Well, whiskey coming thing my pain honey, Oh whiskey don't. From power
Line blog dot com and produced by Ricochet dot Com. This is the three
Whiskey Happy Hour with your bartenders Steve Hayward, John Yu and power Lines International
Woman of Mystery Lucretia. Have you got a giving let that whiskey bloon where
you're being in love down in load? Well, John, you literally on
an airplane back from Brazil at this moment while we're recording. We are delighted
to heave in his place today. Professor Amy Wax from University of Panda Law
School. Hi, Amy, how are you doing good? I'm happy to
be here. Yeah, Well, it's you've been I mean, I've lost
track of the ordeal you've been going through for a very long time now.
But you know your case and and we'll have you describe in the moment in
general terms. But well, I'll put it this way to people, I'm
trying to hound you out of the University of Pennsylvania for several years now,
while it has emerged suddenly here in the last several weeks that penn has been
unbelievably indulgent of anti Semitism so much so that even donors who want to know
better but usually don't have started to notice. And so there's an obvious disharmony
here or obvious contradiction hypocrisy at work. And I guess let's start from the
thirty thousand foot level. Do you think that what has a huge controversy now
on all kinds of campuses is are we seeing a possible inflection point and a
turning against the runaway campus wokery or are we going to wake up in six
months or a year and look back and discover that, in fact, what
we have passed the point of no return. How do you size up the
scene? Well, I'd like I'd like to think that we are retreating from
Wokrie, because I think Wokri is just so pernicious and destructive of everything the
university should be about, including intellectual standards which have plummeted catastrophically. But unfortunately,
because of that very fact, I can't be entirely optimistic. What has
happened here at Penn I think is emblematic of what has happened in a number
of places the school. In response to a donor rebellion in the wake of
the Hamas evasion or the Hamas attack, and also a Palestinian literary festival that
we had here at Penn have rebelled. They have withdrawn their contributions, and
a lot of our donors are very wealthy Jews, and in a kind of
panicky, knee jerk response to that not very well thought out, the university
brass and the massive bureauocracy that we have here has put out a series of
pronouncements in which they have ostensibly embraced a kind of even handed, full throated
endorsement of free speech principles that they never seem terribly interested in before, but
also have equivocated about it. They've on the one hand, said, well,
all sides need to be heard. The institution itself has to be neutral.
That's the Calvin Report principle. Would that they had had that commitment all
along, of course, But on the other hand, hate has no home
here. We can't have anti semitism here, we can't have hate here.
And that part is responding to the donor's objection to neutrality. They want Pen
to take sides in this conflict and condemn the pro Hamas pro Palestinian statements and
factions within the university. So there are a lot of mixed signals being sent
here by Penn. I think in this frantic attempt to limit the damage.
Now, you know, we used to have a saying when I was growing
up in a very devout Jewish household, is it good for the Jews?
So I guess my variation on that would be, is it good for conservatives?
And while I think that a flat out endorsement of free speech and institutional
neutrality is good for conservatives, because conservatives like me are in the minority,
and when there isn't neutrality and when the institution talks about its values and its
mission, we are the people who are targeted, right if we raise our
voice against the received wisdom. But on the other hand, if all that
the donors are asking for and pen is going to give them is you know,
anti sim it can be coming out against anti Semitism, coming out against
Hamas and being highly partisan. And don't get me wrong, I am not
endorsing anti semitism, and I think that Hamas deserves to be condemned, and
I don't even think that's really very debatable, although it is being debated.
Excuse me, then I don't think that's good for the Jews. I don't
think responding to a call for partisanship. However, I think well justified.
It is necessarily good for the Jews because excuse me, good for the Jews,
good for conservatives because it will be turned against conservatives. The commitment against
hate's speech will immediately be applied against people like me, as it has been
all along. You're peddling hate. Any criticism of BLM, any criticism of
anti racism, any criticisms of DEE is incompatible with our values. It's hate,
whatever that is, and therefore we can run you out of town on
a rail. So I guess I would say some of what they're committing to
is potentially good. Other things they're saying is not. And you know,
here's the thing. Are they principled? Are they consistent? Are they coherent
in their pronouncements and beliefs? Of course not all right. They're run by
a bunch of hate to say it, midwit spin doctors. Universities are not
run by people with high intellectual integrity and rigorous intellectual values, not anymore,
because there's no reward for it. Of course, there's no reward for it,
and so standards are so debased and in part they've been debased by the
embrace of wokeness, of anti racism, which morphs very quickly into anti I
Americanism, anti whiteness, anti Western values, and frankly, you know,
if you look in the right places, you see that things like rigor,
coherence, consistency, principle, that stuff is whiteness, which is why they
get away with you stuff we want to get rid of, right, That's
why they get away with taking this hypocritical sort of viewpoint about these things because
it doesn't matter to them. If they're hypocrites, they don't have to stand
on principle principle. If again, if it's not whiteness and a construct of
Western civilization, it's certainly not anything that means anything to them, and they
don't mind being called hypocrites. That's the lack of commitment to these fundamentals is
a big problem. It gives rise to what some conservatives have called lifecentious tolerance.
Should we really tolerate people who want to bring down our higher system,
our entire culture, our entire civilization. We really are kind of reaching the
limits now of where tolerance ought to go. And I'm a free speech absolutist,
but I am recognizing more and more than in order to maintain that,
you have to have some common commitments. Let me tell you an anecdote of
something that someone at PEN told my attorney, because I have been fighting charges
for years now that PENN has brought against me that I think is very telling
and very shocking. My attorney, David Shapiro, was speaking to someone in
the General Counsel's office and he said to this someone, you know, we
really should settle his case, because if we take you to court, we'll
have the subpoena power and we can delve into stuff that you won't give us.
