answering questions from the house of commons. andersen brower talks about her new book on the relationship between presidents and vice presidents. ♪ >> this week, university of pennsylvania law professor amy whacks. she talks about -- amy wax. on talks about free speech university campuses in the united states. brian: before i ask you questions about why we asked you to come here, i want to go through your background. where are you from? in: i was born and raised new york, in a small city near albany in upset new york.

my parents are both deceased now but were part of a very cohesive ofish community up there fairly devout people, conservative, orthodox jews in that area. my father worked in the garment industry. he eventually bought a small andness, a factory up there worked very hard his whole life to support his family, my two sisters and me. my mother was a teacher for a while and an administrator in the government in albany. i kind of come from the middle bourgeoisie, people who are not very well-connected or in any way, i think, privileged. so i regard myself kind of as a working-class girl, certainly as

a human class girl -- yeoman class girl. i went to college at yell college in the early 1970's, which was when yale was just beginning to accept women. i majored in physics and biochemistry. on an went to oxford marshall scholarship to study philosophy. i attended harvard medical school. i did a year of harvard law -- law seemedlly to really attractive to me so i decided to continue to pursue it. i ended up at the justice department under the reagan and bush administration and the office of the solicitor general, which handles all of the united states business before the supreme court of the united states, a very exciting place to be, a really wonderful shop in

the justice department. i then started teaching law at the university of virginia law school. after about seven years, i moved to the university of pennsylvania law school. i have been an appellate practitioner. i have worked in medicine. and i have been an academic, a legal academic. said: go back to what you about being part of the bourgeoisie. amy: i had reason to think hard about what that word means. part of the reason i have become infamous, in my small way, is i published an op-ed about bourgeois values. my understanding of bourgeois values is a set of presets or habits are guidelines that middle-class people in the west, especially in the anglo sphere, have developed a need to us and a code and a set of actresses --

practices which is suited to democratic capitalism. one can make a list of the bourgeois virtues and values. i feel that my family was very self-consciously invested in those values. they were adherents, i guess you beingsay, including hard-working, being law-abiding, trustworthiness, frugality, restraint,nctuality, prudence, all of these good things that make for a flourishing within a particular context, which is ours. brian: when you talk about your parents, where did they come from or your family? amy: they came from eastern europe. were immigrants during the first part of the 20th century, part of that wave of jewish immigration from russia and

eastern europe. brian: but as someone with a lot getducation, when did you originally interested in learning? amy: i can't remember a time when i was not interested in learning. my parents were not super well-educated. my mother did eventually get a college degree. my father worked for an associate degree at night. they did not start out their life terribly well-educated. but they clearly revered learning and a certain kind of intellectual rigor and honesty, a searching approach to the truth, to empiricism, to facts and arguments and logic. operandi,heir modus the way they approach the world. and also irreverence for all the high achievements of

civilization in art and music and literature. so i recall very distinctly that attitude being imparted to me and in all sorts of ways, big and small. brian: when you went to yale, what did you study in undergrad? molecularored in biophysics and biochemistry, an interdisciplinary major. philosophy,tudied literature -- philosophy of literature, history. -- iconsciously and consciously and deliberately familiarized myself with the western 10. i guess you could say my heritage, my tradition. one of my favorite courses in college was victorian poetry, which was really so much more

than victorian poetry. i mentioned to a friend of mine, an enlistment, quite literate, a poem by lord tennyson called marianna."- " he had never heard of it. he told me that i out-tennysonedmhim. i wanted to know what the great -- out-tennysoned him. i wanted to know what they great knowledge was. at the -- yale, whathe end of did you do? oxford, adied at

new undergraduate program that had been launched called ppp. undergraduate and all of this was by way of trying to decide whether science continue on in or go in another direction, perhaps philosophy. i did decide to go on to medicine, although that is not what i ended up doing at the end of the day. i guess you could say i drifted off into another area. really by way of the justice department. brian: did you get your medical degree? host: -- amy: i did. neurology. brian: so you could have been in meteorologist. amy: that was an option. brian: when did you give that up and why? amy: that was a long time ago. it is hard for me to reconstruct exactly why.

