy Laura Wax (born January 19, 1953) is an American legal scholar andneurologist. She is a tenured professor at theUniversity of Pennsylvania Law School. Her work addresses issues insocial welfare law and policy, as well as the relationship of the family, the workplace, andlabor markets. She has often made remarks about non-white people that have been described by some of her contemporaries and colleagues aswhite supremacist andracist.[1][2][3] In September 2024, she was suspended from teaching for one year.[4] Wax sued the University of Pennsylvania in response, seeking a reversal of the suspension and damages for lost wages and reputational harm; the suit was dismissed.[5]
Wax was born on January 19, 1953, inTroy, New York.[6] She was raised with her two sisters in an observant, conservativeJewish family in Troy, where she attended public schools.[7][8][9] Her father worked in thegarment industry, and her mother was a teacher and a government administrator inAlbany, New York.[9]
Wax attendedTroy High School, where she was head of the school's seniorhonor roll. She graduated as classvaledictorian and attained the highest score inRensselaer County in theNew York Regents Examinations.[10]
Wax enrolled inYale University, graduating with aBachelor of Science (B.S.) inmolecular biophysics andbiochemistry,summa cum laude, in 1975. She received aMarshall Scholarship to attendSomerville College, Oxford. She graduated from Oxford in 1976 with aMaster of Philosophy (M.Phil.) in philosophy, physiology, and psychology.[6][11][12]
Upon returning to the United States, Waxdual enrolled inHarvard Medical School andHarvard Law School. While studying as a medical student, she was a resident tutor in both medicine and philosophy atEliot House withinHarvard College. She graduated from Harvard Medical School with aDoctor of Medicine (M.D.),cum laude, with distinction inneuroscience in 1981. Concurrently, Wax was a first year student at Harvard Law from 1980 to 1981.[6][11][12]
Wax practiced medicine from 1982 to 1987, doing aresidency inneurology at theNew York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center and working as a consulting neurologist at a clinic inThe Bronx and for a medical group in Brooklyn.[6][9] She completed her legal education atColumbia Law School, where she became an editor of theColumbia Law Review and was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar. She worked part-time to pay for her law school education, obtaining herJuris Doctor (J.D.) degree in 1987.[11][9] During her time as a law student at Columbia, Wax received two awards: the Emil Schlesinger Labor Law Prize and the Milton V. Conford Prize in Jurisprudence.[6][12]
Following graduation, Wax clerked for JudgeAbner J. Mikva of theU.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit from 1987 to 1988.[11] She was admitted to theNew York State bar in 1988.[13] Wax then worked in the Office of theSolicitor General of the United States from 1988 to 1994.[12][14] During her tenure in the office, she argued 15 cases before theU.S. Supreme Court.[15] Wax became an associate professor at theUniversity of Virginia School of Law in 1994, becoming a full professor in 1999.[11][14]
In July 2001, Wax became a professor at theUniversity of Pennsylvania Law School, receiving the university's appointment as theRobert Mundheim Professor of Law in May 2007.[12][14][16] She received both theA. Leo Levin Award for Excellence in an Introductory Course, and the Harvey Levin Memorial Award for Teaching Excellence.[12][14] In 2015, she received aLindback Award for Distinguished Teaching, making her one of three Penn Law professors to have received the award in 20 years.[17][18]
Her academic focus is onsocial welfare law and policy, and the relationship of the family, the workplace, and labor markets.[12] Wax authoredRace, Wrongs, and Remedies: Group Justice in the 21st Century (2009).[12]
In an August 2017 piece inThe Philadelphia Inquirer titled "Paying the price for breakdown of the country'sbourgeois culture", she wrote with San Diego law professorLarry Alexander that since the 1950s, the decline of "bourgeois values" (such as hard work, self-discipline, marriage, and respect for authority) had contributed to social ills such as male labor force participation rates down toGreat Depression-era levels, endemicopioid abuse, half of all children being born to single mothers, and many college students lacking basic skills. The authors asserted that "all cultures are not equal. Or at least they are not equal in preparing people to be productive in an advanced economy."[18][19] She toldThe Daily Pennsylvanian that "everyone wants to go to countries ruled by white Europeans" because of their "superior"mores. In the same interview, Wax stated that she did not believe in the superiority of one race over another, but was describing the situation in various countries and cultures.[20]
In a September 2017 podcast interview with ProfessorGlenn Loury, Wax said: "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," and said that Penn Law has a racial diversity mandate for itslaw review.[21] University of Pennsylvania Law School Dean Theodore Ruger responded, "Black students have graduated in the top of the class at Penn Law, and the Law Review does not have a diversity mandate. Rather, its editors are selected based on a competitive process."[22]
In July 2019, at theEdmund Burke Foundation's inauguralNational Conservatism Conference, Wax said, "Embracing...cultural distance nationalism, means in effect taking the position that our country will be better off with more whites and fewer non-whites."[23]