In the administrative phase, we can get a lot of information and show
that your dean is not telling the truth and that you've contradicted yourself. And
the general unil guys said, stop, you don't get it. We don't
care about any of that stuff. Our dean can be shown to be a
shambolic liar. We can contradict ourselves all over the place. You know,
we can be shown to have no consistent principles. We will get past it.
The only thing that matters to PEN is that the students apply and the
money rolls in, and as long as those two things continue, we're good
and actually, I mean, I think this is accurate. So Amy,
I have to ask you, then, is there a little bit of a
cause for optimism in if it's good for the Jews? I'm going to say
it like that. And here's what I mean by that. The one thing
that I found rather gratifying are all of these law firms across the country who
are saying we will refuse to higher any law school graduates who have shown themselves
to be so lacking in moral clarity, so lacking in in judgment, really
so filled with hatred, whether they fully understand it or not. That to
me, I'm not willing to give a pass on that one, like Larry
Summers seems to be. But I do see that there's some based on what
you just said, some cause tiny cause for optimism, and that is if
we can show that, at the very least, in these extreme circumstances,
with the horrible situation in Israel and the horrible actions by Hamas, that okay,
this is a moment of moral clarity. The other things, oh,
we could argue all day about if diversity is really our strength, and you
know, stupid things like that, But this one is really frankly, like
you say, you know, it shouldn't even have to be argued. As
you said at the very beginning, do you see any cause for optimism there?
Maybe not in your situation, but overall, yeah, I mean we
just add the point we've never seen anything like what we're seeing now with major
donors, people like John Huntsman. It's not Jewish, but and it's the
most conventional, middle of the road Republican you can get who led the charge
at pen And then also these law firms this week, uh, you know,
a two dozen of the top big law firms really taking it to the
deans of law schools. We've never seen this kind of blowback ever before.
I don't think, Yeah, well, I'm really of two minds about what
the law firms are doing because on the one hand, you know, it
is a form of McCarthyism, and i'm you know, very ambivalent about McCarthyism.
What is McCarthyism is the use of private economic power to try and influence
people's opinions and punish dissenters, right. I mean, here we have a
very extreme example of descent being you know, a murderous descent essentially, so
far beyond the pale that I guess if there's any occasion to do that,
it would be this one. But then they could turn around and say that
about someone like me who's against DEI or who points out a group differences or
whatever. So these kinds of judgments quote unquote can easily be weaponized against the
wrong people. So that's one side of the coin. And I just recently
read an essay by Milton Friedman with my Conservatism class where he sticks to his
libertarian guns and says, I think that, you know, the Blacklist and
the McCarthy I initiatives, even though I think communism is wrong, wrong,
wrong, I think they're illegitimate. If we're really going to have an open
society, we have to tolerate people embracing this. Now with communism, we
have the same phenomenon. You know, when does communism cross over to an
attack on the very heart of our system? Okay, just as when does
the sort of thing that you know Muslims and Arabs are now saying, which
is essentially, you know, wipe Israel out, kill the Jews. Hamasus
can do whatever it wants because it's oppressed. When does that become let's bring
down the whole system. So that leads me to the other side of the
coin, which is maybe it's a good thing that law firms realize that,
yes, there is such a thing as licentious tolerance. There comes a point
where people are so wrong, so immoral, so lacking in the fundamentals.
We need to maintain our rule of law, western constitutional system, right rights
based system that we don't want them. But you see, here's the thing,
and I'll finish. They should have realized that long ago, supporting the
universities, supporting Woken it leads to this result. Right, This is the
redoctio of letting people into our country, and it's actually quite relevant to to
immigration policy and into our universities, who, if we listen to what they
had to say, are basically saying we're totally against your way of life,
we want to destroy it, we want to bring it down, and we're
not listening to them, we're just kind of papering all that over. My
argument to Steve last week Amy was that the Rena Workman I believe is her
name, the New York University, right right? That, Okay, I
was very happy to see that that the you know, law firm had had
rescinded their offer. But what in the hell were they offering or something for
in the first place, right, I mean, I look at but they
led her into law school. I mean, you know they are letting,
let's leave aside Americans, because there are Americans who are you know, from
kind of pre Enlightenment cultures and are very loyal to their very tribally loyal to
those cultures, and those people I think are a problem. But why is
Yale letting in Pakistani nationals as undergraduates? I mean that is nuts. I'm
sorry, it's apt, right, it's crazy, all right, call me
in America. First. I just think that's wrong from a practical point of
view, given that taxpayers are supporting these institutions. And also, what can
you expect these people, you know, their culture says it's okay to lie
to the Infidel. Where the Infidel? So they pretend to be loyal to
our basic way of life? You know what, I don't believe them.
Yes, yeah, when the gloves come off, they are saying on social
media stuff like kill the Jews. I have friends that told me about their
child who went to an IVY institution. I won't name one of her best
friends was a Pakistani national at this institution, and now that this Israeli crisis
has happened, she's had to cut off this woman and her circle from her
social media. Why because of what they're saying. They're basically advocating genocide.