i think the main reason is that i was temperamentally not terribly well-suited for the practice of medicine. whennow, what you learn you start in one field and and up in another is that the reasons why one feel this suitable to you and others may not be can often be a rather humble reason, like gesture personality or that kind of floatsthat you are, what your boat, what you look forward to when you wake up in the morning, your temperament. i was not really a people person. i was more of an idea person, which doesn't mean that i don't enjoy people. but i don't think i get the kind of pleasure and satisfaction from helping people that maybe we associate with the female a hoary-- that is cliche because there are many

men who are that way and many women who are not. so i found that law was more compelling and satisfying for me. it is interesting because it helps me advise young people that i have done both things, young people who are trying to decide, often grappling with decisions about which direction they should go in. in many casit cases, it is under parental pressure. there is familial and parental pressure to enter one field rather than the other, something that i, myself, felt when i was younger. so i am entirely sympathetic to what they are going through and i try to help them make the some veryy asking simple questions about themselves, and what they like, what they enjoy, moment by moment, day by day, our right our. and every field involves -- hour

by hour. and every field involves its tedium. which irritations you find the least irritating? and what compensation do you find more compensating? 20, 21-year-olds are not always equipped to make those decisions. brian: so you got your medical degree from? amy: harvard. brian: did you ever practice? amy: i did a residency in urology. neurology. i faced the challenge of pay my tuition. period of excluding tuition started to take off. that therobably aware

cost of higher education has increased dramatically. in the 1980'sady and i had to work pt time to put myself through law school. so i had to work in clinics in the south bronx and in brooklyn, hmos actually, surge of -- some of the fledgling hmos, to put myself through columbia law school. brian: so your degree in law is from columbia. amy: yes. brian: what was your experience like working for professor meckler. amy: he is a terrific person, a true -- a great judge. he was very nice to his clerks, the highest intellectual

caliber. co-clerkserks -- my were also wonderful. i cherished that it variants -- that experience. i don't think he and i saw eye to eye politically. although, at that point in my life, that was back in the 1980's, i wasn't particularly politically aware. i didn't think about politics all that much. and i think the general .tmosphere was polarized so judges and clerks didn't really have to match up. that clerks feeling had to be an the same page or have the same ideas. the notion was that law was this autonomous field that should be depoliticized as much as possible. and that was the right we to do it.

so we got along just fine. enjoyed that experience. was was the year that bork nominated and was going through his hearing. little-known fact that bore, who at thethe d.c. circuit time, and bork was still hearing cases, they were very close friends. they had gone to law school together at chicago. so borg was frequently in the .ffice privy to these conversations, but it was striking that they clearly were robertose friends and bork trusted him.

brian: how did you get your job in the solicitor general's office under -- which president? reagan. charles friede was the solicitor general at the time. ked into a summer internship at the solicitor's office while i was at columbia law school. i had a visiting professor from chicago who is rather famous and prolific. i had taken a couple of courses with him. he had said to me it's clear that you love to argue. he said you should really think about doing an internship at the justice department at the solicitor general's office. the solicitor general is the master litigator for the united states government and everybody in the office is devoted to that mission. and i applied and got the job. so i sent -- spent a summer

there. charles freed, people in the office, and they asked me to come back on the permanent staff after my clerkship was over. i was quite a challenge because i was very green. i was a newly minted lawyer. i did not have a lot of experience. i did not have any litigation experience. it was a little reckless on charles freed's part. but i learned the ropes. i argued 15 cases before the court during my tenure there. i participated in all the activities. most wonderful, the best years of my life. i can honestly say that. the people there were really wonderful all-around. they were the smartest people i ever worked with. they were people of very high integrity. the office is how -- highly

collegial atmosphere, like none other. in a mutualinvolved endeavor, which is to do our very best for the government before the supreme court. the supreme court trusts the solicitor general's office, and the office tries to repay that high trust. and i think that they do. brian: 15 times you argued before the supreme court. do you remember the first time and what was it like? amy: yes, i do. it was quite exhilarating, because it is a grand privilege to argue before the supreme court. not very many people get to do it. it was a rather humble case involving a technical question, on social security benefits and how the government collects and benefits,ial security but obviously very, very important to many people because

the social security program is enormous. it's massive. a lot of money was involved. what struck me about the experience was that it is a very intimate one. the court room is relatively small. the advocates are right up in front of the bench. thatf the challenges is you are so close that it is hard to see all of the justices at once. you kind of have to turn your head and make sure you are monitoring the situation. and it is a performance. that is another thing you realize. ground great training for any kind of performance the you will ever have to deliver. and anything in your past life that involved performance is preparation for it. so when i was an adolescent in

troy, in high school, i was on the pno competition circuit. competitionno circuit. i was an amateur pianist. i participated in these competitions and occasionally win a competition. i drew on that experience the most, i think, in preparing to argue before the supreme court, because there is this trajectory of focus, of concentration, of preparation, of developing , ofledge and expertise getting comfortable with what you are about to do that for that it isrethought a common feature in any kind of performance you are preparing for and planning. supposed to sound

