Penn Trustee Resigns In Defense Of Amy Wax's God-Given Right To Make Up False Claims About Students
He appears to have never bothered to follow, well, any of the Wax controversy based on his misconception of basic facts in this letter.
University of Pennsylvania Trustee Emeritus and “Penn Law School Overseer” Paul Levy has written a lengthy screed resigning his position in protest over the school’s long, long, long overdue decision to only allow Professor Amy Wax to teach elective courses. One suspects that Levy typed this up from his posh San Remo stylings hoping this would become his 99 Theses.
It’s… not.
Last month, after almost a year of serving as a constant embarrassment to Penn Law’s academic reputation, Professor Amy Wax found herself consigned to teaching only elective courses. Her repeated racist dog whistling for attention was unsettling enough, but her reliance on shoddy and discredited research, in the rare instance she cites anything but innuendo, put the lie to even the disingenuous “academic freedom” defense her supporters trotted out to shield her from well-earned criticism.
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And yet — and this is going to be important — Dean Ted Ruger’s decision to limit Wax’s course load had nothing to do with her preening for Tucker Carlson’s attention. The decision came in response to a taped interview where Wax made false claims about black students based on… nothing. Dean Ruger, who actually had access to the data at issue, confirmed its falsehood and made the decision to relieve her of teaching students who do not affirmatively seek her out.
Levy appears to have never bothered to follow, well, any of the Wax controversy based on his misconception of basic facts in this letter. Honestly, if this weren’t a resignation it would be exhibit A for the decision to relieve Levy as “Overseer” for cause:
Wax co-authored an off-campus editorial in a publication unaffiliated with Penn expressing her views about “bourgeois values.” For her colleagues to gang up on her in a letter of outright condemnation without giving any reasons demolishes the façade of open intellectual debate at the Law School. This letter, that was certain to harm the school, should not have been published, but Ted did not take strong steps to stop it.
Did he mean to use “façade” there? Because in that sentence “façade” means his goal was to have a school that only pretends to be intellectual. Perhaps he means “foundation”? In any event, the letter from her colleagues not only refuted her claims — which, again, she never actually supported with evidence anyway — but did so civilly and actually reaffirmed a commitment to academic freedom and open intellectual debate. I mean, the letter’s not even that long, Levy! You could have at least looked at it before writing this.
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Or… maybe he did mean to use “façade.”
Because yet again we find that “open intellectual debate” apparently means “no one can question anyone else’s views,” which is kind of antithetical to the purpose of the academy. Alternative, unpopular views are allowed… and then allowed to be robustly critiqued.
Worse yet, what started as an unduly raucous debate over “bourgeois values” and the relative merits of different cultures quickly got out of hand. We’re now debating Wax’s view of affirmative action, and how students admitted under that program have fared, its impact on them, and its place in our society.
Well, we’re having that discussion because Wax made them issues. It’s not like some nebulous PC Police Chief decided to expand this debate to affirmative action and Penn grades, she went on a show and said all these things. She put the institution’s educational credibility at issue.
Ruger has said that Wax is wrong about her affirmative action students’ performance, but won’t give data to back up his views. One of the Overseers keeps saying to me: “Paul, Amy is wrong!” I say: “Well, I hope she is, but what are the facts?” He says: “Well, Ruger said she’s wrong; that proves it.” Really? Privately, faculty members have told me that their experiences match those of Wax.
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Reminder: Amy Wax didn’t produce any facts either. That’s the really galling thing about all this. This bargain-basement provacateur goes out there blithely asserting black students don’t get good grades based on zero evidence because her own grading is blind and she has no access to the grades given by other professors. So why, exactly, do her defenders demand such a high threshold for documented evidence when she’s called out? I mean, I know why, but let’s keep the question rhetorical.
Levy literally chases his “golly the board and the dean say there’s no support for this naked claim but where’s the verifiable evidence” with “I have unnamed, unverifiable sources who also have no access to this body of evidence who agree with me.” There are just no words.