And these are young people who have attended our best institutions. They've lived off
the fat of the land, they've received taxpayer subsidies. And once again,
if we'd listen to them from day one, what we would have heard is
we hate you. Yeah, that's just wokism, right, that's just a
very non wokeism. Right. Well, I guess I guess I'm inclined to
the latter. You mentioned the two alternatives, which is stand firm on the
broad understanding of free speech and against what can be characterized in mccartheism. I
totally understand that. As a coach and position, I think I inclined to
the latter one, which is, to people whose primary dogma is power,
sometimes the only thing that will get their attention to turn them back is an
equal exercise of power. Now, that's as its defects, But let me
draw it out a little bit deeper. Though. You know, it's one
thing for someone to say, as I think reasonable and responsible people do,
Israel has been unreasonable or too intransigent in dealing with Arabs in some kind of
settlement. I disagree with that, you know, you know the whole history
of this, but that criticism is at least plausible. But that's not what
we're hearing. We're hearing the ideological routine of their settler colonialist, which is
ridiculous. Secondly, the other part that goes with this is that we've divided
the world by ideology into oppressors and oppressed correct And you know, it was
maybe you saw that. You know, my dean in the law schoolman Chamerinsky,
who's been pretty strong on a lot of these issues, but he wrote
that I think really silly article the other day saying nothing's prepared me for the
anti semitism I'm seeing now. And my first thought was, well, all
you're believing to do at Berkeley is go back thirty years to the late Aaron
Woldovsky, who died I think thirty years ago this month. But one of
the last things he wrote was he said, I see antisemitism rising in the
intellectual circles in academia, and suddenly Jews, who are always this minority and
reviled minority, are suddenly being made into oppressors. He laid it all out
here thirty years ago. So in other words, you have to not be
paying attention to see the intellectual client. I don't think that's right, Steve.
Don't you don't think that's right way I do, well, I don't
think it's completely wrong. But the point of the matter isn't just that he
saw this sort of thing happy. It's that people like Irwin. I can
never say his last name, so he'll be Erwin for today Jabrinski. They
have purposely hired these people. They have purposely hired in these undergraduates, these
lawful students, all of whom they knew were, as Amy said, intellectually
less than stellar. But they they check the right boxes for their for their
wokeness, and anybody that doesn't think that wokeness and anti semitism has gone they
go ahead together. Yeah, going to it for four decades now, it's
just an idiot. Still you're in denial, denial, dishonest, intellectually dishonest,
but once again intellectual honesty. I mean, that's what they're trying to
get rid of. I think when you take woken as seriously, which is
a Manichean point of view that divides the world into a pressor and oppressed.
And then you see that Jews, because they're successful, uh, you know,
are going to be put in the oppressor camp, right, And then
you get into a crisis where the oppressor is trying to defend themselves from extinction,
and you know, going to the man on that, Then the logic
of that is kill the Jews. I mean, you get rid of them,
wipe them out. It inevitably leads down that path and there's no obvious
stopping point. Now you say, you know, we need to let people
give people as wide a birth as we can to express their views. I
agree, But there are some really hard line drawing problems here. There were
with communism too. You know, if you've seen Oppenheimer, which I haven't,
but I feel like I have seen it because I've engaged in many discussions
about it and read about it. The whole last third is devoted to this
kind of knee jerk, mindless you know, anti McCarthy. Oh, how
dare they deny Oppenheimer our security clearance? Well, I mean the guy,
even if he wasn't a card carrying communist, was certainly a fellow traveler and
a sympathizer. It probably wasn't a spy. But having a security clearance is
a privilege. Why should we give people who believe in a set of precepts
that would essentially abolish our way of life or undermine it fatally? Why should
we give those people a security clearance? So you know, the natural progression
is, well, why should we give them a coveted place and a top
shoe law firm? Well, we don't want to deprive people of their livelihood
for their opinions. But when do opinions cross over into treason? I'm very
hard to draw those lines. I think I find it extremely difficult. Frankly
so, I had a situation amy where it came to my attention that one
of my is actually an adjunct professor teaching a class on the Holocaust. Essentially
was teaching that the Jews brought it on themselves. Okay, guess what when
it's an adjunct, not a tenured professor, and you're a dani, you
fire that person. But before I discovered this, I have no idea how
many students mine she poisoned with this. I only know about it because a
student came and told me about it and said, I couldn't believe it,
but a lot of my fellow classmates believe her. Well, let me surprise
you by what I'm going to say about this. Saying that Jews brought it
on themselves, you know, is a kind of wary old denihilist right wing
trope. It's a far right trope. It's not a call for genocide.
It's not a call to you know, wipe out a group of people.
It's just an opinion about how something came about. And I would probably you
know, tolerate that person saying that if I think that they otherwise, we're
giving a quality class and the sense that they were giving a rounded view on
the one hand, on the other hand, and not just giving an unbalanced,
one sided opinion. I mean, when I teach conservatism, I often
just say, well, you know, here's my view of things. I
don't agree with this, this theorist. I do agree with that, but
I recognize that there are several cogent arguments against what, you know, my
position, the position where I come down. That becomes a teaching tool,
that becomes a coersonal tool, The other thing is, you know why I
am really averse to this whole vocabulary of psychological harm and trauma and feeling unsafe.
I hate it. I don't allow it in my classes. It is
pernicious because once again, it's not good for conservatives. Okay, why should
students be traumatized by somebody saying that sort of thing? I mean, there
are people out there saying that they have to deal with it, They have
to think about it, they have to grapple with how do we best counter
the opinion that Jews brought it on themselves? Why do you think Jews brought
it on themselves? How do they bring it on themselves? How does this
work? You know? I mean, this is really an occasion to delve
into this concept and try and figure out why you think it's not correct.
It's harder than you think. Developing counter arguments, even to you know,
what you may consider stupid and offensive arguments is very hard. And this is
what our students are not being equipped to do right, to deal with these
arguments that they find offensive or you know, triggering some triggering. They are
terrible at it. They are being stupidified. I am telling you it is
not good for them. Yeah, I mean the parallel argument, the rough
parallel argument, which I know you've heard, is well, it was the
argument of the eighteen fifties of the South, which was slavery was a positive
good, and the modern version, with some top spin now is well,
you know, it wasn't all bad, and that was just set everybody off
in orbit. Whereas the response to it is not an empirical one or a
material one. It's an argument about what is the nature of human beings in
equality? In other words, that's a much more important principle than any material
fact you may or may not be able to tease out right and then in
this case, but that ought to be part of the discussion. Yeah,
I know, it's not just the time on the cross in perics, but
it's you know, even if you could point to some positive benefits, it
still can't be justified because it's fundamentally incompatible with basic human dignity. But you
know, you want the students to have to make those arguments, not just
dismiss them at dismiss the whole concept out of hand. Well, I do
think I think you're a little too optimistic though in or maybe you're a little
too positive about the situation I was describing it that I see very very often,
we're not We're talking at a one hundred two hundred level gen ed course
where not that this view was was prevalent, but that students were being taught
that was okay. Well, that is that is a violation of basic I
think professorial ethics. I think to pedal one side, a one sided extreme
view. I hate the word extreme, but that is extreme, I guess.