spontaneous, but in fact, if you haven't planned every answer to every question, if you are at all surprised, then you have fallen short in your preparation to argue before the supreme court. how long have -- brian: how long have you been teaching at the university of pennsylvania. host: said -- amy: since 2001. it is in philadelphia. it is an ivy league school. brian: how many students and how many professors at the law school? amy: students, i don't know the press ice number -- precise number. i think it is on the smaller side for an elite law school. it is something like maybe 700, 600. that mean i be quite accurate. that's my guess. for professors, we have a relatively small faculty. 50 tenure-track

full-time faculty. , manye many adjuncts people from the community, the law community in philly, which is quite a distinct one, , variouspart-time courses at our law school. brian: with that background, let me get to the reason we asked you to come talk. this is march 18, 2018, this year. it is written by heather mcdonnell with the manhattan institute. penneadline on it is "the law school mob scores a victory." mob has scored a hit. professor amy whacks on the longer -- i will stop there. what is that about?

amy: there is a hole saw the that leads up to it. i can try to give you the short form. i still haven't figured it all i think ity because ties into some broader themes of what is happening to our society generally and to the university sector in particular. back onit all began august 9 when i co-published a little, and not u.s. op-ed -- in .culus op-ed my co-author, larry alexander, and i talked about i'vebourgeois script that mentioned, some basic precepts losshavior, and have the of common fealty and adherence to those behaviors as the hallmark of mature dolt would, which we had identified as

taking place over the past 30 to 40 years in our country, and the concomitant result in change of behavior we thought inflicted some damage on our country, not being the only thing that happened, but something was important. in effect that standards of behavior had declined and all of us were paying the price for that in various ways. behaviors wehe talked about was respect for law, criminality, which has leveled off to some extent, although there is the question of whether the figures are accurate, but certainly saw nature medicine's surge in the surge and 1970's -- saw in the 1960's and 1970's.

the breakdown of the family that many children in some quarters, most children are born out of wedlock. they are not raised in intact families. that people use profanity quite liberally, that patriotism is out of fashion, that there is an adversarial relationship very often between employers and employee. we sort of made a list of -- we should have added a decline in thrift and frugality, which is quite dramatic. ,nd all of these put together we have taken a hit from it. it in you first published the philadelphia inquirer. amy: we also said this that ruffled a lot of people, that not all cultures are alike.

trying to tap into behavior that is suited to our democratic capitalist society and compare it to other cultures which are not as functional. we gave some examples. that immediately caused a firestorm. there werext day, protests and petitions. social media contributed so much to this. people were going to my dean and objecting and saying this was a white supremacist talk, racist talk, xena phobic -- putting xenophobic -- putting all sorts of labels on it. they signed a statement condemning the op-ed, it is injurious, harmful, racist. an interview quite

unwisely the next day. it was for the student newspaper. that added fuel to the fire because the interviewer basically accused me of being a white supremacist, saying that whites were superior. i very naively tried to correct him and said that was not at all what i was saying. i was saying that a certain culture that came out of a european heritage is really and low saxon heritage, the anglo sphere was our heritage and a higher function of heritage. and the functional superiority of it is measured by the fact that everybody wants to live in europe. to europe, not to venezuela, not to southeast asia. the proof in the pudding is in the eating. we discovered something. we worked something out which

works really well. and is came out as europeans are superior because migrants want to go to europe, which is not that far from what i was saying, but many people found extremely offensive in the current climate. as my husband said, you pushed the western sieve button. what i learned is that one is not allowed to praise the achievements of the west. movehas become a suspect in the intellectual game. that is what people objected to it. tell. as i can i am not entirely sure because i am not of that mindset. brian: this is back in august of 2017. there is a dorothy roberts, a sarah barringer gordon, a serena

, sophia lee, tobias barrington wolf. who are they? amy: those are my colleagues. there were multiple pieces published and letters and protests published. is an attempt by for historians on the faculty to write a substantive response to our peace. i did not object to that piece. i did not agree with it at all. i thought the argument was transparent really fallacious. bourgeois hold true in the 1950's, which was the high water mark of it, in our country, they objected to that. as far as i could reproduce their argument, their argument was you can't praise the 1950's because the 1950's were a time sexism,archy, racism,

mistreatment of minorities, terrible things happened during the 1950's, discrimination was ergo there was nothing good about it. i consider that a complete non sequitur. they seem to be making an argument that the only reason the 1950's were good for the people it's -- they were good for a was because they mistreated all these other people, which is a very strange argument to make. if we stop mistreating people, things will be as good? i don't know what they were trying to get at. brian: let me read what they said, some of what they said.

