The Amy Wax case explained: Here’s what preceded the controversial law professor’s university sanctions

After more than two years, the case against controversial University of Pennsylvania law professor Amy Wax has finally come to an end.

She becomes the first tenured professor at Penn in at least 20 years to be sanctioned after the full faculty senate process was followed.

Here’s a look at the case and the process the university followed to levy sanctions against Wax.

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

Wax, an Ivy League-educated lawyer and neurologist, had a prestigious career at one time, both before and at Penn.

A Troy, N.Y., native, she got her bachelor’s degree in molecular biophysics and biochemistry from Yale, graduating summa cum laude. She then studied philosophy, physiology, and psychology at Oxford. She graduated from Harvard Medical School, trained as a neurologist, and later got her law degree from Columbia, according to her curriculum vitae listed on Penn Law’s website.

She started her academic career at the University of Virginia and came to Penn in 2001. In 2005, she received Penn law school’s A. Leo Levin Award for Excellence in an Introductory Course. Two years later, in 2007, she was awarded her named chair after Robert Mundheim, a former Penn law school dean. And in 2015, she received the Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching.

In 2017, Wax coauthored an 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 former Penn law school dean Theodore Ruger later disputed.

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

In 2019, she found herself under fire again after commenting during a conference about immigration. Then in 2021, during a podcast with Brown University economist Glenn Loury, she said immigration policies should be geared toward “cultural compatibility” and called “the influx of Asian elites ... problematic.” She later wrote on Loury’s site that “as long as most Asians support Democrats and help to advance their positions, I think the United States is better off with fewer Asians and less Asian immigration.”

In April of that year, a group of alumni filed a complaint about Wax’s remarks. Ruger asked Daniel B. Rodriguez, former dean of Northwestern University’s law school, to review the criticism. He spoke with 26 Penn alumni; Wax declined to participate. Rodriguez, according to a chronology of the case in a university document, did not find evidence of discrimination against individual students, but said: “Professor Wax has made a number of comments in class and a few outside of class which could reasonably be viewed as derogatory and harmful.”

Ruger later met with Wax and tried unsuccessfully to resolve the matter informally.

In January 2022, Ruger announced he had initiated the faculty senate process that could lead to sanctions against Wax for racist speech. He did so after receiving additional complaints against Wax. Under Penn’s process, allegations against a tenured professor are to be adjudicated by faculty peers.

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

In his 12-page charging statement, former Penn law school dean Ted Ruger said Wax exhibited “a callous and flagrant disregard” for the university community with her “incessant racist, sexist, xenophobic, and homophobic actions and statements.”

“Wax has made these statements in the classroom and on campus, in other academic settings, and in public forums in which she was identified as a University of Pennsylvania professor,” he wrote.

He noted that in 2021 she invited “renowned white supremacist” Jared Taylor to speak to her class and then have lunch with her and students.

The hearing board began reviewing the written charges against Wax in October 2022 and decided there were sufficient grounds to hold a hearing, which occurred between May 1, 2023, and May 3, 2023, yielding over 700 pages of transcript and 70 exhibits. In addition to arguments from both sides, there was testimony from students, alumni, and faculty and expert testimony on issues of academic freedom and professional conduct. The hearing board issued its decision in June 2023.

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

The five-member board made up of tenured faculty unanimously decided Wax “committed a major infraction of the University’s behavioral standards,” according to an August 2023 letter from former Penn President Liz Magill, explaining her position on upholding the hearing board’s decision. The board said Wax had exhibited “flagrant unprofessional conduct that breached her responsibilities as a teacher to offer an equal opportunity to all students to learn from her.”

The board found she had a history “of sweeping, blithe, and derogatory generalizations about groups by race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, and immigration status,” and that she breached “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.” She also repeatedly, both in and outside the classroom and in public, made “discriminatory and disparaging statements targeted at specific racial, ethnic, and other groups with which many students identify,” the board said.

A one-year suspension at half pay with benefits intact, 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.

No.

Magill, the president at the time of the hearing board decision, noted in her letter that she could deviate from the board’s recommendations “only in ‘exceptional circumstances’ and only to ‘reduce the severity of recommended sanctions’ or to dismiss the charges for ‘failure of proof,’” she wrote, citing university policy.

She upheld the decision of the board.

The case is not easy, Magill wrote, noting that Wax is an “award-winning teacher” and she acknowledged the importance of academic freedom.

But, Magill wrote, that Wax’s conduct “would make many students reasonably wonder whether they could be fairly educated and evaluated by her.

“Academic freedom is and should be very broad, but it does not include the right to engage in flagrantly unprofessional conduct that creates an unequal educational environment for students.”

Wax appealed the decision and that kicked off a review by Penn’s Senate Committee on Academic Freedom and Responsibility to determine whether proper procedures were followed. Wax alleged defects in procedure in several areas, including that the board levied sanctions based on “vague, novel, and undefined allegations of offenses,” according to Magill’s letter. Wax also said the board declined to order Ruger to provide to Wax the grades and class standing of current and former law students.

The academic freedom committee earlier this year decided that proper procedures were followed. That means the sanctions can take effect.

Because Magill already acted, he did not have to. But he noted in a letter to be published in the Penn Almanac Tuesday that he was confirming and implementing the decision.

Yes.

The suspension will take effect for the 2025-26 school year.