But but here's here's a parallel, just flipping the whole thing one hundred
and eighty degrees. You know, diversity is our strength. Diversity is the
best thing in the world. It's the greatest thing ever. You know,
there's no downside to diversity. Well, that is our students are being indoctrinated
with that, and nobody cares. Good news. That is just as bad
because frankly, it's bullshit. Good news. Our our Arizona Board of Regents
has forbidden the use of the word diversity as any kind of It can't be
used in uh in job postings, faculty postings. It can't be used in
faculty hiring. It can't. They have they have banned it. Now,
well, I'm not sure I'm in favor of that. I mean, I
think there is an interesting discussion to be had, very interesting, very important.
It's relevant to you know, admissions to immigration, It's relevant to everything
about migration, our society, uh, and what's happening with Western society.
It couldn't be more timely, more pertinent of what are the upsides and what
are the downsides of so called diverse And I think that define it first?
Neat well, right, define it? Okay, So diversity of identity,
diversity of thought, diversity of viewpoint, diversity of group membership. I mean
there, let's start right there. If I were to teaching a course on
diversity, you know, pro and con, I would start with, okay,
let's interrogate what the heck we mean by diversity? So you know,
I am not I would like to see these topics explored in ways that they
are not explored today in the academy because we have so many sacred cows.
The education is so one sided. I can't I mean, I can't begin
to tell you how bad it is. And you know what. It starts
in K through twelve and the people are teaching K through twelve. I'm sorry
to say these people are not rocket scientists. You know they're not, and
so the simple easilygandas yeah, that all they do is propaganda. Well,
you are probably familiar amy with some of the limited you mentioned, your sacred
cows. Social scientists do not want to explore this question and the fear that
have like Robert Putnam at Harvard, a good liberal you probably know this story
delayed publishing for a whole year findings of his own empirical research that said,
increase diversity in the conventional sense of just lots of racial ethnic mixing lower social
trust, which is his sacred cow. There was a big study out of
Europe fifteen years ago that would look to be pretty rigorous that found much the
same thing, that support for welfare states in places like Scandinavia are inversely correlated
to ethnic homogeneity and cultural homogeneity. And by the way, I don't know
if you saw the news today, but apparently the five Scandinavian Denmark and the
rest of them, they're getting ready to try and to port large numbers of
migrants who are claiming asylum and you know, entitled to it. You're not
staying and you know, no one saw that coming among the diverse soocrats who
are all wants to hold hands and sing Hosanna together. Well, that's too
little, too late, I know. Yes, I agree, has become
a politically infused and motivated, debased field. Yes, I mean, people
tell me, you know, there's there's all of these sort of underground dissidents
who they all contact me. I swear I get an email every week or
ten days from someone or other somewhere in the academy. Can I talk to
you? Can I have off with you? Can I have lunch with you?
They say, you know, it's just the gloves are off. They're
told, don't don't do this project, don't research this question. You will
never get a job, you will never get promoted. You have no future
in academia. I know, very very bright my my son's cohort at college,
very bright people, many of whom are getting PhDs in various fields.
A lot of them have just given up on academia. Talking white males predominantly,
these people are going to disappear from academia, and academia is just going
to be much the worse for it. I'm telling you, well, I
want to ask you a couple of questions about that. One case that's been
on my mind is Roland Fryar, the young black economist at Harvard, right,
and you may know his story. I forget exactly what's working on.
But he had a whole team of graduate students. They looked at thousands and
thousands of arrest records and police interactions and debunked most of the claims of the
Black Lives Matter crazy people. And for that, the dean of Social Sciences
who is now the president of Harvard, Claudine Gay, tried to get him
stripped of tenure and fired. This may sound too familiar to you, right,
And you know what their pretext was, Well, they found some text
messages that were furtatious with a couple of graduate students women, right and all
right, maybe ill advised under the current social conventions, but hardly a hanging
offense. But she tried to get him fired anyway, and has stripped him
of his graduate with a program and couldn't strip him with tenure and fire him,
but pretty severe punishment. And it was pretty clear the motivation was he
was politically incorrect. So this has obviously been your case, which I know
you're limited what you can say about it publicly because it's still ongoing. But
the other thing I'm seeing right now is an awful lot of conservative law professors,
and you know, law professors, partly because of the Federal Society and
other reasons, Conservatives have always been a little stronger in law school than other
places, but are now starting to leave in large numbers. A whole lot
of our friends at the University of San Diego, including your co author that
famous op ed from six years ago that started I think some of the trouble
that you've had Eugene Vollock is leaving UCLA Law school, and what you hear
from people secondhand is or stovoce is we just can't stand the hostile atmosphere anymore.
Are you hearing that? And maybe, by the way, for listeners
who don't know what I'm referring to, why don't you briefly tell the story
of the article you wrote with Larry Alexander and the ridiculous reaction to it.
Well, before I tell the story of that article, let me say that
what's happening at law schools is really, really sad. They were in some
ways kind of the last bastion to fall to political correctness. Why because they
needed to train young lawyers to operate in an adversary system, And an adversary
system is a system in which you have to familiarize yourself with arguments from both
sides and master those arguments in order to represent your client. Well, I'm
sorry to report, but those days are behind us. There's a full frontal
assault on the adversary system and on training lawyers to operate in the adversary system.
