A tenured law professor at the University of Pennsylvania recently commented that the United States would benefit from having fewer Asian immigrants in the country, provoking the ire of university leaders.
Professor Amy Wax appeared on a webcast hosted by journalist Glenn Loury on December 20. The pair discussed the state of national immigration, and the 68-year-old professor criticized the increasing presence of Asians in the US.
“It’s just harder to assimilate those people or to have confidence that our way of life will continue if we bring a lot of people in who are not familiar with it. These are not original ideas on the [political] right,” Wax told Loury.
“If you go into medical schools, you’ll see that Indians, South Asians are now rising stars. In medicine, they’re sort of the new Jews, I guess, but these diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives are poisoning the scientific establishment and the medical establishment now,” added Wax.
Many listeners deemed Wax’s statements xenophobic, including UPenn Law School dean Theodore Rugers.
“Like all racist generalizations, Wax’s recent comments inflict harm by perpetuating stereotypes and placing differential burdens on Asian students, faculty, and staff to carry the weight of this vitriol and bias,” Rugers stated.
Wax’s Fiery Words
Adding fuel to the fire, Wax issued a written statement in response to a listener’s email published by Loury on Sunday that criticized the professor’s stance.
“Perhaps they [Democrats] (and especially their distaff element) are just mesmerized by the feel-good cult of ‘diversity.’ I don’t know the answer. But as long as most Asians support Democrats and help to advance their positions, I think the United States is better off with fewer Asians and less Asian immigration,” her statement read.
These comments immediately went viral on Twitter.
University of Pennsylvania law professor Amy Wax, who insisted she was not a racist despite praising the superiority of "European" culture, now argues that the US needs "fewer Asians" and we need to be asking "how many" Asians are too many. pic.twitter.com/WaPCMGglAC
— Nathan J Robinson (@NathanJRobinson) January 2, 2022
Rough when you just want to have a nice conversation about how "wokeness" is the Real Racism and your guest just starts going down a checklist of why every religious and ethnic minority in the united states is bad for one reason or another. https://t.co/50J1vG4dIB
— Adam Serwer 🍝 (@AdamSerwer) January 3, 2022
