Tenured Professor Punished For Possibly True Statements

WASHINGTON - Sept. 26, 2024 - PRLog -- Atenured law professor is being very severely punished, in large part for making statements of an empirical (not a judgement) nature, and therefore capable of being refuted by facts if false.

But rather than proving her statements incorrect, her university has instead cut her salary in half, and slashed her other benefits, for speaking what may well be an uncomfortable truth which the school may wish to hide.

However, before penalizing her, it offered by buy her silence by paying her salary during the suspension, and throwing in a keep-your-mouth-shut payment of $50,000, but only if she would agree "not to disparage the University," and would disclose damaging evidence against it which she has in her possession.

Her university  has labeled her statement "racist," but obviously not all statements which many might label as "racist" are necessarily false; much less so far outside any range of responsible thinking and debate that a professor should be severely penalized simply for uttering them.

Pennsylvania University [Penn] has now finally punished tenured law professor Amy Wax for making statements, of a factual nature which may even be truthful, without attempting to refute them, much less show that they are so clearly false and outrageous that merely uttering them, even in off-campus settings, would warrant such severe penalties, says public interest law professor John Banzhaf, who has won many such battles.

Thus her statements, because they are factual in nature and based upon easily ascertainable and indisputable data, are ones which should be subject to objective discussion and refutation in the spirit of academic freedom and open debate. .

Penn can also easily refute Wax's statement without naming or otherwise embarrassing any Black students, much less violating their privacy or breaking any laws.

Wax may also be subject to serious punishment for saying, in a discussion about whether America's immigration policy should ever consider race, "that our country will be better off with more whites and fewer nonwhites."

But whether or not our country would "be better off" if our immigration policy favored Caucasians over other races or ethnic groups - as an empirical- or at least empirical-sounding assertion - it should be capable of rational analysis based upon statistical and other reliable evidence (including "big data" type of analysis), not name calling ("racist") or isolated anecdotal examples of non-Caucasian immigrants who have been successful.

As to how this analysis might be made, Banzhaf, who is also a mathematician and the inventor of the statistical tool now known as the "Banzhaf Index," explains in:
Penn U May Fire Professor For Possibly True Claims; Factual-Type Statements Should Be Refuted, Not Punished (https://www.valuewalk.com/penn-u-may-fire-professor-for-p...)

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