Young law students, especially minority students, and their fellow travelers are demanding
to be protected and shielded from arguments they find offensive or don't want to hear.
And what's happened at Penn Law is absolutely emblematic. Last spring, the
Supreme Court decided the affirmative Action case and overturned many decades of precedent to permit
affirmative action in universities. Now the Supreme Court is said, essentially universities have
to be colorblind to receive federal funds. Well, that has raised a hue
and cry of protest and trauma and upset in the law schools. And as
a result, I have noticed at Pen Law there has not been a single
presentation, a single panel discussion on the merits of that case. On the
actual analysis and decisions. There's been silence. And what's the reason I'm guessing
here because it would upset and traumatize the minority students to hear anybody get up
and defend the result in that case. I mean, that just isn't going
to happen. Well, what kind of education is that they're going to go
out into the world and have to deal with the progeny of that case?
Right, all of the issues that are coming down the pike that are related
to that case, and there are many, how are they going to deal
with that? They're not going to deal with that, all right, They're
not going to do a very good job. Well, I think Amy that
the best already, the best evidence of that is if you read the descents
in the case itself, what you see is affirmative action putting through law school
people on the basis of the color of their skin and their gender and propelling
them to the top, even all the way to the Supreme Court. And
sorry, but John, you're saying that sut on my ear in Jackson's descents
are not very good. I'm one of the reasons in which they are really
quite shockingly bad. Just to get concrete here, is they act as if
the rationale for affirmative action is remedial. Well, the Supreme Court repudiated that
decades ago. In gruder They said, you, general societal discrimination is not
a justification for color consciousness in university selection. Only promoting diversity for pedagogical reasons
is a justification. Well, they if you read the opinions like that never
happened. That is just so utterly unlawyally, it's so utterly kind of lawless
and irrational that it's it's stupefying. And yet they get away with writing these
decisions that are completely unmoored and unhinged from the actual legal doctrine. So one
steps further that is what we bought. Go one step further on it,
though, because the point of the matter is if you had intelligent progressives or
liberals on the court, I think it's possible you had intelligent justices who could
have made some kind of argument. They might have muted at least the reach
of that case. They might have been able to be persuasive to some of
the other members of the court who are capable of being persuaded. Now,
I'm glad that didn't happen. I'm glad. But the Left has to be
looking at the situation that they've created. Well, Biden's not looking at the
situation he created by nominating Katangi. But you know, because he's not looking
at anything. But what a horrible mistake to put into a lifetime appointment someone
so utterly incapable of really fulfilling that position in a way damn okay, won't
matter a damn because what is going to happen in the way of that case
is that these institutions would are going to be bound determined to circumvent the Supreme
Court mandate. It's going to be, you know, resistance like in the
Old South, and they will. That's basically what all the presentations that are
actually taking place are directed at that question. How can we get around this?
How can we still have diversity? They just are a dog with a
bone, makee. They can't give up on the cult of diversity. So
I'm not sure it really matters the quality of the reasoning that is defending this
position. It is the position of all right thinking people. But anyway,
what got me in trouble initially, But they just have a brief a mile
long. It's like an indictment out of the mercado of all the horrible things
I have supposedly said and why they are absolutely unacceptable. But it started with
an op ed back in twenty seventeen in which Larry Alexander and I praised the
bourgeois values and speculated that a lot of the trouble that our country has gotten
into is because we have repudiated and rejected, in abandon and those values,
and that the culture that spawned and nurtured those values is one that everybody ought
to seriously think about adopting. It was. It was a very kind of
anti multicultural ap ed. So that's not acceptable, of course in the academy
today, but it was pretty innocuous, you know, it was. It
was, I mean it was. The reaction was hysterical. I'm tempting to
say, it's almost like you'd said kill the Jews. Oh wait a minute,
that is what right? Again? The double standard here is just unbelievable.
And as you know that, even the social scientists who try to avoid
that keep coming up with findings that ratify that point of view, right exactly.
So there's a whole universe of kind of conservative think tank type research and
punditry and writings that just reinforce the validity of the advisability of good old fashioned
practices and values. There's a success sequence which you may have heard of,
which is if people graduate from high school, get a job, work steadily,
get married. And I would add another factor but it's often unmentioned,
which is obey the law, don't don't get involved in crime. Then their
chance of being poor is in the single digits. And that's regardless of whether
you know their minority or what group they come from. And this is something
that is not taught to students. Rather they're taught about what an irredeemably racist
society we are. Yeah, and that is you know, that's the K
through twelve problem. And I mean I think one of the I think this
is right that one of the persons who advanced that idea, the success sequence
as you call it, was Bill Galston, you know, who had been
Bill Clinton's top domestic policy advisor for a time. Right, Well, those
were the days we should come up with it. I know, Bill Sawyer
at Ai and now Ian Rowe at Ai is really pushing it, and there
were some other people, but then Bill Golston I think took it up at
one point, yes, but you know, you never hear about it.
And when I introduced my students to the idea, and these are very expensively
educated young people who've been to the best schools, haven't helped them. They
have, and they have studied inequality up the wazoo and race up the wazoo,
you know, but they have never heard of this success sequence. Of
course. They've never heard of the Moyna hand report. They've never heard of
anything on the right side of the ledger at all. And they when when
you inform them about this stuff, to their credit, but these are court
of the self selected students who take my course, they're kind of shocked,
yea. They know that they've been sold a bill of goods. So Amy,
we need to let you go because you have to get off to dinner,
but we barely scratch the sur We want to have you back to talk
more about equality, about the whole question of Jewish assimilation. It goes back
to in our minds, to you know, Leo Strauss writing about that in
the twenties, and that's now very cute here in America, never mind Germany
seventy years ago, but now in America, which I never thought i'd see,
but to get out. I know that your case has been grinding on
now with the university whore at four or five years, and I know it's
pretty much been going since. Oh it depends on how you've I see,
but twenty twenty, it's been going on for three years plus. Yes,
is there any I don't want to say light at the end of the tunnel.