well, as a factual depiction of the 1950's, that is accurate. we actually said in our op-ed there were detriments, there were flaws in that period, which has since been corrected. but what they seem to be saying, that i disagree with, is those were core in the sense that the bourgeois virtues and the ability and willingness to practice bourgeois virtues were dependent on keeping all of these people down. and that is a very odd argument and i don't agree with it. period and of the were not of the period

inextricably linked in the way that that piece suggests. it is entirely possible, in my mind, to revive and practice some of the virtuous behaviors and cycles that we associate with the 1950's without attaching to it the kind of discrimination, inequality, and bigotry that the period also example five. -- exemplified. you can point to an example. let's take an example. just in the area of family breakdown, right? the upper middle class today, whites, asians mainly, because minorities have always had effectfamilies, they, in , have 1950's-type patterns. they are married added a very high rate.

their marriage is endured. there children grow up in traditionally two-parent families. they are highly traditional in the way they conduct their family lives relative to the rest of society. they are this little bastion of the 1950's. they married later and after a period of sexual experience case in. that hasn't changed from the 1950's. but they also believe in diversity and inclusion. they abhor bigger tea -- bigotry. they are onboard board with the abolition of all sorts of nefarious discrimination and sexism that we have effectuated both culturally and legally. that is an example of being able to have it both ways. i think this op-ed is saying you can't have it both ways. why not? brian: after the university of pennsylvania and newspaper published the stories, when did

it hit "the wall street journal" ? 9 i wrote -- amy: i wrote an op-ed for them after this initially enfolded. -- unfolded. it spread like wildfire. a lot of people wrote about it. there were a lot of comments. there was a very critical event, which was something of a watershed, which was that 33 of my colleagues at penn law signed newspaper,lso in the condemning and categorically rejecting all of my claims and statements, condemning everything that i had said, i guess, in this op-ed and subsequently, categorically rejecting everything that i said. no argument, no reasons given, no logic to it, just under out

right bald condemnation and categorical rejection. 33. and it was instigated by one person in particular. that really reacted to very negatively. i thought this was a fundamental betrayal of academic values. and i don't use the term free speech because i think that is the wrong term. it is the wrong term for a number of reasons. first of all, the free speech rights that we all value so much ado not apply against ivan institutions. people forget that -- against private institutions. people forget that. institutions have to adhere to a free speech code. private institutions can fire you for whatever they want. we have this implement at will. technically, i have no free-speech rights. i have tenure.

that is something different. and they have the free-speech right to categorically reject all my claims. and the students have the right to call me a racist and a sexist and a xenophobe and a white supremacist. this is not a matter of rights. brian: what happened on a personal basis? what was it like in the hallways of penn law school for you? of all,hink -- first the 33 people who signed it didn't necessarily treat me and a friendly way. what is striking is that none of them that came to talk to me -- none of them came to talk to me about why they signed it. and after it was released, it was released with very little notice to me. it was all done in secrecy. there was not any forthrightness about it. in fact, it was formulated and

circulated in a way that was designed to keep me from knowing about it. that in itself is telling. -- ander it was telling after it was published, one person came to explain to me why he signed it. it became immediately apparent that he did not really categorically reject all my claims. disagree withly every darn thing that we had said in the op-ed. i mean, how could they? if they read their own children this way, i mean, the hypocrisy here is stunning. the inconsistency here is incredible. the one person came said what you said was sort of nazi talk. these are crude rationales for signing a condemnation. brian: what about the professor you ran into after the summer and you asked what kind of a

summer that you have -- if you could tell that story. amy: after this condemnation and a number of conversations, the few i had with people on the faculty that were very hostile, very negative towards what i had written, i decided that i would write a piece for "the wall street journal." i initially gave an invited speech to hildale college. they have a center here. i recounted my experience and why i thought people had behaved inappropriately in an academic setting, given what the academy is supposed to stand for and how they are supposed to conduct themselves. this whole saga fell far short of that standard. and someone who read that piece sent it to "the wall street shoulder -- "the wall street

and said you should publish this because it is a blow-by-blow account of what is going on all around the country, ,he kinds of responses unorthodox, what is considered a deviation from the progressive catechism, the dogma, the politically correct mind, what kind of response it elicits these days more and more. so i wrote this piece for "the wall street journal" in which i recounted my experiences around this op-ed and some of the stories i told, the few conversations ahead with my colleagues. one involved going up to a theeague in the street summer immediately after i published this, two weeks later, and greeting him and him giving me a hostile look and say, well, actually, my summer has been terrible. and i said why?

