Penn Carey Law professor Amy Wax will be suspended for the 2025–2026 academic year at half-pay, lose summer pay “in perpetuity,” be stripped of her named chair, and be required to point out that she speaks for herself and not the University or the Law School in future public appearances.
The sanctions were published in Almanac, the University’s journal of record, as part of a public letter of reprimand from Provost John L. Jackson Jr.—which was also included among the recommendations of the five-member Hearing Board appointed by the Faculty Senate that weighed the charges against Wax, as laid out in Penn’s Handbook for Faculty and Administrators.
In his letter to Wax, Jackson wrote: “As you know, following a three-day hearing held in May 2023, the faculty Hearing Board concluded that you engaged in ‘flagrant unprofessional conduct’ that breached your responsibilities as a teacher to offer an equal opportunity to all students to learn from you. That conduct included a history of making sweeping and derogatory generalizations about groups by race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, and immigration status; breaching the requirement that student grades be kept private by publicly speaking about the grades of law students by race and continuing to do so even after cautioned by the dean that it was a violation of University policy; and, on numerous occasions in and out of the classroom and in public, making discriminatory and disparaging statements targeting specific racial, ethnic, and other groups with which many students identify.”
Wax’s history of controversial statements and actions—including claiming that Black Penn Law students rarely graduate in the top half of their class, saying that the US would be better off with fewer Asian immigrants, and inviting a white nationalist to speak in her classroom—have long drawn condemnation, even while supporters defended her on the grounds of academic freedom and her value as a rare conservative voice on campus.
In June 2022, former Law School Dean Ted Ruger filed a complaint against Wax with the Faculty Senate after hearing from students and alumni offended by Wax’s conduct. The Hearing Board convened in October to review the written record, scheduled the hearing in May 2023, and voted to impose the sanctions in June. Their recommendations were accepted by then Penn President Liz Magill that August, as was expected in the faculty-driven process, where the president’s role is “sharply limited” barring “exceptional circumstances.”
Wax appealed that decision, and the board’s finding was then reviewed by the Faculty Senate Committee on Academic Freedom and Responsibility (SCAFR) for procedural irregularities, which however found none. In September Penn Interim President J. Larry Jameson announced that he was “confirming and implementing this final decision.”
SCAFR’s verdict, Jameson’s message, and a link to Magill’s decision letter all appear in Almanac’s September 24, 2024, issue, along with Jackson’s letter.
The evolution of the Dr. Amy Wax saga is perplexing to me. The decision by the Hearing Board appointed by the Faculty Senate to impose sanctions with approval of an acting university president seems antithetical to our current American value system. Like most citizens, I have no legal background and have made life decisions using common sense and fairness. The University of Pennsylvania has decided to sanction an experienced and, seemingly, very intelligent individual for her first-hand observations over many years as a tenured professor in the school of law. She professes to have made extramural disclosures of student performance and, if so, she has every right to do so. I would argue further that the venue of disclosure is of the least importance, and the message is the critical issue. If the message portends an ill-effect on American society (quality of jurisprudence in this case), then we all have the right of transparency whether it be a private or public institution.
There are several important issues Dr. Wax raises but allow me a moment just to address the issue of equal opportunity versus equity. We are a diverse nation, and social stability demands that we are all represented. I believe in diversity and inclusion. I also agree with Dr. Wax’s assessment that our K-12 educational system is broken. Our society needs to focus and correct this impediment to “equal opportunity.” In my opinion, the current “woke” policy of equity is a long-term losing strategy. I do believe the United States of America has been a force maintaining some semblance of world stability (at great cost), and we have been able to achieve this goal because we are an innovative society. We will lose this strategic edge if we continue to pursue the “homogenization” of higher education about which, I believe, Dr. Wax is also concerned.
Thomas C Sansone, M65
Whether there was a procedural error in the matter of Amy Wax is itself a procedural dodge unworthy of Penn. The sunstantive issue of whether the opinions and sanctuons imposed by a deposed president of Penn, herself of questionable objectivity regarding race and religion, were of any weight, should have been discussed, and the charges against Amy Wax reconsidered.