Is there an end point for when we're going to get a result?
Or is this just like Kafka is going to go on forever, endless torment?
Well, I can't. I can't say much because my attorney has zipped
my lip until it is over right, because I don't want to spook the
process. Okay, but let's just say that, you know, the Star
Chamber of the Inquisition has nothing on what I have been put through at Penn.
But when they finally have a final decision, which I don't know,
it could be even in a month, it could be in six months,
it could be a while. Yet, I will go totally public. I
have not signed any confidentiality agreement. I wouldn't dream of signing a non disclosure
agreement. You know, it's ironic that libs hate non disclosure agreements when it's
sexual harassment or whatever. But when it's protecting the university, then they love
them. But no, I'm going to release all of the documents, the
transcript of this kangaroo court hearing that I had to go through, the various
decisions and appeals. Everything's going to be released in due time. Penn still
has the chance to not embarrass itself because if it penalizes me, given you
know, the innocuous things that they've charged me with saying. One of the
things they've charged me with saying is that Jews have diluted their brand. You're
marrying and not having a lot of children. Well, every Jewish grandfa mother
in America has said that for God's sake, but a violation of their core
values to say that. So it's stupid stuff like that that they're charging you
with right and equitably targeted disrespect. Well you put that up against what some
of these pro Palestinian activists have been saying exactly, including faculty and students,
and the double standard is just glaring. But once again, do they care
about double standards? They should? Yeah. Well, well, Amy,
I I hope that when you do get to the finish line, you will
consider doing maybe a five part podcast series with us, or we go through
the whole story patiently and in detail. That would be You may not want
to relive it, but I think the world at large needs hear that story
and would like to hear that story. So thanks very much for having that.
And I would read chapter and verse from what they're accusing me of,
which is truly ludicrous. Yeah, so I will be happy to do that.
Great. One quick question about that, is there an appeal from the
faculty Senate. There's several layers of appeal, That is what I say about
it. Yeah. I don't want to get you in any trouble here,
but I have been I have been a kind of put on my litigator's hat
here in the past couple of years, and it's I can't say it's been
fun. Let's just say it's been challenging. And I have a very good
lawyer who I'm working with, and he and I have been working together.
And then if it comes to this and I have to go to court,
there is a very prominent, big Washington firm that is going to represent me,
and an anonymous donor who has offered to pay all of the expenses pen
by the way, has already spent seven figures on this phone. Of course,
you know they brought in this high priced law firm. At my hearing,
they had six or seven attorneys from this high priced law firm. I
mean, just adding up the hours, it has to be millions that they've
spent on this. You have to under like what is going through their head.
But well, I wish I knew that the right Yiddish or Hebrew term
for you know, godspeed and God bless you and all the rest of that.
I'll ask you with the Christian ones because that's all I've got. But
thanks to let you go, Thank you, I appreciate those very great to
come back on again and talk about whatever you like. Good Thanks, okay,
bye, goodbye. Don't go away, listeners, lucretiaan and I will
be right back after these messages from some of our mystery sponsors. Well A
Cretia, I can't wait to have Amy back on to the sometime. Maybe
we'll even let John Yu along at the time, you know, she mentioned
briefly, and this could be a whole separate podcast. She has for several
years taught a course on conservatism through the law school. Although I think it's
available to graduate students and advanced undergraduates. And she shared the syllabus with me
a long time ago, and it's really good and so but then also,
you know, I made brief mention at the end of something that we didn't
have time to get into. But you know, you and I, as
students first of Harry Jaffa and therefore, in a certain way secondarily of Leo
Strauss, are very familiar with Strauss's famous autobiographical preface in his Spinosa book,
where he said, look, the dilemma for Jews in Germany are really anywhere.
But he was someone raised in Germany. He was on his mind what
was going on there, and he said, our dilemma has always been assimilation
or Zionism. Assimilation being, you know, we conform to whatever country and
culture we're in, which means sacrificing to some extent. I think he was
saying our particularly Jewish identity, or do we, you know, seek a
homeland for ourselves, you know, the zion the stream of Israel. And
you know, I've always thought, and I think Professor Jaffa thought America was
the solution to that dilemma. And going back as far as you know George
Washington's famous letter to the Hebrew Congregation at Newport saying, it's now no longer
that you enjoy your rights by the toleration of others, but because your right
of conscience is your natural right that you share in common with everybody else.
And so I forget the exact language, but it was quite flowery for Washington,
who wasn't that way. But the last paragraph he says, so now
may the the you know, the children of Abraham, and you know the
tribe of however, the famous Jewish signifiers, you now welcome and have a
home in America. And suddenly it doesn't look that way. I mean,
we know that, you know, anti Semitic incidents have been rising the last
several years. But now to see Harvard and Penn and Cornell, which canceled
classes Friday because of continuing threats of violence against Jews on their campus, sounds
just like German universities in nineteen thirty three. Now, if I'm a Jew
in America, I'm thinking to myself, it can happen here, right And
you know, okay, I'll just stop there. That's my thought. He
say more about that, just another lucretia positive moment. I think it's rare,
right, Yeah, Actually, the German Vice Chancellor, in a video
which I'm to understand has been seen literally ten ten million times close to something
like that, has this, and it's been the subtitles in English, Hebrew
and maybe German. I forget it, but I know that English and Hebrew
subtitles, and and it's very interesting. You and I had a conversation a
long time ago about German's collective guilt about what happened in the Holocaust and what
that what that collective guilt causes them to do. But one of the things
that I was really impressed about with that, with the video that I saw,
is Okay, you know, it wasn't so much a collective guilt.
