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Tel: 215.898.5638
Fax: 215.573.2025
Email: awax@law.upenn.edu
Expertise
- Civil Procedure
- Family Law
- Law and Economics
- Social Welfare Law and Policy
Bio
Amy Wax's work addresses issues in social welfare law and policy as well as the relationship of the family, the workplace, and labor markets.
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Amy Wax's work addresses issues in social welfare law and policy as well as the relationship of the family, the workplace, and labor markets. By bringing to bear her training in biomedical sciences and appellate practice as well as her interest in economic analysis, Wax has developed a uniquely insightful approach to problems in her areas of expertise.
In her latest work, Race, Wrongs, and Remedies: Group Justice in the 21st Century (Rowman & Littlefield, 2009), Wax argues that discrimination against blacks in the U.S. has dramatically abated and that the most important factors impeding black progress are behavioral: low educational attainment, poor socialization and work habits, drug use, criminality, paternal abandonment, and non-marital childbearing. Drawing on social science evidence and policy experience, she contends that these patterns resist correction by government programs or outside interventions; self-help, changed habits, and a new cultural outlook are the only effective tactics for eliminating vestiges of the nation’s racist past.
Wax's career has been stellar. As an Assistant to the Solicitor General in the Office of the Solicitor General at the U.S. Department of Justice in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Wax argued 15 cases before the United States Supreme Court. She taught for seven years at the University of Virginia Law School before joining the Penn Law faculty in 2001. Wax has published widely in law journals, including Chicago, Virginia, Villanova, Indiana, Emory, the Virginia Journal of Social Policy and Law, Yale Journal on Regulation and the Michigan Journal of Race and Law. Papers in press address liberal theory and welfare work requirements as well as the economics of federal disability laws. Current work in progress includes articles on law and evolutionary psychology, the political psychology of social security reform, and economic models of the family-friendly workplace. Wax has also received the A. Leo Levin Award for Excellence in an Introductory Course.
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Representative Professional Positions
Penn Law - Robert Mundheim Professor of Law (2006 -); Professor of Law (2001-06); Visiting Professor (2000)
University of Virginia Law School - Class of 1948 Professor of Scholarly Research in Law (2000-01); Professor (1999-2000); Associate Professor (1994-99)
Office of the Solicitor General, U.S. Department of Justice, Washington, D.C. - Assistant to the Solicitor General (1988-94)
Law Clerk to the Honorable Abner J. Mikva, U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, (1987-88)
Consulting Neurologist, Bronx Cross County Clinic, Bronx, New York, and Brooklyn North Medical Group (1985-87)
Resident in Neurology, New York Hospital - Cornell Medical Center (1982-85)
Representative Publications
RACE, WRONGS, AND REMEDIES: GROUP JUSTICE IN THE 21ST CENTURY, (Hoover Institution Press/Rowman and Littlefield, May 2009).
Stereotype threat: a Case of Overclaim Syndrome?, in STEREOTYPE THREAT AND UNCONSCIOUS BIAS: THE STATE OF THE RESEARCH (Christina Hoff Summers, ed., American Enterprise Institute 2009).
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The Family Law Doctrine of Equivalence, 107 MICH L. REV. __ (2009).
Basic Income and Caretaker Benefits, forthcoming in 4 BASIC INCOME STUDIES __ (2009).
Norm Change or Judicial Decree? The Courts, the Public, and Welfare Reform, 32 HARV. J. L. & PUB. POL’Y (forthcoming 2009).
The Discriminating Mind: Define It, Prove It, 40 U. CONN. L. REV. 979 (2008).
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Mothers Alone, 141 POL'Y REV. 77 (2008).
Musical Chairs and Tall Buildings: Teaching Poverty Law in the 21st Century, 34 FORDHAM URB. L.J. 1363 (2007).
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Engines of Inequality: Race, Class, and Family Structure, 41 FAM. L.Q. 567 (2007).
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Traditionalism, Pluralism, and Same-Sex Marriage, 59 RUTGERS L. REV. 377 (2007).
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Unique, Like Everyone Else, 138 POL’Y REV. 85 (2006).
Too Few Good Men, 134 POL’Y REV. 69 (Dec. 2005/Jan. 2006).
We Are All Racist at Heart, WALL ST. J., Dec. 1, 2005 (with Philip Tetlock).
The Political Psychology of Redistribution: Implications for Welfare Reform, THE POLITICS OF WELFARE REFORM (Sage Foundation Press 2005).
The Conservative’s Dilemma: Social Science, Social Change, and Traditional Institutions, 42 SAN DIEGO L. REV. 1059 (2005).
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Evolution and the Bounds of Human Nature, 23 LAW & PHIL. 527 (2004).
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Family Friendly Workplace Reform: Prospects for Change, in 596 ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY OF POLITICAL AND SOCIAL SCIENCE 36 (2004).
A Threat in the Air, WALL ST. J., Apr. 13, 2004, at A20.
Against Neutrality, 29 BOSTON REV. (2004).
Converted or Unconverted: To Whom Shall we Preach?, 12 COLUM. J. GENDER & L. 546 (2003).
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Social Welfare, Human Dignity, and the Puzzle of What We Owe Each Other, 27 HARV. J. L. & PUB. POL'Y 121 (2003).
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Disability, Reciprocity, and "Real Efficiency:" A Unified Approach, 44 WM. & MARY L. REV. 1421 (2003).
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Something for Nothing: Liberal Justice and Welfare Work Requirements, 52 EMORY L.J. 1 (2003).
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For additional publications, please consult
Current & Recent Research
Current Working Papers
Is the Family-Friendly Workplace Possible? Dynamic computer simulations using a game-theoretic model
Be All You Can Be: Data-Driven Human Capital Policy (with James Heckman)
What Teenage Girls Want: Evolution, Sex Selection, and Feminist Legal Theory
Consumer Bankruptcy as Social Welfare (with David Skeel)
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