An August 2017 petition seeking to fire Wax gathered about 4,000 signatures.[24] That same month, 33 of her fellow Penn Law faculty members signed an open letter condemning statements Wax made in herPhiladelphia Inquirer piece andDaily Pennsylvanian interview.[25] The Penn Law chapter of theNational Lawyers Guild condemned her comments.[26] Asa Khalif, a leader ofBlack Lives Matter Pennsylvania, demanded that Wax be fired.[27] Khalif said that he had notified the university that, if Wax were not fired within a week, he would begin disrupting university classes and other activities with a series of protests.[28]
As a result of these controversies, in March 2018, Dean Ruger stripped Wax of her duties teaching curriculum courses to first-year students.[29][30] He condemned her comments as "repugnant," and, at a student town hall meeting, he said that "her presence here ... makes me angry" but that "the only way to get rid of a tenured professor is this process... that's gonna take months."[31]
CommentatorMona Charen said that the op-ed on bourgeois values "contained not a particle of racism" and that "if the Left cannot distinguish reasoned academic arguments from vile racist insinuations, it will strengthen the very extremists it fears."[32] In aWall Street Journal op-ed, political commentatorHeather Mac Donald criticized the "hysterical response" to Wax's piece.[33]The New Criterion wrote: "Dean Ruger may wish to consult a study published in theStanford Law Review in 2004 which showed that in the most elite law schools ... only 8 percent of first-year black students were in the top half of their class."[27] Robert VerBruggen, deputy managing editor of theNational Review, cited papers he said supported Wax's claims and wrote, "If Penn Law is different, or if things have changed in recent years, let's see some numbers."[34]
University of Pennsylvania Law School Overseer Paul Levy resigned to protest what he termed Wax's "shameful treatment".[35] Levy wrote in his letter of resignation: "Preventing Wax from teaching first-year students doesn't right academic or social wrongs. Rather, you are suppressing what is crucial to the liberal educational project: open, robust and critical debate over differing views of important social issues."[36]Jonathan Zimmerman, who teaches education and history at Penn, wrote: "I think a lot of what Amy Wax says is wrong. But ... I also think it's my duty to defend her right to say it, and to plead for a more honest and fair debate about it... we should want everyone to hear what she says, so that they can come to their own educated conclusions."[37]
In 2021, Wax wrote that "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." She claimed that Asians are ungrateful for the advantages of living in the US and vote disproportionately for the "pernicious"Democratic Party, which she called "mystifying" because the Democratic Party "demands equal outcomes despite clear . . . group differences" and "valorizes blacks." She citedEnoch Powell while calling for stricter race-based immigration restrictions against Asians.[38][39]
During a January 2022 interview, Wax stated that among her past students "there were some very smart Jews", but "Ashkenazi Jews are 'diluting [their] brand like crazy because [they are] intermarrying.'"[40]
In April 2022, Wax said onTucker Carlson Today that "blacks" and other "non-Western" groups harbor "resentment, shame, and envy" against Western people for their "outsized achievements and contributions." Wax then attacked Indian immigrants for criticizing things in the United States when "their country is a shithole" and went on to say that "the role of envy and shame in the way that the Third-World regards the First-World [...] creates ingratitude of the most monstrous kind."[41]
Wax's syllabus for her seminar "Conservative Political and Legal Thought" that was released in August 2022 included a scheduled speech by white supremacistJared Taylor, the editor of the white supremacist magazineAmerican Renaissance.[40]
Penn Law School's dean,Theodore Ruger, called Wax's statements about Asians "racist", "white supremacist", and "diametrically opposed to the policies and ethos of this institution".[42]Glenn Loury, theBrown professor who had hosted the interview, called her comments "outrageous" and said, "What she said about the Asians could have been said, and was said, about the Jews not so long ago. Today we call that antisemitism."[39] As of January 5, 2022, nearly 9,000 law students had signed a petition to have Wax suspended.[43] The statements drew condemnation from both local Pennsylvania papers and national press.[42][44]
Wax's comments drew heavy criticism by theIndian-American community, includingPennLaw faculty Neil Makhija and U.S. CongressmanRaja Krishnamoorthi, who called these comments irresponsible and said, "Such comments create hatred and fear, and cause real harm to minority communities."[45]
In September 2024, the University of Pennsylvania suspended Wax for one year at half pay. Her named chair was removed. In addition to a public reprimand, Wax must state that she "is not speaking for or as a member of the Penn Carey Law School or Penn" at all public appearances. She will retain her tenure.[46]
In January 2025, Wax filed a suit against the University of Pennsylvania in theU.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, seeking to remove all punishments and damages for lost wages and harm to her reputation. Wax alleged that Penn had a racially discriminatory speech policy, being more permissive of antisemitic speech while punishing Wax's speech, which Wax described as "discussing race in ways that Penn finds unacceptable".[47] On August 27, 2025,Senior Judge Timothy J. Savage ruled against Wax,[48] dismissing her suit in its entirety.
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