Report: UPenn To Sanction Dissident Law Professor Amy Wax

• Students Demand Denunciation and Investigation of Professors: 1966 China or 2017 U. Penn?
• Academic Freedom Alliance Comes to Defense of U. Penn Prof Amy Wax, Who was Threatened With Sanctions For Wrongthink
• Paul du Quenoy: Penn Law Professor Amy Wax Deserves Our Support
• Roger Kimball: “for stating such obvious truths” Prof. Amy Wax “is being dragged into the Star Chamber at Penn”
• How A Weak Penn Law Dean Weaponized Student Hurt Feelings Against Dissident Prof. Amy Wax
• U Penn Law Prof. Amy Wax Seeks Dismissal Of University Disciplinary Proceedings: “Premature, Unwarranted, and Prejudicial” 
• Tables Turned: Prof. Amy Wax, Charged With Wrongthink, Files Counter-Grievance Against U Penn Law Dean
• It “Sucks” That Prof. Amy Wax Still Employed, U Penn Law Dean Declared On Recently Released 2019 Audio
• Embattled UPenn Law Prof Amy Wax Sets the Record Straight: “mainstream media coverage has been agenda-driven”    

Long before news of UPenn’s final decision to sanction Wax broke, the House Committee investigating campus antisemitism had already called the school out for its free speech hypocrisy and mistreatment of the once-esteemed law professor.

The school was under continued investigation by the Committee for its limp response to pervasive antisemitism on its campus, following the disastrous hearings that forced the resignation of UPenn President M. Elizabeth Magill last December.

“Penn has demonstrated a clear double standard by tolerating antisemitic vandalism, harassment, and intimidation, but suppressing and penalizing other expression it deemed problematic,” i.e., Amy Wax’s views, the Committee wrote in a letter.

Wax’s case, the Committee said, shows how the school applies one standard to people who express viewpoints it favors and another to people who don’t:

In June 2022, Penn Law Dean Ted Ruger took the extraordinary step of requesting Penn’s Faculty Senate impose a ‘major sanction’ on tenured law professor Amy Wax for ‘intentional and incessant racist, sexist, xenophobic, and homophobic actions and statements’ and that ‘Wax’s conduct inflicts harm on [students, faculty, and staff] and the institution and undermines the University’s core values.’

This effort, the Committee noted at the time, was widely perceived to be an effort to strip Wax of her tenure and terminate her.

As we wrote then, while the accusations against Wax were based on students’ alleged hurt feelings—she made them almost want to cry!—at UPenn, Jewish students were actually intimidated by anti-Israel protestors marching across campus calling for their death and vandalizing buildings with antisemitic graffiti saying “intifada” and “avenge Gaza.”

Come to think of it, Wax would have gotten better treatment if she set up an encampment like the anti-Israel protesters did, Prof. David Bernstein gibed following yesterday’s announcement:

She should have set up an illegal encampment in the middle of campus and harassed Jewish students walking by while supporting a genocidal antisemitic terrorist group. Then at worst she'd get off scot-free, and in the right department she'd be getting a promotion, raise, and a… https://t.co/gRWPFoDk6Z

— David Bernstein (@ProfDBernstein) September 23, 2024

And, as it’s now clear, the people at UPenn who did this to her did not deserve Amy Wax:

What evil bastards.

"Elite" higher education cannot burn to the ground soon enough.

I was thrilled to welcome Professor Wax on my show last year. Ignore these awful smears and listen to her actually speak for herself: https://t.co/wWLf1g5ohp https://t.co/VmLvSs4MxW

— Josh Hammer (@josh_hammer) September 23, 2024

According to The Daily Pennsylvanian, Penn will announce the decision in today’s edition of the Penn Almanac. The paper says the decision will include a letter of reprimand from Provost John Jackson Jr.:

‘Academic freedom is and should be very broad. Teachers, however, must conduct themselves in a manner that conveys a willingness to assess all students fairly,’ Jackson wrote in a copy of the letter obtained by the DP. “They may not engage in unprofessional conduct that creates an unequal educational environment.”

Interim Penn President Larry Jameson added that Wax must refrain from ‘flagrantly unprofessional and targeted disparagement of any individual or group in the University community … for so long as [she is] a member of the University’s standing faculty.’

We will watch for any updates on this developing story.