April 13, 2022
Source/LAW.UPENN.EDU
Amy Wax, a University of Pennsylvania law professor with a long history of inflammatory remarks, blasted Asian and Indian doctors at Penn Medicine for leading anti-racism initiatives during an interview with Fox News' Tucker Carlson.
Amy Wax, a University of Pennsylvania law professor with a long history of inflammatory remarks, has gained widespread attention again for remarks on race and immigration.
Again, she has been sharply criticized.
During a Friday appearance on Fox News' "Tucker Carlson Today," Wax said Black people harbor "resentment" over western achievements. She also singled out Asian and Indian doctors at Penn Medicine.
"I think there is just a tremendous amount of resentment and shame of non-western peoples against western peoples for western peoples' outsized achievements and contributions," Wax said.
Penn Law professor Amy Wax tells Tucker Carlson that "Blacks" and other "non-western" groups harbor "resentment, shame, and envy" against western people for their "outsized achievements and contributions." pic.twitter.com/jpQmOU554C
— nikki mccann ramírez (@NikkiMcR) April 11, 2022
In a statement, Penn Law reiterated that Wax's comments "do not reflect our values or practices." It added that Penn is moving forward with with a process to address her "escalating conduct."
That process began in January. The university declined to comment further until those proceedings are complete.
NEW: Statement from spokesperson from the University of Pennsylvania emailed to me today in response to U Penn law professor Amy Wax’s racist comments made on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show pic.twitter.com/I3pzAdSYxT
— Nancy Levine🇺🇦 (@nancylevine) April 12, 2022
In her comments, Wax said Black people "feel that resentment and shame and envy. I mean it is this unholy brew of sentiments."
Wax then blasted Asian and Indian doctors, claiming they mostly "hate America" and criticizing their support of anti-racism initiatives, noting Asians out earn other racial groups in the United States.
The median household income among Asian people is $94,903, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. White people are next, at $74,912. The median household incomes of Hispanic and Black people are $55,321 and $45,870, respectively.
But a 2019 Pew Research Center survey found 73% of Asians believed being white helps people get ahead in the U.S. About 69% of Black people and more than half of white people agreed.
The professor also singled out Indian Brahmin women for taking advantage of opportunities in the United States and then criticizing the country.
"They climb the ladder, they get the best education, we give them every opportunity and they turn around and lead the charge on 'we're racist,' 'we're an awful country,' 'we need reform,' 'our medical system needs reform,'" Wax said.
"Well, here's the problem, they're taught that they are better than everybody else because they are Brahmin elites," she said. "And yet, on some level their country is a s***hole, excuse my language. It's not providing them with the opportunities that they feel that they deserve and which in many cases they do deserve."
Wax's comments were broadly panned online.
"No one wants to apply to a school where racism like this is open and tolerated," one commenter on Twitter said in a post directed at Penn. "Your shame for not dealing with this 'law professor' Amy Wax is going to be spread far and wide."
.@pennlaw
— KrisS 🔥 Your Vote, Your Voice 🔥 (@MplsMe) April 11, 2022
No one wants to apply to a school where racism like this is open and tolerated.
Your shame for not dealing with this "law professor" Amy Wax is going to be spread far and wide.#Racismhttps://t.co/G2KHfW2b7p
Sadanand Dhume, a fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute think tank, said Wax's comments accurately described some Indian Americans, but that they are far from a majority of the group.
"In my experience this is a tiny minority," Dhume said. "Most are grateful for the opportunities America has given them."
Some Indian immigrants do fit Amy Wax’s description: constantly hectoring and disparaging the US. Fair to ask them why they immigrated if they find this country so awful. But in my experience this is a tiny minority. Most are grateful for the opportunities America has given them. https://t.co/H5QjoEkU9C
— Sadanand Dhume (@dhume) April 11, 2022
This is not the first time Wax's controversial comments about race have gone viral.
During an interview with economist Glenn Loury on his podcast in December, Wax decried the immigration of "Asian elites" and claimed the U.S. would be "better off with fewer Asians and less Asian immigration."
In 2019, she said "our country will be better off with more whites and fewer nonwhites" at the National Conservative Conference.
These comments caused Penn Law students to call for Wax to be fired, Newsweek reports.
In 2018, Wax was relieved of some of her teaching duties after she claimed, without academic evidence, that Black law students rarely graduate in the top half or quarter of their classes.
In 2017, she published an op-ed in the Philadelphia Inquirer with University of San Diego Professor Larry Alexander that claimed that many of the nation's social ills can be boiled down to the abandonment of traditional "bourgeois" cultural values and anti-assimilationist tendencies among immigrant groups.