Because Ruger has publicly said that Wax was wrong, it might be nice to know how various groups have fared at Penn Law.
Not really. Not only does this risk violating all manner of academic research protocols and raise a plethora of privacy concerns, but what exactly would the point be other than to throw yet another hurdle in the path of proving the negative. Wax is the one shooting her mouth based on nothing. It didn’t take me more than 10 minutes on Google to find highly successful black Penn alums — something I shouldn’t have had to do because Wax hasn’t come close to making a prima facie claim. But maybe Levy suspects that those students still failed to graduate in the top half of the class and were saved by affirmative action for their clerkships. And then maybe saved by affirmative action when they applied for a job. At a certain point though, it stops being about dealing with white mediocrity and these students just became successful attorneys.
That’s, theoretically, the mission of the law school this guy was supposed to oversee.
Wax has written scholarly work about affirmative action, as have other distinguished scholars, like Richard Sander at U.C.L.A. Law, Duke University economist, Peter Arcidiacono, Harvard historian Stephan Thernstrom, and Thomas Sowell of the Hoover Institute.
A regular Algonquin Roundtable of psuedoscientists there. And yet, all folks that we zestily allow to publish their ramblings and then rip apart. That’s the purpose of scholarship.
It is not a subject free from intense debate that roils emotions. So what! What is the University there for? It can’t be to preside over an “I’m okay-you’re okay,” back-slapping, Pollyanna culture. I relish hearty but respectful debate.
There was a hearty debate when the rest of the faculty — and others — penned pointed, evidenced critiques of her work. Levy seems to be the one who has a problem with debate, preferring professors not criticize fellow professors for some bizarre reason.
Ruger’s long memo of March 13th to the Law School community rested on the claim that Wax had violated her students’ confidentiality. What rule proscribes a professor’s general comments about students’ grades over a 17-year period, without naming a single person, nor a single class of students, let alone her most recent civil procedure students?
The one that requires her to grade blindly and then not surreptitiously look up other professors’ grades. Jesus, man! The board is supposed to have at least a passing grasp of this. That’s the rock and a hard place Wax put herself in: either she made this all up (likely) or she violated all of these rules. Does this guy just nap during board meetings?
It is not acceptable that a professor with Wax’s scholarly and teaching stature and litigation experience (15 arguments before the Supreme Court) should be barred from teaching civil procedure just because some students might be uncomfortable in her class. Her exam is a multiple choice, computer-graded exam so there can be no plausible argument that she grades discriminatorily.
WAIT! What? “Her exam is a multiple choice, computer-graded exam”?!?!?! Penn Law grades 1Ls in Civil Procedure with a multiple choice exam?!?!?! Forget both Wax’s commentary and the professors ripping her… this is the most damning attack on Penn’s academic credibility.
In the closing words of Levy’s letter, we finally get to the nub of his complaint. In a narcissistic recitation of his generous charitable giving, Levy feels he should have been consulted about this decision. That’s the real trick, isn’t it? He thought he’d bought a school to peddle his personal views like a vanity project and he’s enraged that some academic would make a move without Levy’s personal approval.
Some schools might sacrifice their institutional integrity over this kind of complaint. Penn, to its credit, didn’t.
So ends Levy’s complaint. Maybe he can land a TV spot on Hannity this week or something. There’s 15 minutes of fame out there for anyone ready to take it.
(Read Levy’s letter on the next page…)
Penn Trustee Emeritus resigns over University ‘treatment of Amy Wax’ [Daily Pennsylvanian]
Earlier: Amy Wax Relieved Of Her 1L Teaching Duties After Bald-Faced Lying About Black Students
Professor Declares Black Students ‘Rarely’ Graduate In The Top Half Of Law School Class
Law Professors Say White ’50s Culture Is Superior, Other Racist Stuff
Dog Whistling ‘Bourgeois Values’ Op-Ed Gets Thorough Takedown From Other Law Professors
Law Students Seek To Ban Professor From Teaching 1Ls
Joe Patrice is an editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news.