More than 2200 people have now signed on to a petition calling for the University of Pennsylvania to suspend tenured law professor Amy Wax.
The Daily Pennsylvanian reports the petition emerged shortly after Wax said the country would be better with “fewer Asians.”
“It’s distressing that Wax’s latest outburst is no surprise to the student body. The right time to fire Amy Wax was in September 2017 when she made racist comments about Black students at Penn Law. The next best time to fire her is now,” wrote student Nithya Pathalam.
According to Philly Voice, Wax had previously said America would be better off with more Whites and fewer non-whites. This is not the first time protesters have demanding her firing.
“As much as Amy Wax has said these things,” Soojin Jeong, co-president of the Asian Pacific American Law Students Associated added, “we also know right now that it is a pattern, as we said in the petition.”
Back in 2019, the Undergraduate Assembly unanimously passed a resolution demanding the university fire her. Complicating matters are rules regulating tenured professors.
In the past few years, she has only been allowed to teach elective courses. Law school dean Theodore Ruger has once again denounced Wax’s remarks, as he has in the past.
“Once again, Amy Wax has, through her thoroughly anti-intellectual and racist comments denigrating Asian immigrants, underscored a fundamental tension around harmful speech at American universities,” Ruger said.
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