A tenured University of Pennsylvania law professor has been suspended for what school officials called a history of derogatory remarks against minority groups.

The Faculty Senate Committee on Academic Freedom and Responsibility announced sanctions against Amy Wax on Tuesday for occasional discriminatory statements she made against people based on their race, sex, gender, ethnicity and immigration status. This includes a one-year suspension with half-pay, the loss of her designated chair, and the inability to represent UPenn in public engagements, among other things.

"The faculty Hearing Board concluded that you engaged in 'flagrant unprofessional conduct' that breached your responsibilities as a teacher to offer an equal opportunity to all students to learn from you," university Provost John L. Jackson Jr. wrote in a public reprimand to Wax.

Students from the National Black Law Students Association, the National Asian Pacific American Law Student Association, and the North American South Asian Law Students Association issued a unified letter in April 2022 calling for accountability as well.

The controversial comments in question go as far back as 2017, when Wax said she had never seen a Black student graduate in the top quarter of their Penn Law class. Following a 2018 online petition calling for the school to seek legal action against Wax for her remarks, the university announced she would no longer be teaching a first-year course.

Then at the National Conservatism Conference in 2019, Wax said the U.S. should favor Western immigrants at the National Conservatism Conference.

"Embracing cultural distance, cultural distance nationalism, means in effect taking the position that our country will be better off with more whites than non-whites," BuzzFeed News reported Wax saying, which led to backlash from students.

In another interview with Fox News in April 2022, Wax disparaged Indian Americans who criticize the United States, saying, "They climb the ladder, they get the best education, we give them every opportunity, and they turn around and lead the charge on 'we're racist, we're an awful country.'"

According to ABC News, Wax has also made homophobic statements, including "commenting in class that gay couples are not fit to raise children" and telling students that "women, on average, are less knowledgeable than men."

In May 2023, the committee determined Wax made "sweeping and derogatory generalizations" about minority groups over the years and recommended sanctions, which Wax opposed. However the committee denied her appeal on Tuesday, and interim President J. Larry Jameson confirmed he would respect this "final decision" and impose the sanctions proposed.

While Penn's sanctions represent significant action against a tenured faculty member, students have previously pushed for Wax's removal.

In 2022, a third-year law student told ABC News that Wax shouldn't be allowed on the school campus to interact with other students during the investigation into her controversial remarks.

"We really need to fire Amy Wax," another law student said.

Tags Upenn, Professor