The Legal Beat

T14 Law Professor Invites White Supremacist To Campus And You’ll Never… OK, It Was Amy Wax
Posted on Thursday September 14, 2023

Amy Wax

After providing years and years and years worth of justification for her termination, University of Pennsylvania Law School professor Amy Wax finally landed herself on the wrong end of a formal process to revoke her tenure after bringing noted white supremacist Jared Taylor on campus to chew the fat with her students. And now she’s going to do it again!

Sorry. “Carey Law School.” Don’t want to offend the school by not recognizing how they sold their naming rights. They get very touchy if you don’t.

Anyway, while the school courted donor dollars by changing their Ivy League brand name to parrot the University of Maryland, Wax festered within the school. To be clear, the academy only thrives when academic freedom prevails to afford scholars the opportunity to pursue research without fear of persecution. But Wax isn’t in hot water for advancing some bold, unorthodox legal theory. Wax publicly insults Black law students as inferior, lends the school’s goodwill to white nationalist causes, and — sadly perhaps worst of all for a scholar — she cites Wikipedia for her core arguments. None of this has anything to do with her academic freedom — except to the extent you define “academic freedom” not as “the freedom to do academic work” but as “the freedom to troll because I call myself an academic.”

You know how you can tell? Many, many Federalist Society professors enjoy gainful employment and all they have to do is NOT invite famous white nationalists to campus.

But since the school hasn’t managed to part ways with Wax yet, she’s still teaching and she’s not going to change. According to a syllabus acquired by the Daily Pennsylvanian, Wax is bringing Jared Taylor back to class on November 28 barring an intervening bolt of rationality. I’m sure he has some deep, scholarly insights to impart! From the DP:

During those 25 years, Taylor has alleged that there is a genetic inferiority between white people and people of color.  In other recent blog posts, Taylor complimented a statue that described former Confederate President Jefferson Davis as the “knightliest of the knightly race,” accused Hispanic civil rights leader César Chávez of exploiting his Latino heritage for convenience, and called the Confederate cemetery the “nicest place” in Selma, Ala., a city that he said Black people should be “embarrassed” by.

Delightful.

This isn’t “academic,” it’s performative jackassery. It’s not substantively different than the anti-gay bigots FedSoc loves so much or that judge out at Stanford Law. They show up at a law school and try to gin up publicity bemoaning the “decline of free speech” when people actually exercising free speech rights protest outside or blather about how everyone must be “too triggered” when they DON’T protest and just ignore these hustlers. Either way, Wax can use it to panhandle for donations to her legal defense fund that she still calls a 501(c)(3) despite no indication how a fund for an individual’s benefit could possibly qualify for 501(c)(3) status… legally anyway.

Enough is enough. Penn has let this go on far, far longer than any self-respecting institution should.

White nationalist scheduled to speak at Penn Carey Law class taught by Amy Wax [Daily Pennsylvanian]
UPenn professor invites white nationalist to speak at college for second time in two years [The Independent]

Earlier: If You’re Just Finding Out Amy Wax Invited A White Supremacist To Her Class, There’s So, So Much More!
years
The Amy Wax Case Has Nothing To Do With Academic Freedom
Professor Declares Black Students ‘Rarely’ Graduate In The Top Half Of Law School Class
years
Amy Wax Moves To Dismiss Disciplinary Action, Still Raising Legal Defense Funds That She Claims Are Tax-Deductible
Amy Wax Says Her Legal Defense Fund Is A 501(c)(3) Charity And That Seems… Odd
Law School Professor Amy Wax Cites Wikipedia And We Need To Stop Pretending Tenure Was Made For This

Joe 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.

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