A University of Pennsylvania law school professor will no longer teach required courses following outcry over a video in which she suggested — falsely, the school said — that black students seldom graduated high in their class.
Amy Wax, a tenured professor, will continue to teach electives in her areas of expertise but will be removed from teaching first-year curriculum courses, Penn Law Dean Theodore Ruger said. Ruger said Wax spoke "disparagingly and inaccurately" when she claimed last year that she had "rarely, rarely" seen a black student finish in the top half of their class.
"It is imperative for me as dean to state that these claims are false," he said, according to the Daily Pennsylvanian, the student newspaper.
"Black students have graduated in the top of the class at Penn Law," Ruger said. "And contrary to any suggestion otherwise, black students at Penn Law are extremely successful."
Wax didn't respond to a message seeking comment Thursday. She told the Daily Pennsylvanian last week that "student performance is a matter of fact, not opinion. It is what it is."
Her remarks came in an interview she gave in September 2017 with Brown University professor Glenn Loury.
"Here's a very inconvenient fact, Glenn: I don't think I've ever seen a black student graduate in the top quarter of the class, and rarely, rarely, in the top half," Wax said. Wax, who specializes in social welfare law and policy, also claimed that the school's law review had a diversity mandate. Ruger said that was incorrect, too.
Washington Post
