A leaked memo offers details on the case against Penn law professor Amy Wax, accused of racist speech and behavior

The Inquirer first reported last month on a University of Pennsylvania hearing committee’s recommendation to sanction law professor Amy Wax for her behavior and her subsequent appeal of that decision.

But a leaked university memo, first reported last week by the Washington Free Beacon, a conservative news outlet, provides a few more details and rationale for the recommendations.

And now the Philadelphia-based Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), which advocates for free speech, is citing the memo and criticizing the committee’s recommendation to sanction Wax.

» READ MORE: Penn hearing board recommended sanctions against Amy Wax in June, but her appeal means the process isn’t over

Here’s what you need to know:

Wax, 71, a professor at Penn for more than two decades, first faced criticism in 2017 after she coauthored an Inquirer op-ed in which she said, “All cultures are not equal. Or at least they are not equal in preparing people to be productive in an advanced economy.” Then she said during an interview that she didn’t think she’d ever seen a Black student graduate in the top quarter of the class at Penn Law and “rarely, rarely in the top half,” a claim that then-law school dean Ted Ruger later disputed.

» READ MORE: Penn law professor Amy Wax enraged people with her comments about Asians. Now, she may face sanction.

Penn condemned her statements, and, in 2018, removed her from teaching mandatory courses — but cited academic freedom in declining to fire her. Then in January 2022, Ruger began proceedings against her, invoking the faculty review process and seeking sanctions against her. He asserted that her “racist speech” was escalating, that multiple complaints about her promotion of white supremacy had been lodged, and that it had a cumulative effect on the law school community.

Wax has been accused of making racist statements to students in the classroom — though she has denied it or alleged the comments were out of context — and of actions including inviting white nationalist Jared Taylor to speak to her class, most recently in November.

A university hearing board made up of tenured faculty recommended in June that Wax should face sanctions, including a one-year suspension at half pay with benefits intact, but stopped short of calling for her to be fired and stripped of tenure.

» READ MORE: Penn law prof Amy Wax asks for delay of disciplinary proceedings for her cancer treatment

The hearing board also recommended: a public reprimand issued by university leadership, the loss of her named chair and summer pay, and a requirement to note in her public appearances that she is not speaking for or as a member of the Penn Carey Law School or Penn.

Then-president Liz Magill signed off on the sanctions in August, saying she stood by the hearing board’s decision. (Under faculty senate rules, the president “shall normally accept” the recommendations, and “only in exceptional circumstances” can depart from them.)

The board in its letter sought to frame the case as a question of behavior rather than protected speech.

“We regard this to be a case not of free speech, which is broadly protected by University policy …, but rather of flagrant unprofessional conduct by a faculty member …,” the letter said. “This conduct has had a detrimental impact on equal access to educational opportunities at the Law School and on the community more broadly.”

» READ MORE: Penn law dean starts process that could lead to sanctions on professor Amy Wax

The hearing board found her in “dereliction of her scholarly responsibilities, especially as a teacher.” Members cited her “uncritical use of data and unfounded declarative claims in some of her courses, campus events, and elsewhere” as a representative of Penn.

The positions she has taken have “been extraordinarily detrimental to her students and to the student body as a whole,” the board wrote.

It also said her continued discussion of “students’ grade distributions by race constitute serious violations of professional norms.”

“For professors to publicly discuss grades by race (irrespective of whether such statements are grounded in fact) violates norms around grading privacy at universities across the country,” the board said.

“This practice has further discouraged racially diverse and minoritized students from taking her classes; several have expressed concern that potential employers may infer they earned a low grade from her,” the board said.

Yes.

Besides the sanctions previously reported, the hearing board recommended that Wax be required to take professional development training and that her classes be recorded to avoid future disputes over what she says. Her classes should be co-taught by another member of the faculty and both her office and the classes should be held outside of the law school buildings.

She should not receive any committee assignments or advising roles, the board said.

Wax appealed the ruling, alleging proper procedure wasn’t followed. That initiated another phase of the process: a review by Penn’s Senate Committee on Academic Freedom and Responsibility to determine whether her claim was correct.

It’s uncertain how long that will take to come to a conclusion.

The group says the hearing board has inappropriately grouped together her comments, which should be protected as free speech, with behavior.

“The university’s failure to separate its investigation into the balance of the claims against her that involve protected speech, from an investigation into wholly unrelated allegations about unprotected misconduct, has raised serious questions about whether Penn has simply found a procedural loophole to sidestep academic freedom,” the group said in a statement on its website.

“If scholars with controversial views can lose their academic freedom merely for unspecified ‘unprofessionalism’ concerns, all faculty who hold minority, dissenting, or simply unpopular views are at risk.”

The memo lists more than two pages of examples of what the board characterized as Wax’s “inequitably targeted disrespect.” They include: