Speech/Civics

University Speech and Civics

University of Pennsylvania law professor Amy Wax argued in an editorial that many of the problems plaguing American society—opioid abuse, unemployment, inner-city violence—can be traced to "the breakdown of the country's bourgeois culture."
Wax and her co-author suggested the "re-embrace" of cultural norms such as education, marriage before children, and respect for authority by Americans would "significantly reduce society's pathologies."
The firestorm that followed the editorial's publication culminated in 33 members of the Penn Law faculty publicly denouncing Wax in an open letter published in The Daily Pennsylvanian. The professors did not engage Wax's arguments on the merits, but instead spoke of their concern for an ideal educational experience in which people "respect one another without bias or stereotype."

....in the wake of the open letter, Penn Law students have been discussing "establishing their own complaint committee to which students can tattle when a professor or fellow student says something they don't like"—an institution one student called the "Stasi Committee."
​

Sadly, this kind of committee is par for the course on campus nowadays—while Penn does not currently have a formal bias reporting system, a recent report by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE, where I work) found that hundreds of colleges and universities around the country maintain formal bias reporting systems, most of which actively solicit reports of offensive but protected speech from students and faculty.

...

​
There has been one silver lining for Wax: support has poured in from people around the country. She has received quiet whispers of support at Penn, but the real show of support "has come from ordinary citizens, from the forgotten man, and many have been quite thoughtful and intelligent. I have learned—although I already knew—the progressive professoriat (sic) really is despised by a good part of the citizenry. People believe that the elite academy is destroying our country, and what's good about it."
(from an editorial in "Reason" by S. Harris)

"People believe that the elite academy is destroying our country.." Wow.