and he said, because of you, because of your op-ed and what you wrote, which i consider an attack on our school, an attack on our students. attack, ofguage of harm, damage, by expressing an opinion that people don't like, you have inflicted an injury. i found that very striking and frankly rather frightening, if the truth be told, and quite emblematic in the way the left is now responding to any sort of dissent, and especially one that trenches on identity grievance politics, which of course is everywhere and has infected everything. brian: go back to the dean. what kind of power does the dean have? amy: his response to the op-ed

was to immediately announce through his spokesperson that my opinions were not endorsed by the law school, which should be understood. and also, he saw fit to publish his own op-ed, saying we reject -- i rejected the position that one culture is better than all others, which is unresponsive to what we said and a distortion of what we said. that has been the hallmark of this entire saga, selective quotations, distortion, restatement, dishonesty of that sort. but in terms of his power, he has the power to assign courses teachand control what i and my schedule and the like. he has a fair amount of power to control my professional life. what he does not have the power to do is fire me entirely because i have tenure.

and according to the rules of the professional organization that we are a member of, i guess the american university professors society, the association of american law schools, and all of these, i have to continue to be employed and i have to continue to be paid my salary, at least my base salary. and the only grounds on which i think, ourd, i professional misconduct, egregious professional misconduct or various forms of criminal behavior. brian: so what did he do? how did he level a penalty on you? well, in the immediate aftermath of my initial article, here is instead many calls to both strip me of first year mandatory classes and fire me as

a general matter. mandatorye reason why classes became a pressure point is that students are assigned to a particular professor in the first year of law school. there is a fixed curriculum of courses that students have to take. they are basically told what they have to take and who will be teaching it. so that is an exception to the rule in academia that students get to pick what they want to take and the like. there are requirements as undergraduates as well, but a lot more leeway in deciding who your teacher will be. wethe students thought should be required to sit in this woman's classroom. students shouldn't have to be taught by her because she is clearly a racist and it is harmful, it is uncomfortable, it is damaging -- once again, that emotionalsubjective,

harm, trauma, this language that all the students have learned to use, all the psychologizing, pedagogy -- that's a damaging to us. so a lot of pressure to take me out of the first year. the initially resisted that pressure, i think in part because i am a good civil procedure professor. i'm one of three professors in the university that got something called the limbach tries a couple of years back -- limbach prize a couple of years back. that may have been part of the motivation. i don't know. thathere was a denouement the students, especially the black students association, really set their face against me. they went on a trolling operation to look back through my entire record to find something that would get me removed or fired.

thishat they found was five minutes of an interview i had with glenn lowry. brian: let's watch it. this is 48 seconds. amy: this is my fire rebel offense. this: glenn lowry runs blog he has tv show. you are at penn? amy: and i was on it several times. brian: people can watch any of these. let's just watch these 48 seconds. [video clip] here is a very inconvenient fact. i don't think i have ever seen a black student graduate in the top quarter of the class and rarely, rarely in the top half. i can think of one or two the top half in my

first year course. what are we supposed to do about that? you're putting in front of this person a real upheld battle. and if they were better matched, it might be a better environment for them. that's the mismatch hypothesis, of course. we are not saying they shouldn't go to college. some of them shouldn't. brian: what do you mean by better match? amy: i mean that their incoming credentials, law school admission test score, and gpa, that is college grade average, which are the main parameters and criteria that admissions officers use for law school law school and admissions is highly quantitative or has been until very recently, the minority the underrepresented

minority students at top law schools, let's say the top 10, their numbers are significantly lower than the numbers of other students who get admitted and come to the law school. there is a gap. brian: when you grade somebody in your law class, do you know -- in the old days, they used to be luvox. the professor would not -- they used to be blue books. professor would not ever they are. no, in the first year, the critical grant them by far the most of it in grade, we have blind grading. date is called blind grading. the students are assigned a number. they write the number on their exam or their blue book. and i give an ejected -- an objective exam. if i asked multiple-choice or shorter questions, i so that the same distribution. test of a pretty good

knowledge, how much the student had studied, how much learned. i have no idea who i am assigning a particular grade two when i assign it. i give it to the registrar. she registers the grade. and then she underlines below -- unblinds the list. i find out after the fact who got the grade. at that point, i cannot change the grade. the reason they are unblinded for us, the professors, because we are in the position of recommending to organizations that are hiring these people how they did in our class. we have to write recommendations. and if we request it -- but we have to request it -- we are even given the rank in class. there are some judges, the most elite and sought-after, who want

to know where the students rank in the class. brian: and the school does not publish the grades or the ranking of any of the students in penn law school? amy: they have become increasingly secretive about the grades. when i was in harvard law school in ancient times, the grades were posted. class was open information. the larvae was determined strictly by rank and class. confidentialre not or words considered such. not an open effort to disclose them. but people thought nothing of imparting that information. brian: we need to get when lowery's response to you in that interview. [video clip] >> do you have a racial diversity mandate?

