An interview set to air on WHRW, Binghamton University’s free-format, nonprofit and student-run radio station, with conservative University of Pennsylvania Professor Amy Wax was canceled last Wednesday after a vote of the organization’s E-Board.
Wax was scheduled to be interviewed on the public affairs segment “The World According to Bob and Andy.” The show, airing on Wednesdays at 6 p.m., is hosted by Bob Kingsley ’80 and Andy Harrison and covers a variety of topics from a conservative perspective. The hosts said they were informed of the cancellation 10 minutes before their broadcast began.
“We were informed as we entered the studio today, that the powers that be that control the radio station had decided in a vote, apparently, that our guest was not going to be allowed to be aired,” Kingsley said on that evening’s broadcast.
They moved to discuss the upcoming election and censorship on college campuses, with Harrison commenting on the lack of political diversity among university faculty. He said institutions of higher education perpetuate the same narratives, leaving little room for conflicting opinions — referencing a survey of 1,000 professors that indicated 78 percent would vote for Vice President Kamala Harris, while 8 percent would vote for former President Donald Trump, which he said raises questions about freedom of speech on college campuses.
A professor at UPenn’s Carey Law School, Wax was recently involved in a controversial tenure case resulting from racially insensitive comments she made in the past. While Wax had made comments about minority groups during her time at UPenn, the tenure case initially began in June 2022, shortly after she made a series of comments about Asian immigration.
“If you go into medical schools, you’ll see that Indians, South Asians are now rising stars,” Wax said at the time. “In medicine, they’re sort of the new Jews, I guess, but these diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives are poisoning the scientific establishment and the medical establishment now.”
The law school’s dean, Theodore Ruger, pursued sanctions against Wax, resulting in a suspension from teaching — beginning in fall 2025 — with half-pay for a year and other limitations. The justification for these sanctions was that Wax was targeting particular groups in an unprofessional manner, placing undue burdens on minority students.
Wax’s case has sparked outrage from free speech proponents like the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression.
On Wax’s past comments, Kingsley emphasized his responsibility as a radio host to contribute to a diversity of thought on campus, regardless of his agreement with a speaker’s opinions.
In a statement to Pipe Dream, WHRW’s E-Board described the reasoning behind rejecting Wax’s appearance on the show.
“The WHRW-elected board of directors voted on Wednesday afternoon to not allow the interview with Amy Wax to go on as scheduled,” the organization wrote. “The proposed interview did not meet our station’s goals of providing content by and for Binghamton students and community members.”
In an interview with Pipe Dream, Wax commented on the station’s decision to not air her interview, particularly as the election approached.
“Especially on the eve of an election, it just strikes me as very illiberal for a student committee to not want to hear a dissenting point of view or a variety of viewpoints that might reflect some of the concerns of the voters,” Wax said. “I’m sure that at Binghamton and in upstate New York there are voters who are Republican voters, Trump voters, Democratic voters, Harris voters. And I had intended to talk about the implications of the upcoming election for American education and American education reform. And of course, I was blocked from doing that. It made no sense at all.”
Wax also stated her intent to file a Freedom of Information Law request regarding the E-Board meeting and request a meeting with University President Harvey Stenger as to why her interview was pulled. She maintains that WHRW violated the First Amendment, a right they must respect as a station run by a public university.
Kingsley expressed his disappointment in the interview’s handling.
“I am truly saddened to witness the failure of Binghamton University to properly educate their young charges, failing to press them out of their pre-conceived and shallow opinions and to face opposition because the only way to test one’s hypothesis is by challenge and examination,” Kingsley wrote. “These poor kids have been taught what to think but not how to. Let’s not forget, every radio has an off button.”