Arguments Have Given Way To Censorship and Penalties - conversation with Amy Wax

You have a very interesting, somewhat unique career path. You first practiced medicine and then went to law school to argue cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. Then you have become a university professor and researcher. Can you first tell us what motivated you to pursue such a career path?

Well, there are a fair number of people here who have dual degrees in medicine and law. In my case, I first entered medical school, but I soon realized that even though I am quite interested in the subject I was unsuited for being a physician. I wanted to build a more solitary or scholarly life. Therefore, I was going to study philosophy, but instead finally ended up in law school. That turned out to be a good decision for me. Law school led to clerkships and I was hired by the Solicitor General’s office that handles cases for the United States before the Supreme Court. I argued 15 cases which was quite a large number for a junior position. Overall it was quite a challenging job.

How did you end up in academia?

On the one hand, the Solicitor General’s Office was viewed as a temporary post even though some people stayed much longer. On the other hand, the administration changed from Republican to Democratic. I am a Republican and I was more out of sync with Clinton administration so that was a good time to leave. I landed at the University of Virginia Law School where I began my academic career.

What are the most fascinating intersections between law and medicine?

I pursued this area for while, and I did write a couple of articles about technological innovation in medicine and patient relations and clinical trials of new drugs and treatments. But in the end I turned to different direction which is to look at some law and social science issues.

What specific research areas have you been involved?

I began to focus on an area called federal benefits law which is about how the Federal Government tries to reduce inequality and help people who are less fortunate. This got me really interested in issues of race and of family structures. It occurred to me that one could not understand disadvantage without looking more closely at racial disparities in family structure which has a lot do with who ends up poor. That sent me off to the direction of those topics. Since I was trained in science I was interested in the quantitative and empirical elements: the data and evidence rather than the theory.

But if we pose for minute at the theory side: what role do families play in maintaining and passing on the cultural heritage of the communities and nations they live in?

In one word I think it is pivotal. The essence of conservativism is believing in non-governmental institutions, what Edmund Burke called “mediating institutions”, the “little platoons”. There is no little platoon that is more important than the family. Progressives grudgingly acknowledge that family is important, but mainly as a conduit for giving individuals resources. However, there is very little discussion of the influence of what happens within families and especially within traditional families which of course have been with us for a fair amount of time. Families are critical for developing character, good habits and individual strengths and resources that are needed for good citizenship. However, the progressive Left seems to think all this happens automatically and any kind of family can do as good a job as any other. I think a lot of that is total mythology.  The evidence points against it.  For instance, all the data suggests that single parent families are less effective than two parent families.

What are the dangers of diluting the traditional concept of family and family structure?

In the United States we have an accelerated growth of single parent families and complex blended families.  As a result, fathers – especially biological fathers -- are less and less involved in the upbringing of their children regardless of what you read in the media. The truth is that we have a problem of father abandonment and disinvestment in this country. It is all part of denigration of male roles and masculinity to optional or toxic. This transformation of the society has led to the weakening and destruction of the family.

What would be the role of communities or the state to remedy this situation and restore the role of families?

Based on the policies we have recently seen here, in the United States, governments might be more prone to weaken and destroy traditional institutions. So we have to very be cautious. When government policies take over all of the functions the family traditionally or customarily assumes, it results in families being perceived as optional or less useful. This sets the stage for a concept that government will take care of us from cradle to grave so why do we need families? It indulges the myth that government can really substitute for families and fathers.

Take for example the concept of the welfare state. Even though social security is extremely popular,

providing welfare is one of the most “anti-natalist” policy you can possibly imagine.

Economist long pointed out that it is a disincentive to have children. Think about it: if you can rely on other people’s children to pay into a common fund and support you in your old age why would you have your own children? It is much easier to free ride. All in all I think the welfare state tends to weaken the traditional family. Progressives on the Left think it is worth it and we are better off this way than depending on private initiatives, “self-reliance.” But “self-reliance,” which is a terms the left uses disparagingly, is not really a form of hyperindividualism, which no society has ever embraced.  It is in fact a choice to rely more on private, voluntary associations, on the “little platoons” that are mediating institutions between the state and the individuals.

But nevertheless, what positive role could the state play in creating an environment that supports the “little platoons”?

Yes, the state has a role to play in this area. But it is very difficult to construct a system that is completely even handed between married couples, single parents and cohabiting parents. I would strongly favor an approach in which married couple should get the best deal. That is the example of Hungary.

The family policy of Hungary coupled with a very restrictive policy on immigration is designed to boost the Hungarian population.

I commend the Hungarians for doing this. However, I am not sure that this approach would be politically viable in the United States. We do not have a uniform and ethnically solidaristic country. Instead, we have a very diverse and fragmented country and people are reluctant to subsidize “pro-natalist” policy. In addition, there is also a “libertarian spirit” here that says that it is not the business of the State to influence and regulate people’s reproductive decisions which has long been a strong thread in our politics. So put it all together, you are not going to get much mileage out of “pro-natalist” policies. It is unfortunate and it has all sorts of adverse effects. It tends to tilt the country in favor of a high level of immigration which, I think, is counterproductive at this juncture of our history.

