\n<\/p>\n
Amy Wax was suspended and had her pay cut for the 2025\u201326 academic year after repeatedly making disparaging remarks.<\/p>\n
Jumping Rocks\/Universal Images Group\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
A Pennsylvania district judge dismissed a lawsuit Thursday against the University of Pennsylvania filed by Amy Wax, a tenured law professor who was suspended for the 2025\u201326 academic year on half pay as part of a punishment for years of flagrantly racist, sexist, xenophobic and homophobic remarks.\u00a0<\/p>\n
University of Pennsylvania<\/p>\n
In the suit filed in January, Wax claimed that the university discriminated against her by punishing her\u2014a white Jewish woman\u2014for speech about Black students but not punishing pro-Palestinian faculty members for speech that allegedly endorsed violence against Jews.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs much as Wax would like otherwise, this case is not a First Amendment case. It is a discrimination case brought under federal antidiscrimination laws,\u201d senior U.S. district judge Timothy Savage wrote in a 16-page opinion. \u201cWe conclude Wax has failed to allege facts that show that her race was a factor in the disciplinary process and there is no cause of action under federal anti-discrimination statutes based on the content of her speech.\u201d<\/p>\n
Savage also refuted Wax\u2019s argument that the court should view \u201cher comments disparaging Black students as a statement on behalf of a protected class.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNothing in the disciplinary process or her comments leads to the conclusion that she was penalized for associating with a protected class. Her comments were not advocacy for protected classes,\u201d he wrote. \u201cThey were negative and directed at protected classes. Criticizing minorities does not equate to advocacy for them or for white people. Her claim that criticism of minorities was a form of advocating for them is implausible.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wax was sanctioned in September 2024 after a years-long disciplinary battle over a laundry list of offensive statements she made during her tenure at the law school, including that \u201cgay couples are not fit to raise children,\u201d \u201cMexican men are more likely to assault women\u201d and that it is \u201crational to be afraid of Black men in elevators.\u201d Wax has worked at the law school since 2001. <\/p>\n
In addition to a one-year suspension on half pay, the school eliminated her summer pay in perpetuity, publicly reprimanded her and took away her named chair. In 2018, she was removed from teaching required courses after commenting on the \u201cacademic performance and grade distributions of the Black students in her required first-year courses,\u201d according to former dean of the law school Theodore W. Ruger.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Amy Wax was suspended and had her pay cut for the 2025\u201326 academic year after repeatedly making disparaging remarks. Jumping Rocks\/Universal Images Group\/Getty Images A Pennsylvania district judge dismissed a lawsuit Thursday against the University of Pennsylvania filed by Amy Wax, a tenured law professor who was suspended for the 2025\u201326 academic year on half<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18474,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[6737,1844,6883,2478,11277],"class_list":{"0":"post-18473","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-education","8":"tag-amy","9":"tag-case","10":"tag-dismissed","11":"tag-penn","12":"tag-waxs"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18473","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18473"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18473\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/18474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}