amy: yes. brian: so you're saying that students of color are at the bottom? i haven't done the survey. gave theng about [indiscernible] i see a big chunk of students every year. so i am going on that. grades are a closely guarded secret, as i'm sure you are aware. brian: what is a solution to what you are talking about? amy: first, you have to decide there is a problem. brian: does anybody think there is a problem? amy: one of the distortions that has come out of this tiny clip, which is completely taken out of context, is the conclusion that i am completely adamantly and

totally against affirmative action and that i have some kind of crusade going about that. i don't. my attitude towards affirmative-action, like any conservativehool is, it has pros and cons, benefits. we are not going to bring about utopia because every benefit, every upside has a downside. are going tof we have this kind of social engineering, which is what it is, if we are going to have this policy, we should at least be honest about it and it value eight it on the facts. it used to be that, when people discussed affirmative-action and thought about it, whether it was a good idea or a bad idea, they were pretty forthright about the facts.

have doubled down and tripled down and decided that even discussing the facts, the actual questions of disparities of academic achievement going in and the resulting academic achievement that comes out of it, performance beyond school for affirmative action admits, that all of the subjects are for for bid in. to even talk about it is racist. we have gotten ourselves into the situation of denial as a test of moral virtue. this involves us in some bizarre contradictions. i've been talking about this around the country. on the one hand, every good person believes in affirmative-action. if you are against affirmative action for underperforming minorities, and we know who we are talking about here, we are

about blacks, to some extent asians don'tcause need affirmative-action, indians donate affirmative action because they are doing well. doingy cases, they are better than the white population. we are talking about underperforming minorities. you have to be for affirmative action. but if you get down to discussing why we need affirmative action, which is blacks and hispanics lag behind in test scores, in academic knowledge and academic performance, even mentioning that is dangerous because that is considered an insult to students, a denigration, putting which in, an attack, consider bizarre. it's not an attack. it's a report.

and then, to talk about once they get to a very competitive istitution, how did they do, their performance catching up or does it continue to lag behind, does the myth of affirmative-action, which is once you get there, everything is fine, is it a myth or does it is their magic dirt for these institutions where we just bring people in and all of the deficits are erased? you certainly can't talk about that. dean says,that the on the one hand, everything she is saying is false. everything i'm saying is false? i have a whole filing cabinet of my grades in civil procedure for 20 years, and i will sit here and tell you what i said about the performance of black students in my class for the past 20 years is not false. all right? i don't know about the rest of the school.

as i admitted, i am not privy to this information because it is kept secret. but on the other hand, he says, we don't keep records aires. we don't even -- by race. we don't even have this information so he cannot possibly disclose it. brian: do you believe it? amy: there is a contradiction and no one has called them on a contradiction. brian: what is it you believe they don't know? i believe they could easily amy: -- i believe it could easily compile that information. i don't know when i am returning. the dean has not communicated with me since he told me that he was stripping me of my first your responsibilities. i have become persona non grata. brian: why do you stay there? amy: i have a very good job.

they pay me very well. , youther reason i stay know, i get to write and think and i have a lot of projects underway right now. and there is a core of students who i think i am very important it. brian: do you expect any student to boycott your classes in the fall? amy:. yes. i think that is definitely going to occur -- amy: yes. goingk that is definitely to occur. i teach a seminar in conservative and legal thought, for which there was a waiting list this year. there are students at penn law who are hungry for a broader exposure to a range of ideas, which are more and more systematically excluded from the elite academy. 50 full-time professors at the loss will, how

many of them are conservative? point, well, conferred a bit -- conservative is a rather buggy concept. brian: how many are right of center? amy: maybe 4, 3 or four. i do want to speak for the dean, but i would say that many people on the faculty think that purging the faculty of people who don't subscribe to hardline progressive ideas, except maybe in the economics sphere, where they are willing to tolerate more range of opinion, that purging a lot of so-called right-wing ideas is a great thing, because those ideas are errant. they are wrong.

