{"id":183510,"date":"2025-08-29T01:09:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-29T01:09:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/183510\/"},"modified":"2025-08-29T01:09:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-29T01:09:09","slug":"amy-waxs-lawsuit-against-penn-is-dismissed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/183510\/","title":{"rendered":"Amy Wax\u2019s lawsuit against Penn is dismissed"},"content":{"rendered":"

A federal judge dismissed the lawsuit<\/a> brought by controversial University of Pennsylvania<\/a> law professor Amy Wax against the Ivy League school, in which she claimed to have been subjected to discrimination because she is a \u201cwhite Jewish woman.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wax\u2019s lawsuit<\/a> also claimed that Penn\u2019s speech policies \u201cviolate core principles of the First Amendment.\u201d But District Judge Timothy J. Savage rejected the idea that the case was about free speech.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs much as Wax would like otherwise, this case is not a First Amendment case,\u201d Savage wrote in an opinion<\/a> dated Wednesday. \u201cIt is a discrimination case brought under federal antidiscrimination laws.\u201d<\/p>\n

The judge said Wax \u201cfailed to allege facts that show that her race was a factor in the disciplinary process\u201d that led to her one-year suspension, among other sanctions. <\/p>\n

Savage found that Penn did not discriminate against Wax when the university disciplined her for making racist comments because antidiscrimination laws \u201cprotect speakers, not speech.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wax failed to prove discrimination based on speech because she didn\u2019t speak on behalf of a protected class, even though her comments related to race.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo characterize her comments as supportive of those she criticized and denigrated is not plausible,\u201d Savage said.<\/p>\n

The judge also wasn\u2019t convinced that Wax was discriminated against because she is a white Jewish woman. In court filings, Wax compared her speech and its consequences to that of seven Penn faculty and staff who weren\u2019t sanctioned for comments that the law professor characterized as antisemitic. <\/p>\n

But the comparison between Wax and those speakers fails, the judge wrote, because she again focuses on speech and not the speaker. And nearly all of the comments Wax cited were related to current events.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe was sanctioned for harmful speech directed at specific demographics in the University,\u201d Savage said. \u201cThe remarks of her purported comparators were not antisemitic; they were critical of Israel\u2019s treatment of Palestinians.\u201d<\/p>\n

Penn declined to comment on the litigation. Wax\u2019s attorneys did not immediately respond to a request for comment. <\/p>\n

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

Over the years Penn faced calls from within its community<\/a> and from lawmakers <\/a>to revoke Wax\u2019s tenure.<\/p>\n

In September, Penn announced that Wax would be suspended for the 2025-26 academic year,<\/a> among other sanctions, after a five-member board of tenured faculty found that the professor committed a \u201cmajor infraction\u201d and had a history \u201cof sweeping, blithe, and derogatory generalizations about groups by race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, and immigration status.\u201d<\/p>\n

In March, Wax\u2019s legal team asked the court to issue a preliminary injunction preventing the sanctions from taking effect. The sanctions include one-year suspension at half pay with benefits, a public reprimand, the loss of her named chair, and summer pay. Savage rejected that motion in June<\/a>. <\/p>\n

The judge dismissed Wax\u2019s breach of contract and false light claims but allowed the law professor to attempt to litigate those counts in the future. <\/p>\n

But when it came to the discrimination counts, Savage closed the door on any further litigation, saying \u201cthere is nothing Wax can add that would make her discrimination claims plausible.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A federal judge dismissed the lawsuit brought by controversial University of Pennsylvania law professor Amy Wax against the…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":183511,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5132],"tags":[5229,1448,2830,1311,67,586,132,5230,103154,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-183510","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-pa","10":"tag-pennsylvania","11":"tag-philadelphia","12":"tag-united-states","13":"tag-united-states-of-america","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","16":"tag-university-of-pennsylvania-amy-wax-lawsuit-discrimination-comments","17":"tag-us","18":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115109387607964747","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183510","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=183510"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183510\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/183511"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=183510"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=183510"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=183510"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}