It was our participation in the hatred and the anisemitism that caused the Holocaust should
have been a lesson to us. And as a result of that, and
he says, as a result of the Holocaust, that is why Israel exists
as a as a place of safety, as a place that you knew,
da da da da da. And it is our absolutely unwavering commitment meant to
Israel is the only appropriate uh, path for German Germany to take, and
we will we will support Israel in whatever they decide to do against Tamas.
And he goes on and on, and he says, because we can do
nothing else. This is a uniquely German responsibility, which I actually I was
quite quite impressed with, as oppose, you know, say to the equivocation,
the you know, just the abject cowardice of so many, so many
elites in America who just you know, it's not to say that they have
no moral clarities, is just becoming trite, it is, you know,
I mean, do you see what I mean by that? Yeah? All
right, I mean what what is? What is our vice president announced this
week we're going to have a program to about the problems of Islamophobia, Right,
I mean, that's what really I mean. I that suggests that they're
terribly worried about lou using the Muslim vote in Michigan next year, which is
lean democratic. Did you know, you know, I decided to h I
wish I had time to take this, but sorry, Steve, I have
to stop you there for a second. A glib and there may be a
kernel of truth to that, but please do not misunderstand the ugly, the
inability of the Biden administration truly to understand what's at stake here. They are
creatures of the left, no doubt about it, right, you know,
I mean people keep saying, well, well, b Lincoln's been sidelined this
and now there's something back to Israel. How is anybody as incompetent and corrupt
despicable as that guy Anthony Blincoln, you know, mister fifty one intelligence special
initiator. How is he still Secretary of State? How are we actually in
this position where we have so many corrupting, confetent people now running our government.
You know, why can't we get somebody like German Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck
unequivocal, you know, unequivocal in his support for Israel because he understands what's
at stake. And I'm so frustrated. Well, that was my joke last
week, was we're now applauding German police saying your papers please at the border,
as I saw on the train two weeks ago, and now saying can
we please have a German foreign minister instead of ours? But that's the bizarre
world we live in. But you know, I got to thinking, I
haven't seen any statements from the diversity equity inclusion rabble from a Harvard or pan
of these places. So I checked at Berkeley, you know, or your
I checked at Berkeley because you know the big flashy DEI person they brought in
and named vice chancellor for the position, right, lady named Danny Mattos,
who said that her main purpose in life was battling white supremacy. Well,
I thought, well, has she issued any statements about what's going on?
Well? I looked, no statements since October seventh. There was a statement
issued on October nine, and it was offering support and concern for Berkeley students
in the aftermath of the earthquake in Afghanistan. That's what they issued that week.
That was the only statement from the Diversity office at Berkeley in the week
since then, in the week following October seven. There's been a couple of
others, you know, a silly, irrelevant thing since then. And but
that isn't understand It doesn't surprise me at all. Of course, I think
this ratifies what we know, but it's still a lot to be embarrassing these
universities that say, oh, we're all forered. Somebody said here the last
couple of days, DEI really ought to stand for division, exclusion, and
ideology, which I'm going to run with that. I like, I would
say idiots, but okay to be run it. So there's a little again,
a little good news. Though it's absolutely true that just about all of
the elites, not all of them, granted, are just so fundamentally unsound.
But I was watching a video of the last the last game of the
World World Series after the last game was over, and of course it was
held in Arizona, and there were a bunch of pro Palestinian protesters lining the
I guess it was the egress from what is it now State for I can't
keep up with what they rename them, but I think it's State Farm Stadium,
whatever it is now. And the people were just they were they were
making fun of the Palestinian protesters. They were flipping them off, they were
calling them unsavory names that we don't use on this family podcast. But it
made me happy. You know, how is it that those people have some
moral clarity about what's happening and our stupid president? What the presidents have any
clarity? But mophead and you know, Anthony Lincoln calling y'all ready for a
season, on and on and on. How is it that we're back at
the place that I've talked about before, where at the average American is just
so fundamentally more in intelligent, more capable of seeing issues as they ought to
be seen, seeing the moral importance of issues than any of our leads.
And I think that's a big takeaway right now. Yeah, Well, that's
why I like to say it'd be good if we get back to self government,
because then people like that would actually have their voice counted. Which brings
me to I think our last subject for the day. I mean, we'll
talk more about this whole business, of course, because it's not over.
But speaking of self government, our new speaker I think has also met with
your approval this week, which is, you know, this is Scots.
Everything's coming up aces with you for a change. This is an unusual week.
Well no, I mean, I think we're in a truly horrible place
right now, but I am looking at certain places and saying, wow,
that's a good news. That was a bit unexpected. Again, the whole
thing with the German Vice chancellor. It's an interesting twist on the commentary you
and I had about that German collective guilt. If it's turned into something positive
like that, I think it should be I think it should be celebrated.
But yes, back to Mike Johnson, so he did, in fact refuse
to take up despite that despicable excuse for oh, I have no words.