So does the weakening of traditional family structure and the weakening of the “little platoons” invite immigration? Is it what the European Union experiencing these days? What are threats of massive immigration for the West and for its culture?

Yes, the downgrading of the prestige assigned to traditional family arrangements, and the declining marriage and birth rates that we are seeing now, definitely create a situation that encourages immigration.  It comes down to a labor shortage and a desire for well-off people and corporations for cheap, hard-working people to do the jobs that, as they say, “American’s won’t do” or there are not enough Americans available to do. 

Massive immigration, especially from countries and cultures that are non-Western and don’t share or aren’t familiar with our values and traditions, is a divisive and weakening force.

We are constantly told that “diversity is our strength,” but in fact the evidence points in the opposite direction.  We have deepening divisions, animosity, hostility among groups, and blame and hatred directed towards the dominant group, which is white Europeans, even though that group essentially created and built this country, and contributed the ideas on which it was founded.  My view is that turning the United States into a polyglot boarding house does not bode well for our future.

You recently pointed out that the progressive ideology by increasingly dominating schools and universities today endangers young people’s intellectual development and personal integrity as well as parents’ proper authority over their children. Can you tell us what threats you see in the regard?

It is an alarming trend that has been going on for a long time. There has always been a predominance of left leaning people in academia. However, during the past five or six years it has accelerated to a much more pronounced extent and it has been accompanied by a new atmosphere of intolerance towards intellectual dissent and challenges to the left-leaning dogmas. Arguments among people who disagree have given way to censorship and penalties. I myself have become “persona non grata” and ostracized in many little ways in my school. I have been stripped of all my committee assignments by the dean and I have been stripped of some of my core teaching responsibilities.  That’s all because I have expressed doubts about popular causes like affirmative action.

What are the consequences of academia becoming a bastion of progressive orthodoxy?

The effects on students are dire. That many self-censor has been documented by a number of social scientists such as Richard Hanania. A number of surveys show that people do not express their views because they are afraid to express them. I think that fear is totally justified. If you do not have tenure which only a tiny percentage of people do in academia, then you are vulnerable to all sorts of adverse penalties from being kicked out of school to not having any job offers. The list goes on and on. Of course this has spread to other areas of the economy and society like the corporate world, entertainment, sports, and media. So now we have this monolith of cultural control that looms over us in multiple spheres and sectors.

How could this trend be redressed?

There have been attempts to address it, but I have seen them as extremely timid. My diagnosis for why this has happened and why no real counterrevolution can get off the ground ultimately comes down to race. Affirmative action and the double standard that comes with affirmative action nationwide have really induced people to get away from the truth. They cannot tell the truth anymore about racial differences.

Even mainstream Republicans are afraid to say that we cannot expect equal results from different groups.

It makes no sense to expect the antiracist ideal that every group will be proportionately represented at every level because groups are not the same in their capacities, competences and talents. As long as we have to lie about these facts, we are going to have a progressive orthodoxy on campuses that is driven by solicitude for minorities and results in hypersensitivity. All the “woke” and progressive tenets and commitments come out of the race problem. It sounds like a very simplistic assertion but I honestly think it is absolutely powerful. So my one sentence diagnosis would be that the race problem has destroyed academia. Until we can get a grip on it, academia is not coming back.

What threats does this trend pose to children? What would be the role of parental authority and family in addressing these threats?

Unfortunately, schools have become places of indoctrinating students with a far left antiracist set of dogmas about our country’s history, racist character, toxic masculinity of white males and how black people are systematically discriminated against in all aspects of existence. These concepts get hammered into them.  This concerns families since parents may not agree with this philosophy as they think it is very detrimental, negative and harmful but at very least unbalanced.

The tension between the educational orthodoxy and parental opinion can sometimes be quite acute.

At the university level, it is an interesting phenomenon because parents are paying massive amounts of money for the kids to go to these madrassas and be brainwashed. That includes Republican and Democrats alike. These institutions have real monopoly with regards to paths to elite jobs and in the meantime they teach students how to be little progressives. But we have a new phenomenon here targeting Critical Race Theory, or CRT, which is very recent. Parents of children in K-12 education are rebelling against these ideas. Parents are going to schoolboards and vocally objecting to their children reading about how white society is irredeemably guilty and corrupt and whiteness and white standards are toxic – and here we are talking about practices like punctuality, rationality, evidence, reason, due process. In these areas parents are getting results.  For example, the Democratic governor in Virginia was voted out recently he told parents that what their children are taught is none of their business, which enraged them. Politically speaking, these kinds of attitudes have some salience, and are getting a response.  Although the anti-CRT movement has some good leadership I do not know how far it will go.