Amy Wax hearing report confirms fears over erosion of academic freedom at Penn

The University of Pennsylvania’s ongoing “major sanction” proceedings against professor Amy Wax underscore FIRE’s long-held academic freedom concerns about the process Wax faces — and what it portends for all faculty who teach controversial material or say provocative things off campus.

For years, Penn has been in the process of punishing Wax for her in-class and extramural speech about race, gender, and national origin, despite the university’s clear commitments to academic freedom. Separately, the university accused Wax of revealing confidential grading data and discriminating against her students. 

Now, a confidential June 2023 report by the Penn faculty senate, newly reported last week by the Washington Free Beacon, reveals the committee recommended a number of sanctions against Wax following her hearing in May. Wax has appealed the findings.

In its report to former Penn President Liz Magill, the committee recommended Wax receive a one-year suspension from teaching, a dock in pay, and a public reprimand by university leadership. These recommendations came after Ted Ruger, the former dean Penn’s Carey Law School who was under major pressure to punish Wax for her speech, initiated disciplinary proceedings in January 2022, ultimately asking the faculty senate to impose a “major sanction” against Wax. 

In cases as complex as Wax’s, due process is crucially important. Fundamentally fair proceedings give all parties, and the public, confidence that the process reached an accurate outcome. 

But Penn is adjudicating every claim against Wax — privacy violations, discrimination, and claims about her protected classroom and extramural speech — together, as grounds for imposing a “major sanction” against Wax. The university’s failure to separate its investigation into the balance of the claims against her that involve protected speech, from an investigation into wholly unrelated allegations about unprotected misconduct, has raised serious questions about whether Penn has simply found a procedural loophole to sidestep academic freedom.

The June 2023 report states at the outset that the faculty committee did not consider the case against Wax to implicate freedom of speech, instead analyzing the claims against her through the lens of “professionalism.”  But much of the report singles out Wax’s speech and teaching, divorced from the other misconduct claims, concluding Wax relied “on misleading and partial information” to present “controversial views” in the classroom, resulting in “shoddy” instruction. 

Penn Law dean asks for ‘major sanction’ against professor Amy Wax, creating tenure threat for all Penn faculty

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Penn is creating a chilling precedent bound to haunt other faculty members.

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Penn’s willingness to sidestep academic freedom protections to punish Wax sets a troubling precedent. If scholars with controversial views can lose their academic freedom merely for unspecified “unprofessionalism” concerns, all faculty who hold minority, dissenting, or simply unpopular views are at risk. 

In cases as complex as Wax’s, due process is crucially important. Fundamentally fair proceedings give all parties, and the public, confidence that the process reached an accurate outcome. 

The faculty committee’s findings, in sum, ignore the difference between protected expression and punishable misconduct. Even if the conduct-related concerns are legitimate, lumping them together with Wax’s speech in one process dispatches with academic freedom entirely, casting aside the special right of faculty to introduce and discuss controversial or upsetting material in class. And penalizing Wax for “shoddy” teaching or introducing “controversial views” in the classroom are vague, overbroad standards that could too easily be abused to punish faculty with dissenting views or scholarship.  

On appeal, Penn should hear the speech and non-speech charges against Wax separately, adhere to clear and objective standards for each charge, and recognize the importance of protecting both academic freedom and extramural speech rights in reaching any decision.