If Penn doesn’t, will lack of student interest force Amy Wax out?

A law professor known for a history of racially inflammatory pronouncements had only two students enrol in her class this semester, in an apparent rebuff even before her university completes a disciplinary review.

Amy Wax has been experiencing below-average enrolment rates at the University of Pennsylvania for at least six semesters, including another class planned for this semester but cancelled because nobody signed up, according to data compiled by the student newspaper The Daily Pennsylvanian.

She is one of the more prominent examples of faculty across the US encountering official and unofficial pushback for making statements widely perceived to be racist, xenophobic and homophobic inside and outside their classrooms.

Professor Wax, who declined to comment on her class enrolments, has suggested in the past that her overall problems at Penn stem from academic leaders’ efforts to shield students from any debate of controversial ideas – mirroring a commonly voiced conservative position on higher education in the US.

The revelation about her class enrolment data comes as Penn’s law dean, Theodore Ruger, is nearly a year into a review of Professor Wax’s record that could lead to sanctions up to termination. In 2018, Professor Ruger removed Professor Wax from teaching any courses that Penn students might need for graduation after she co-wrote an editorial arguing that “all cultures are not equal” and holding up the nation’s white male-dominated version as superior.

Announcing the disciplinary review last January, Professor Ruger said that sanctions against a faculty member were rare but that he could not ignore “the increasingly negative impact her conduct has had on students, faculty and staff”.

One of her more outspoken colleagues at Penn, Jonathan Zimmerman, a professor of the history of education, has repeatedly warned against punishing Professor Wax over her public speech, saying it would violate tenure protections. Yet Professor Zimmerman did say the calculation would change if it was found to be true, as alleged in numerous instances, that Professor Wax had been abusing students inside her classrooms.

The cases listed by Professor Ruger as needing review include such alleged instances as Professor Wax making racist and homophobic remarks in front of black and LGBTQ students, including telling a black law graduate that she had attended two Ivy League institutions only “because of affirmative action”, and hosting a renowned white supremacist, Jared Taylor, in a law seminar.

“If they’re going to dismiss her, it has to be for the abusive behaviour,” Professor Zimmerman said.

Professor Wax’s courses since the autumn 2019 semester have been about 40 per cent full, compared with a norm across the law school of about 70 per cent to 90 per cent, according to the university data compiled by The Daily Pennsylvanian.

It is theoretically possible that a widespread student rejection of Professor Wax could force some kind of end to her teaching career at Penn regardless of the dean’s investigation, Professor Zimmerman said. But that was “a very complicated question” across higher education, depending on the rules of an institution and the terms of an individual’s contract, and it seemed unlikely that a tenured professor at Penn or elsewhere could be forced out simply because students were not interested in attending her classes, Professor Zimmerman said.

Penn also should be very careful about punishing speech over a matter such as restricting immigration, he said. “I don’t think everyone who wants to restrict immigration is a horrible nativist or racist,” Professor Zimmerman said. “Immigration is a complicated political question, and it will be ever more difficult to really explore that question if we dismiss her for her views of immigrants – we cannot do that.”

paul.basken@timeshighereducation.com