Fuck Amy Wax

(Tip o' the tinfoil hat to Constant Reader, CC.)

     This exposes one of the raw, quivering nerves, the hypocrisy with which we treat academics. Right wing nut jobs like David Horwitz are constantly screaming about "liberal bias" in our nation's institutions of higher learning and point to people like Ward Churchill. Churchill was fired for writing that infamous essay essentially saying that we brought on 9/11 through our toxic policies in the Middle East, which is at least partly true. His big mistake was in asserting that there were no innocent victims on 9/11, and they all were as far as I'm concerned, and calling them "little Eichmanns". 

     But this newest brouhaha over Amy Wax exposes the hypocrisy with which we treat not just academics but how we treat liberals and conservatives. However poorly he chose his words, Churchill didn't make blatantly racist, anti Semitic or homophobic statements. Wax has done just this virtually her entire academic life and tenure should have nothing to do with it. The idea of tenure was never to give a professor the right to say whatever they want, however injurious to society, without consequences.

     And since UPenn is a private entity and not the federal government, the First Amendment shouldn't even be an issue. And while a balance has to be carefully struck between destructive hate speech and academic freedom, one also has to carefully look at current trends and judge whether such incendiary speech is contributing to and further exacerbating a problem. That problem is an uptick in violence against Asian Americans, African Americans, LGBTQ+ people and so forth. And, yes, I think Wax's hate speech contributes to the violence. Perhaps someone should take her aside and remind her that such hateful speech actually contributes to violence against her fellow Jews. Tree of Life Synagogue, anyone?

     So, I'm glad they're moving to sanction her bony ass. As far as I'm concerned, they should fire her immediately, tenure or no.