and they are morally suspect. not only are they false, but they are immoral. this is a new era that we have now. opinion has become moralized. and dissent is a kind of insult or an assault or an attack. so we have a new rhetorical moralizationhich and the language of harm has become the leverage of discourse and ideas. brian: amy whacks is a professor of law at the university -- amy wax is a professor of law at the university of virginia. although we talked about today is on google and other locations. thank you for being here. amy: well, thank you. ♪ >> for free transcripts or to

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on capitol hill and the white house. todd harrison will talk about president trump's call for a creation of us is force is any military branch. be sure to watch c-span's washington journal live at 7:00 eastern monday morning. joined the discussion. bus is traveling across the country on our 50 capitals tour. it is on its 30 if stop in a juneau, alaska, asking folks what the most important issue is. >> the most important issue facing alaska is that we are in the middle of a budget crisis. we are used to having a lot of oil money come in, but as a result of lower oil prices, we aren't getting the revenue that we are used to. there are other revenue streams that need to happen, but it doesn't seem to be happening very fast. i think there are political reasons why people are worried about implementing taxes.

but without additional revenue coming in, the alaskans are facing a lot of crises in a lot of areas. one is a opioid and substance abuse crisis. the more the economy goes down, the more people get upset and artisan their lives in the us are not living there lives in a with your happy with. so they end up. getting destitute and turning to self-medicating. >> i think the most important issue is child hunger and taking care of children. they're all links to poverty. we went down in child hunger a few years ago but now we are going way back. we have to stop giving our money to the oil companies and start spending it on children for the future -- who are the future. >> one of our big issues is the tourism industry. and is a huge chunk of our economy, growing by leaps and bounds. we are very concerned about the

at aty to promote juno nationwide level, especially since children and tourism is a bright spot in our economy. as far as i can see come i have been here one week. one of the big social service issues i see here is homelessness. they are trying to combat it in the city, since a lot of them aren't actively seeking help. the ones that are seen to be moving from place to place looking for the different types of aid they can get. it seems like what are the big issues is that homelessness command how we can fight it here in the state. >> i am the executive director of the executive council of administrators. the most important thing in alaska is to get a long-term sustainable fiscal plan for our state, which has ongoing revenue

outside of our nonrenewable resources. really primarily, because we need to stabilize education across the state. our educators need to feel that their funding which is a constitutional duty in alaska is stable, so that they can stabilize the schools and most important for all of us can much a educate our students. the best way to do that is a stable school. >> we sure to join us july 21 and 22nd, when we feature our alaska. watch a alaska weekend on c-span.org and listen on the free c-span radio app. announcer: next, british prime minister to resume a takes questions from members -- to takes questions from members of the house of commons. then, at 11 p.m., another

professor amy see wax talking about free speech on college campuses. during her weekly question time session, british prime minister may answered several questions on detentions along the u.s.-mexico border. the uk's immigration policy, national security issues and how brexit is impacting the u.s. economy. this is just under one hour. order.r, questions to the prime minister. dr. alan whitehead. >> thank you. >>hear, hear. though the mr. speaker. mr. speaker, yesterday, marked widely -- one year since the attack on the mosque.

a cowardly attack intended to divide us, but we will not let this happen. we have been joined by the imam at the mosque, and i am sure members from across the house will join me in paying tribute to his extraordinary bravery. >> hear, hear. pm. may: mr. speaker, friday is a second anniversary of the of the wind rushed. it is right we recognize and honor the enormous contribution of the wind rush generation. that is why we have announced an annual wind rush day, which will keep an i on the legacy for future generations, and make sure we all celebrate the diversity of reasons history. mr. speaker, this morning i had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others, and in addition to my duties in this house, i shall have further such meetings later today. >> dr.alan whitehead. >> i can concur with the prime minister in her remarks concerning the terrorist attack

on the finsbury mosque. it is right that we should remember that when you're on, and the weather we are in riyadh could i ask the prime minister, following the agreements that were signed up to by the united kingdom at the paris climate change summit, will she now commit to a new united kingdom climate change target of zero net emissions before 2050? >>hear, hear. pm. may: can i say to the honorable gentleman that the united kingdom has been leading the way in relations. dealing with the issue on climate change. it was the united kingdom that was the first country to bring in the piece of legislation that related to this and this government has a good record in dealing with these issues. crucially, we have ensured that we do remain committed to the paris accord, and i would pay , my right those

honorable of friends, the members of hastings and ride hope it a very key role of ensuring that the paris accord was agreed and signed up to. >> simon hall. >> thank you, mr. speaker. dorsett is the home of the jurassic -- that my right honorable friend will be pleased to know it is not full of dinosaurs. [laughter] all of my north dorsett constituents want to ensure the safety and dignity of women. as a husband and father, i do too. will she confirmed that she will make the horror of -- 13 illegal quickly? pm. may: thank you. i can reassure my honorable friend come i agree with him.

