Law Schools

Amy Wax Faces Formal Complaint Over 'Promotion Of White Supremacy'

Her personal views aren't the problem, it's how she's going about spreading them.

By  
on

Illustration of a wooden box used for complaint slipsTo borrow from The West Wing, “Let’s forget the fact that you’re coming a little late to the party and embrace the fact that you showed up at all.”

We’re several years into the Penn Law School’s slow-motion Amy Wax train wreck. It’s a well-worn cycle: Wax says something wildly offensive in an entirely non-academic setting, students/alumni/media/people with souls complain, the school wrings its hands and does little to nothing, and then Wax ups the stakes and the cycle repeats.

But, finally, Wax might have pushed administrators too far, with Dean Ted Ruger announcing today that he will file a formal complaint launching the school’s process to consider sanctions against Wax.

One might have thought the final straw would be when she spoke at the white nationalism conference. Or when she claimed — in seeming violation of blind grading policies — to know that Black students can’t succeed in law school. Alas, it was declaring that the United States needs “fewer Asians” that ultimately triggered a review with potentially serious ramifications.

So, if that was on your Amy Wax BINGO card, congrats!

The school has a detailed process for dealing with faculty conduct. A board will review the matter and consider a response that could range from reprimand to termination.

Per the Philadelphia Inquirer:

Sponsored

“Her conduct has generated multiple complaints from members of our community citing the impact of pervasive and recurring vitriol and promotion of white supremacy as cumulative and increasing,” Ruger said. “The complaints assert that it is impossible for students to take classes from her without a reasonable belief that they are being treated with discriminatory animus. These complaints clearly call for a process that can fairly consider claims, for example, that her conduct is having an adverse and discernable impact on her teaching and classroom activities.”

Now begins the annoying stage of the proceedings where Wax supporters flood the zone with disingenuous slippery slope arguments about how academic freedom requires schools to sit back and watch institutional goodwill evaporate while professors promote views undermining the school’s scholarly reputation.

“Regardless of what one thinks about Professor Wax’s personal political views, the only appropriate action that the University of Pennsylvania should take in this situation is to publicly reaffirm the free speech rights of the members of its faculty,” said Keith Whittington, chair of the [Academic Freedom Alliance’s] academic committee. “It is quite clear that her public comments as a private individual on matters of public concern cannot… be understood to constitute a ‘flagrant disregard of the standards, rules, or mission of the University or the customs of scholarly communities’ that might give rise to disciplinary action under the Faculty Handbook.”

Oh yeah? Where does “publicly claiming the school lies about the grades of its Black students” come in? Because that seems like it might slide somewhere into the “standards, rules, or mission” section.

An even more flagrant bout of whataboutism featured in the Inquirer the other day:

Sponsored

Even some academics who ardently despise Wax’s comments say they would rather she retains the right to say them than allow her to be fired. Removing her could open the door to censorship for professors who espouse views opposed by conservatives, such as critical race theory.

“How in the same breath do you oppose those measures but also say you should fire Amy Wax,” said Jonathan Zimmerman, a Penn professor of the history of education, who has ardently defended free speech. “I don’t think we can have it both ways.”

Right… because scholarly works by Black law professors are of an academic kind with Amy Wax going on a webcast to say America needs fewer Asians. Totally equivalent!

In reality, there is a clear distinction between those examples. Amy Wax long composed controversial scholarship, cobbling together objectionable but at least facially serious arguments about family law and discrimination. Yet her date with a faculty review board has nothing to do with any of these edgy law review articles.

That’s because this all started when she traded any pretense of serious academic work to just rant about minorities.

When Wax systematically got every factual premise wrong in her first “big break” op-ed, that’s where she started down the path to today. At some point, reality and data clearly became problems for her academic work (as her sometimes co-author recently learned when a review rejected his article for its failure to meet minimum standards of evidentiary support). But Wax realized she didn’t need to clear those hurdles to get a platform at Tucker Carlson’s Make America White conference. Once she walked away from the scholarly angle, she could just cite Wikipedia and move on.

In a sense, her supporters are correct that this may be a referendum on academic freedom, but it’s about the “academic” part and not the “freedom” part. She’s not being “silenced” just for holding unorthodox views. If Wax confined herself to work that could pass the minimum academic muster or, at the very least, made sure her public comments had some factual foundation she’d not be in this mess.

Wax’s cardinal sin is not her views in a vacuum, it’s the “cumulative and increasing” provocations disrupting the school’s pedagogical mission while adding exactly zero to the school’s scholarly mission. If anything, the school’s watched its credibility erode while Wax spouts knockoff “academic-ish” drivel under the school’s banner.

Academia has profound patience for objectionable scholarship as long as it plays the game and tries to be “scholarship.” The fact that Wax went years before a formal complaint is a testament to that patience.

But the protections afforded to promote scholarly inquiry only extend so far when the professor decides to trade law reviews for webinars on Substack.

Penn law dean starts process that could lead to sanctions on professor Amy Wax [Philadelphia Inquirer]

Earlier: Dean Calls Amy Wax’s Remarks ‘Xenophobic And White Supremacist,’ Passes World’s Easiest Issue-Spotter
Law Professor Amy Wax Expands Racism Portfolio To Declare That America Needs ‘Fewer Asians’
Penn Law’s Holiday Letter Adroitly Avoids That Whole ‘Superior Culture’ Incident This Year
Law School Professor Amy Wax Cites Wikipedia And We Need To Stop Pretending Tenure Was Made For This
Amy Wax’s Racist Remarks Force Penn Law School To Let Her Take A Paid Vacation
T14 Law Professor Goes To White Nationalism Conference And Says White Nationalist Things And Somehow Still Has A Job
Academia Means Never Having To Say, ‘I Got Fired’
Professor Amy Wax And The Bell Curve
Law Professors Say White ’50s Culture Is Superior, Other Racist Stuff
Penn Law School Prof Amy Wax Stumbles Into A Truth… Before Delving Back Into Vile Conspiracy Theories
Amy Wax Relieved Of Her 1L Teaching Duties After Bald-Faced Lying About Black Students
Professor Declares Black Students ‘Rarely’ Graduate In The Top Half Of Law School Class
Dog Whistling ‘Bourgeois Values’ Op-Ed Gets Thorough Takedown From Other Law Professors
Law Students Seek To Ban Professor From Teaching 1Ls
Law School Professor Says Dr. Ford ‘Should Have Held Her Tongue’ In Latest Embarrassment To Her School
Berkeley Law School Group Invites Amy Wax To Headline Event In Effort To Lower The Bar Even Further

HeadshotJoe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.

Topics

, , ,