Penn Law professor Amy Wax's marriage stance draws new wave of criticism

Amy L. Wax is the Robert Mundheim Professor of Law at the University of Pennsylvania.
Source/www.law.upenn.edu

Controversial Penn Law professor Amy Wax is collecting a fresh wave of social media backlash after her most recent comments during a Penn Law debate last week.

Wax has made a series of controversial public statements over the last year that have garnered her significant negative attention, starting with her op-ed published last year which suggested a return to “bourgeois culture,” and again earlier this year when she said there are no African-American law students at Penn who graduate in the top percentages of their classes.

Now Wax has again caused angst with her comments after, the Daily Pennsylvanian reported, she argued that “traditional marriage values” are key in ensuring a child’s success in life.

The comments brought renewed attention to Wax’s history of questionable remarks. Last Friday, attorney and former White House advisor Michelle J. Millben published an article in USA Today taking aim at Wax’s racially charged comments titled, “Amy Wax said black students can’t excel in law school. Bless her heart, we can and do.”

In the piece, Millben details the discrimination she experienced while studying law. It has been shared widely on social media.



Elsewhere on social media, members of the Bucknell University community are asking the school to rethink welcoming Wax to its campus on April 26 for a talk titled “The Perils of the Push for Equal Results.”

Gwendolyn Williams, a writer and visiting assistant professor of biology at Bucknell, criticized the school, writing on Twitter, “White supremacist Amy Wax will be speaking at my university under the pretense of ‘viewpoint diversity.’”

Williams posted a copy of the official announcement for the event, which was organized by the Bucknell University Conservatives Club and the Bucknell College Republicans.

“Through her courageous and challenging contributions to public debates, Professor Wax has effectively illustrated the dangers of a lack of viewpoint diversity in the American academic world,” the announcement reads.

Catch up on our previous coverage of Amy Wax here.