is a hideous invasion of privacy. it leaves victims feeling degraded and distressed. we will adopt, we will adopt this as a government bill. we were introduced a to the commons this thursday with the second reading before the summer recess. but we're not stopping there. we will also ensure that the most serious offenders are added to the sex offenders register. and victims should be in no doubt that their complaints will be taken seriously and proper tutors will be punished. >> jeremy corbyn. >>hear, hear. jeremy corbyn: thank you very much, mr. speaker. i join my fellow friends in welcoming the imam for coming here today, and for the enormous humanity and presence of mine he showed that terrible day euros ago when he prevented violence from breaking out on the streets of my constituents the. i thank him and all religious leaders in the commodity who did so much to bind people together. as a country, we should band together in condemning racism in any form whenever it arises.

mr. speaker, i am pleased that the feminist are mentioned the wind rush generation. i too, join her in commemorating that. we hope that hostile environment will be put find us, and that we will take the special moment today to welcome the daughter of the wind rushed generation is a new member of this house, member mays.liament, felicia she brings in and i must experience in this house in dealing with the problems of poverty in her borrow and she orough,ke -- in her broug will make a tremendous impact on this house. today, we mark world refugee day. there was a responsibility on all political leaders to both aid refugees and help to tackle the crises and conflicts that are driving this vast movement of people. mr. speaker, the prime minister said -- [laughter]

>> thank you, the prime minister said ask to funding for the national health service will come from resources like exit, economic growth and the taxation system. that can me know brexit dividend before 2020 two, economic growth has slowed since 2009. so which taxes are going up? before 2020 two, economic growth has slowed since 2009. prime min. may: the feminist or has mentioned a number of issues -- can i first of all take this opportunity, in saying that i was struck when i visited the park mosque after the attack and saw the wonderful work being done by faith leaders in the community. i commend them for the work that they're the doing that they're

-- i commend them for the work they are doing and which they continue to do, and we know that it is being done in other communities including my own community, in maidenhead. the right honorable gentleman ended up asking i think asking a question, on the national health service. so can i be, we have set out a long-term plan for the nhs. that is securing the future for the national health service. we have set a five-year funding settlement which will be funded, with moneys that we are no longer sending to the eu. we will be able to send to our nhs. --l the honorable members they may shut about this, but i know that that issue is not the policy of the labour party. in relation to the money we are no longer running to the eu being sent to the nhs, the shadow housing secretary called bogus. the shadow health secretary said it's a defeat. perhaps i can tell them what another labour member said a few weeks ago. he said, we will use the funds returned from brussels, after brexit, to invest in our public

services. it was him, the right honorable gentleman, the leader of the opposition. >> jeremy corbyn! speaker, and: mr. very pleased the prime minister is reading my speech is so closely. [applause] i beg that that money from the eu should be put to regions like agriculture and fishing industry support, funding for research and for university. mr. speaker, could i remind the prime minister the question i asked was, about taxation, to deal with her nhs services in the weekend? last year, she might care to forget, last summer actually, she wrote in the conservative manifesto -- firms and households cannot plan ahead

with the threat of unspecified higher taxes. by her own admission, households and businesses need to plan. so can she be straight with which taxes areopl going up, and for whom? pm. may: can i say to the right on the butch otter matt, as i said on monday, my right honorable gentleman, the chance will set up the funding package. it will be set up properly before defending review. but i am interested that the right honorable john has now confirmed that the labor artie thinks there will be money coming back from the eu. i have to say that i think it would be one circumstance in which there will be no money coming back from the european union, and that is if we adopted labour's policy of adopt a deal at whatever the price. >>hear, hear. >> jeremy corbyn. jeremy corbyn: mr. speaker, at

the weekend, the prime minister said that they would be about $600 billion pounds a week more spent on the nhs in cash. that will be through the brexit dividends. our net contribution to the eu is about 8.5 billion pounds a year. 600 million a week is over 30 of you in a year. mr. speaker, her figures are so dodgy they belong on the side of a bus. [laughter] jeremy corbyn: we do expect from the foreign secretary, but why is the prime minister pushing her own mickey mouse figures? i say to the honorable john among, he thanked readinger for his speeches. can i perhaps suggest that he or his researchers should