I want to keep this family friendly friendly. The turtle who couldn't be any
more corrupt or despicable if he tried, wanting to go along with the Biden's
plan, Biden Administration's plan to give a huge chunk of money and divide it
up between giving one hundred million to the Palestinians for reliefing Goza giving, however,
many millions to Ukraine, giving billions, yes, sorry, billions to
Ukraine, a few billions, fourteen billion. Maybe they were going to give
to israel I forget, and you know he pushed hard for it. He
yeah, polytic with Democrats for it. But Mike Johnson said, no,
we're not doing that now. Whether it'll get through I doubt it. But
well, listeners know, in case they haven't had the news, is what
Johnson got through an Israel only aid package. At Israel only aid package paid
for Oh yes, bye, right, I mean This is the best part,
because you remember me telling you that the most important thing for me was
not aid to Israel, not monetary aid to Israel. I'm okay with the
Iron Dome being sent things like that, but I don't want to see Israel
become another Ukraine. For all the things I hate about Ukraine. But I
am perfectly I am so okay with the idea of cutting the funding from those
additional eighty seven thousand IRS agents and using that funding to pay for more aid
to Israel. I just think that's beautiful. Yeah. So he held all
the Republicans but two together, and he got a dozen Democrats to vote for
it. So Schumer is saying, we're not even going to vote on this
in the Senate. Okay, that's gonna be the Senate's fault. But Israel's
not getting the aid. Let them live with that. So and they can
complain about Ukraine not getting the aid, but nobody cares about that. Nobody
care. So I'm serious. Yeah, I really mean it. I mean
And then McConnell got up and made the same argument that our friend and who's
right about most everything else, even if she's wrong about this, we shouldn't
be so upset about sending all this money to Ukraine because because so much of
it goes back into our defense contractors, which helps communities. Minds your pocket.
Yeah, I know, you know, I know. But anyway,
so there's my little bit of positive. I am, like you, distressed
at how widespread the protests, the pro Palestinian anti Israel protests around the world
became in our own country. It's it's really, it's very upsetting. This
week, this month is Hispanic Heritage Month. So I got some stupid email
from somebody in the university and I sent back, where's your statement condemning himas
But I heard I heard nothing. Yeah, I heard nothing. Imagine that,
Steve. Yeah, that's not loud. I mean yeah. The funny
thing is is that the issue that you've been harping on harp I shouldn't say
like that, because it's not harping. It's it's actually it's a thoughtful theme
of yours, which is we really need to understand are what freedom of speech
is and what its purpose is. And you know the what is it is?
It Canavan's book purposes Limit. Yeah, well, Frank Canavan, who
really was running off I think, is starting with and dilating the point Jaffa
made and his famous essay from sixty plus years ago in the Nature of Civil
Religious Liberty. And you know, I've tried to state that point a few
times. When I think I've mangled it, it's because it's kind of subtle,
and I don't do a very good job very subtle. Yeah, well
we should go on. We will take it up. Yeah, we'll take
it up in a more serious way. But we've run out of time for
today, so we've gone way over. So you've got some bee stuff.
I've got a I've got a sort of a canialism, uh, I say,
cannibalism catalysts. Yeah. Well, she gave a speech on artificial intelligence
this week, which is a joke right there. But apparently, or maybe
it was last week, but she said, AI is kind of a fancy
thing. I know, I know. Oh my God, have a fancy
thing. Oh this is great stuff. Yeah, the gift that keeps on
giving. You got some bees for us? Yeah, I do. And
I'm just going to keep it short this time, so we may never know
exactly what Hamas wants, says reporter in front of Hamas holding exterminate juice sign.
Yeah, you know, I mean, geez again, the moral clarity.
I do have to tell you that this. I'm going to do this
anyway. But the Babylon be headline on the night that the Texas Rangers won
the World Series God Rewards only team that doesn't have a Pride night, right
the World Series win. I think that's true too, Yeah, it is
true. Yeah. Actually that's why it came out before that they were the
only ones that didn't have a Pride night. And you know what, that's
okay. Palestinian protester tries to argue with Skinhead, but they just agree on
everything. That's a neglected point. I mean, remember how the world I
mean, we just we went to deaf Con one when you know what a
one hundred and twenty five I mean, I call them losers. I think
upset some readers, you know, Charlottesville with their tiki torches chanted Jewish shall
not replace us in the world. Oh my god, it was like the
greatest morals in America. Suddenly we're not hearing that now, are we?
And I think we know why? Yeah, of course we know why.
And I do I have no more babylonbies. I'll let that go, but
I do have a comment. And this was based upon talking to someone I
know. We were we were commenting about the videos of people taking down the
photos the posters of kidnapped, that people being held hostage, not detained,
being held hostage, kidnapped and held hostage in Gaza. And one of the
things that she pointed out to me, being a intelligence person, is that
they were not taking those down and sort of crumpling them up and throwing them
in the trash or anything like that. They were taking them down and stacking
them. Look at some of the videos, holding on to them. And
based upon her experience, it's in Afghanistan. Uh, that's what happens when
somebody's paying you to do it, because you go back and say, look
how many Oh interesting, yes, and so I again, why they would
be paying someone to do that is no mystery, of course, But who
is it? Iran is it? Who is doing this? Who is paid?
You know, cutter, It's hard to it could be more than you
know, it could who knows, but it is interesting watch and see take
a look at some of those videos because they're everywhere. You know, you
can see them all over Twitter, you can see them all over everywhere,
and you know. Some of them, of course, are crushing, and
some of are just dumb, ideal, you know, stupid ideologues. But
others I think are a little bit ideologues and getting paid interesting. Yeah wow,
all right, do you want to do the thing? I'll do a
little, and you do a little. Okay, first of all, because
I'm at work, and and Steve got going a little bit earlier, and
he's had a rough day. He doesn't even have a whiskey in front of
him. I'm going to remind him we are drinking the whiskey. We have
always been drinking, and that time to drink the whiskey is every day.
I know, I messed it up a little, that's all right. I'm
always drink your whiskey. Meat, don't forget to serve to don't guess a
soft serve power dividend. See, we're rusted all this. Yeah, boy
man, oh man, either that. I'm tired. Okay, your turn,
the rest of them. Let's go Brandon and God save the Queen man.
Bye bye, everybody. We think we'll d you back next week.
We hope so. Because it makes some people mad, but it makes other
people happy. By Ricochet joined the conversation