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Report: UPenn To Sanction Dissident Law Professor Amy Wax

Report: UPenn To Sanction Dissident Law Professor Amy Wax

Report: Sanctions against Wax will include suspension for one year at half pay, loss of her named chair, and public reprimand, though she will not be fired or lose tenure

After more than two years of disciplinary proceedings, the University of Pennsylvania will sanction outspoken conservative law professor Amy Wax “for a major infraction of the university’s behavioral standards,” The Philadelphia Inquirer reports. The paper received advance notice of the sanctions against Wax, which will include one year at half pay, loss of her named chair, and public reprimand—though she will not be fired or lose tenure.

The school’s ruling upholds the university faculty board’s decision to sanction Wax in June of last year, following Wax’s appeal of that decision and its review by Penn’s Senate Committee on Academic Freedom and Responsibility, as we reported here.

The sanctions mark the conclusion of Wax’s years-long conflict with the university, which began when she she triggered the woke campus mob by unapologetically expressing conservative views in a 2017 op-ed. We covered her travails with the school from the very beginning here:

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:

There was widespread outrage —

At the school’s hypocrisy:

And at the threat to academic freedom:

 

As a reminder, Amy Wax’s CV is something you rarely get to see:

 

A consummate, multiple award-winning teacher, Wax did not deserve this shoddy treatment:

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

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.

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Comments

destroycommunism | September 24, 2024 at 10:45 am

why should wax be afforded the right/dignity of freedom of speech?

what country does she thinks she lives in!!!??

Penn must feel very confident on the future of our country

JackinSilverSpring | September 24, 2024 at 11:04 am

I hope she sues the pants off them.

    Because Penn is a private institution, she’s going to have a very uphill battle. There is no federal protection against viewpoint discrimination and very few states have created that kind of statutory protection. I don’t believe PA is one of those states. But, I’m not certain. For her to prevail (presuming it goes to trial), she’s going to have to make a case that she’s being discriminated against because she’s a female or a Jew (or some other federal protected class).

    More than a decade ago (right about the time the gay marriage debate was really beginning in earnest, there was a black, female public university administrator who was fired because of a Letter to the Editor she had written to the local newspaper in support of traditional marriage. That school – the University of Toledo – fired her. She sued and was helped by at least one religious freedom PAC. She quite unbelievably lost (Crystal Dixon v. University of Toledo). The appellate court (6th Circuit) upheld the lower court decision and the Supreme Court refused to hear the case. It’s a notable decision because Toledo is a PUBLIC school and still the court found for the University.

    https://www.dispatch.com/story/news/education/2012/12/18/court-backs-firing-u-toledo/23704649007/

      TargaGTS in reply to TargaGTS. | September 24, 2024 at 11:49 am

      I should add that unlike Ms. Dixon (who was an administrator and not a tenured academic), Wax may have some contractual protections as a tenured professor. It will really depend on the language of her employment contract.

        healthguyfsu in reply to TargaGTS. | September 24, 2024 at 1:55 pm

        Well, they definitely did fire her because they are scared of going that far.

          DaveGinOly in reply to healthguyfsu. | September 24, 2024 at 6:35 pm

          She can still work there, but they’ve muzzled her in a way that students in her classes won’t get full value for their tuition. Maybe her students could sue? Certainly, they’ve been damaged.

Truly one of the greatest Americans ever. Fearless in speaking the truth about race and intelligence, unlike most neutered, so-called conservatives. Only the stupid don’t see that being polite and jabbering about equal opportunity puts one on a collision course with disparate impact.

Amy kinda modern day Belushi and the Penn admin Dean Wormer.
She should also wear the COLLEGE sweatshirt on campus. Bet it would be popular that it would be banned.

Lucifer Morningstar | September 24, 2024 at 11:50 am

>>The paper received advance notice of the sanctions against Wax, which will include one year at half pay, loss of her named chair, and public reprimand—though she will not be fired or lose tenure.<<

They gave advance notice to the The Philadelphia Inquirer of the sanctions to be imposed upon Prof. Wax before they officially informed her of those sanctions? How very professional of the UPenn administration to do that. No, not really. Guess the UPenn administration wanted to make sure to publicly name and shame Prof. Wax as part of the sanctions against her. Disgusting behavior on the part of the UPenn administration. But I wouldn’t expect any better of them.

Yet another reason for students to shun Ivy League schools.

Revolting individuals at Penn who have done this. Every person involved in this should be identified and their names published to their utter disgrace.

Inside Higher Ed has a piece on this. Of course, it’s accusations are rampant saying that she invited a white supremacist (no name, no proof) and she said all sorts of horrible things to SOC (again, just word of mouth “bias reports”) with little snippets of quotes in marks that probably can’t be attributed to her. She might have a defamation case against them as well.

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty-issues/academic-freedom/2024/09/24/penns-amy-wax-punished-statements-wont-lose-job

Revolting and contemptible dhimmitude and appeasement of genocidal, rabid and unhinged Jew-hate; that’s what this is.

Thou shalt not criticize Muslim supremacists/Islamofascists/terrorism supporters, nor, their supremacist, totalitarian, belligerent and pathology-laden ideology of hate and “Submission.”

ThePrimordialOrderedPair | September 24, 2024 at 12:51 pm

suspension for one year at half pay,

To be fair, that sounds kind of like a vacation.

The “public reprimand” is sort of funny.

Penn is a Diversity, Inclusion, Equity dumpster fire. Eventually, it will probably be set on actual fire by the mobs of philly.

ON a side note, Penn was the first place where I ever ran into the disgusting idea of genderless bathrooms (for accommodating more than one person). I was going to a Spring party in the Quad, when I was in high school, and I found out that the guys and the girls in the dorm shared bathrooms. It was pretty gross. The funny thing is that back then – this was in the early 80s – it was not about political idiocy but miserliness; when the Quad went co-ed Penn didn’t want to spend the money to build new bathrooms on each floor for the girls so they just declared that all the bathrooms would be open-gendered. Now, I am all for that for the showers … but the toilet stalls … That’s just grotesque. I was really shocked when I learned that and thought that it was pretty sick to force freshman into that circumstance.

She always seemed reasonable to me. Public hysteria moves under its own rules though.

Such hubris on the part of UPenn, which persists with its own pogrom of a brilliant Jewish professor. Little men pretending to be big stuff.

Suburban Farm Guy | September 24, 2024 at 1:59 pm

Thought Police 1
Freedom 0

What else do we expect from Progressives?

MoeHowardwasright | September 24, 2024 at 2:51 pm

When will Congress grow some balls and cut off all grants to these antisemitic schools? Hit them wheee it hurts, in the wallet. Also cut off al student loans and Pell grants to these Nazi loving, Jew hating bastards. FKH

She’s Jewish. That is all.

This is how she should respond:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OaMvxVHFs4
Like Ser Barristan, she could likely find gainful employment elsewhere.