Free Speech on Campus

Professor Lee Epstein and Chancellor Andrew D. Martin
Political Science 334
Spring 2025

Group 5. The Controversy Over Academic Freedom at Penn
(TA: Perri Wilson, perri@wustl.edu)

Amy Wax joined the law faculty at the University of Pennsylvania in 2001 with tenure. Six years later in 2007, she received a named professorship, the Robert Mundheim Professor of Law, a high honor in academic circles. Wax’s website notes her areas of expertise as Civil Litigation, Employment and Labor Law, Family Law, and Child Advocacy.

Wax has long been a rather polarizing figure. In 2013, for example, she gave a speech at Middlebury College reportedly denigrating lower socio-economic groups, as well as Black people, stating that “They co-habit, but they co-habit in a kind of merry-go-round fashion …[Having children out of wedlock] is a dominant norm in some communities.” During her remarks, some students held up signs labeling her a “racist.”

The current controversy, though, began four years later, with a 2017 opinion piece Wax co-authored in The Philadelphia Inquirer identifying her as a Penn professor. After asserting that “all cultures are not equal,” the piece took aim at several “cultural orientations”: “the single-parent, antisocial habits, prevalent among some working-class whites; the anti-‘acting white’ rap culture of inner-city blacks; [and] the anti-assimilation ideas gaining ground among some Hispanic immigrants.” To the authors, these “cultural orientations are not only incompatible with what an advanced free-market economy and a viable democracy require, they are also destructive of a sense of solidarity and reciprocity among Americans.”

After the opinion piece was published, some Penn students called for Wax to be fired. But, according to one report, conservative media “rallied” allowing if not encouraging Wax “to spread her views.”

Examples include:

  • A 2017 video interview, in which she was recorded as saying “Here's a very inconvenient fact…I don't think I've ever seen a black student graduate in the top quarter of the [Penn Law School] class and rarely, rarely in the top half.”

    Penn students were once again outraged, prompting a response from the dean of the law school, Theodore Ruger, who denounced Wax's claims as false and wrote: “As a scholar she is free to advocate her views, no matter how dramatically those views diverge from our institutional ethos and our considered practices. As a teacher, however, she is not free to transgress the policy that student grades are confidential, or to use her access to those Penn Law students who are required to be in her class to further her scholarly ends without students’ permission.”

    As a result, the Ruger barred Wax from teaching mandatory first-year law courses.

  • In an interview, published in August of 2019, Wax said: “So, women, on average, are more agreeable than men. Women, on average, are less knowledgeable than men. They’re less intellectual than men. Now, I can actually back up all those statements with social-science research.”

  • Wax was also something of “a provocateur on campus.” For example, she invited Jared Taylor, “one of the world’s most prominent white supremacists,” for a mandatory lecture in her law school course.

In January 2022, “after another series of highly inflammatory and derogatory public comments by Wax,” including a remark that the United States is “better off with fewer Asians and less Asian immigration,” both alums and students again complained to Dean Ruger. They asserted that Wax’s conduct is “having an adverse and discernible impact on her teaching and classroom activities.” Even the Philadelphia City Council chimed in, sending a letter to the then-president of Penn, Amy Gutmann, urging Penn to begin a “transparent and comprehensive review” of Wax’s position and role at the university.

Six months later, on June 23, 2023, Dean Ruger initiated a disciplinary action against Wax, claiming that she has “shown a callous and flagrant disregard for our University community—including students, faculty, and staff—who have been repeatedly subjected to Wax’s intentional and incessant racist, sexist, xenophobic, and homophobic actions and statements.”

 In particular, in a letter to the chair of Penn’s faculty senate, the Dean contended that Wax’s conduct violated the University’s “behavioral standards” as outlined in the university’s Faculty Handbook (the section on Academic Freedom and Responsibility):

When speaking or writing as an individual, the teacher should be free from institutional censorship or discipline, but should note that a special position in the community imposes special obligations. As a person of learning and a member of an educational institution, the teacher should remember that the public may judge the profession and the institution by his/her utterances. Hence the teacher should at all times show respect for the opinions of others, and should indicate when he or she is not speaking for the institution.

Under Penn’s procedures, the faculty senate was to create a five-member board to hear the charges against Wax and her defense; and then vote on sanctions if any.

In June of 2023, the hearing board sent a letter with its findings to the university’s then-president, M. Elizabeth Magill. According to the board, the hearing unearthed “serious violations of University norms and policies” on Wax’s part, and “therefore should be treated as major infractions of University behavioral standards.” Although the board didn’t recommend firing Wax, it did advise the president to impose major sanctions:

  •  A public reprimand, expressed by University leadership

  • Loss of named chair, to reflect Professor Wax’s unsuitability for University and/or school honors

  • A requirement to note in her public appearances that she is not speaking for or as member of the Penn Carey Law School or the University of Pennsylvania

  • One year suspension at half pay (with benefits remaining intact)

  • Loss of summer pay in perpetuity

 After President Magill accepted the board’s recommendations, Wax appealed alleging procedural defects in her case. But that effort failed when another faculty committee affirmed the decision of the hearing board— a decision which the university’s interim president accepted. The provost, accordingly, issued the letter of public letter of reprimand, which read in part:

It is imperative that you conduct yourself in a professional manner in your interactions with faculty colleagues, students, and staff. This includes refraining from flagrantly unprofessional and targeted disparagement of any individual or group in the University community. These directives will remain in effect for so long as you are a member of the University’s standing faculty.

To help you prepare your class presentation:

  1. Read the material linked in the case description above.

  2. Review the in-class material and readings on academic freedom (the 1940 AAUP Statement and the Chicago Statement)

  3. Read an interpretation of academic freedom, written by the (then) president of the AAUP

  4. Read commentary in support of Penn: Richard Amesbury and Catherine O'Donnell, “Stop Defending Amy Wax: Academic Freedom Doesn’t Authorize Unprofessional Conduct,” Chronicle of Higher Education, October 22, 2024

    Also read the AAUP’s response, here.

  5. Read commentary in support of Wax: Jonathan Friedman and Kristen Shahverdian, “Sanctions Against Amy Wax Raise Alarms For Academic Freedom,” PEN AMERICA, October 10, 2024

    See also John McWhorter, “She Is Outrageous, Demeaning, Dangerous. She Shouldn’t Be Punished,” New York Times, October 3, 2024.

Your presentation should address the following (applying the tools we considered in class):

SUBGROUP 1. After briefly summarizing the controversy, defend the position that Penn violated Wax’s academic freedom by imposing sanctions on her.

SUBGROUP 2. Defend the position that Penn did not violate Wax’s academic freedom by imposing sanctions on her.