A tenured law professor who was disciplined after saying she had never seen a Black student do well at her Ivy League law school spoke out about the “grotesque” hearing board that ruled against her and about what she called the school’s “woke catechism” underlying the negative consequences she faced after the unsubstantiated statements.
University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School professor Amy Wax has spent much of the last five years embroiled in controversy over statements for which she has been unapologetic.
“I’m totally screwed and Penn is just sailing along regardless of all their rhetoric about the First Amendment and free expression, they don’t mean a thing,” Wax said in an interview about the school’s decision to discipline her. “The fact that they’re continuing to pursue me shows that none of that stuff can be taken seriously.”
Wax came under fire in 2018 after she told Brown University Professor Glenn Loury in an interview that Black students would be better off without affirmative actions admissions programs, because they generally perform at levels lower than other Penn Law students.
“Here’s a very inconvenient fact Glenn,” Wax said in the interview. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Black student graduate in the top quarter of the class and rarely, rarely in the top half.”
Loury, who is Black, pushed back against Wax’s comments, asking, “So you’re telling me that students of color who have served on law review are pretty much in the bottom half of their law classes at Penn?” Typically, law schools only invite students performing at the highest levels on to law review.
Wax ultimately admitted to Loury that she did not have evidence to back up her claim and said she had done neither a survey nor a systematic study on the grades of Black students. Further, law school exams for first year courses like the ones Wax taught are graded anonymously using student identification numbers.
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