Penn asks for professor Amy Wax's racial discrimination lawsuit to be dismissed

Abraham Gutman, The Philadelphia Inquirer on Mar 17, 2025

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PHILADELPHIA — The University of Pennsylvania has asked a federal judge to dismiss the racial discrimination lawsuit filed by controversial law professor Amy Wax, in which she said the school’s speech policies “violate core principles of the First Amendment.”

Penn told the court last week that Wax has not denied making the statements that led to her suspension and that her lawsuit does not show how the disciplinary process against her deviated from university policies.

The filing recites some of Wax’s most controversial statements disparaging people who are Black, Asian, or LGBTQ, and women.

“Plaintiff does not deny making such statements,” Penn said in a court filing.

Wax has been facing scrutiny for controversial statements on immigration and race for nearly a decade. She was barred from teaching mandatory first-year courses in 2018 after she questioned the intelligence of Black students.

Over the years Penn faced calls from within its community and from lawmakers to revoke Wax’s tenure.

In September, Penn announced that Wax would be suspended for a year, among other sanctions, after a five-member board of tenured faculty found that the professor committed a “major infraction” and had a history “of sweeping, blithe, and derogatory generalizations about groups by race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, and immigration status.”

Penn declined to comment. Wax’s attorneys did not respond to a request for comment.

In her January lawsuit, Wax accused Penn of sanctioning her after a “kangaroo-court-like” process and called the university’s speech policies racially discriminatory. The complaint says Penn breached its contract with Wax and violated civil rights law.

The law professor contrasted the discipline against her to Penn faculty and staff who engaged in anti-Israel speech, which she calls antisemitic, but were not disciplined.

Penn said in its filing that the notion that Wax as a white Jewish woman was “singled out for discipline because of her race” doesn’t track from the facts alleged in her complaint.

Wax asked the court Friday to issue an injunction on the university’s sanctions, including preventing her looming suspension from the 2025-2026 academic year. Her attorneys said that Wax has suffered reputational harm and that allowing the suspension to take effect would paint Wax “as a liar, racist, and harasser, none of which she is.”

Wax previously said she views the term racist as almost a badge of honor, Penn told the court.

“I lost count of how many times I’ve been called a racist, and my view at this point is, you know, being a racist is an honorific,” Wax said on a podcast in 2022, according to Penn’s filing. “To be called a racist means you notice reality, and to me that’s a positive thing.”

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