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Black Asian law student calls for professor to be suspended for racist remarks

Several national law student unions are calling for Amy Wax, a University of Pennsylvania Law School professor who for years has espoused overtly racist rhetoric, to be suspended from campus and denied admission. talk to students.

The National Association of Black Law Students, the National Association of Asian Pacific American Law Students, and the North American Association of South Asian Law Students jointly released a letter Wednesday, sharing the first with NBC Asian America, condemns Wax’s comments. In In recent interviews, Wax said that the United States would be “better with fewer Asians,” and that “Blacks” and Asians are resenting the success of the West.

“The fact that Wax has been authorized to teach, supervise and mock minority law students for more than 21 years is alarming,” the letter read. “Few people understand how burdensome law school can be on students who are constantly being told they’re ‘underperform’ or not in.”

The message, co-written by student group leaders, lists action Penn can take to correct the situation, including removing Wax from all instructional duties and investigating whether students’ grading her color was fair during her two decades at school.

The letter states that the investigation must be completely transparent to the student and that Wax should be suspended from campus during the process. According to the law school website, she currently teaching two courses.

Dillon Yang, president of the National Association of Asian Pacific American Law Students and a sophomore law student at the University of Notre Dame, told NBC Asian America: “It’s a little bit scary to think about the impact of the impact. of the fact that she has been teaching at Penn for a long time. “Professors must teach law in a neutral way, in a way that law students can form their own thoughts about law. But she’s clearly not hiding what she really feels about the various minorities in America. It’s hard for me to believe it wouldn’t shine in a classroom setting. “

Meredith Rovine, a law school spokeswoman, said: “The University of Pennsylvania’s Carey School of Law has previously made it clear that Professor Wax’s views do not reflect our values ​​or practices. “In January 2022, Dean Ruger announced that he would be continuing with a process in the University Department Senate to address Professor Wax’s escalating behavior, and that process is underway.”

Wax did not respond to a request for comment, but she spoke about Penn’s sanctions against her in a January YouTube interview with Gad Saad. She stands by her claims.

“My case is to some extent not about me. I’m just a passerby, I’m a victim of the culture war,” Wax told Saad, whose YouTube channel has more than 230,000 subscribers. “What I see being said and done is really alarming to me. It is a complete negation of the very concept of academic freedom. “

Richard Garzola, NBLSA president and a sophomore law student at Georgetown University, said Wax is not the first professor accused of racism to teach at a law school. But her comments are cutting edge and feel intentionally harmful, he said.

“She used the way, since the late 1800s or early 1900s, to refer to students as ‘Blacks,’” he said. “I wonder, when will that tenure cloud stop protecting people at legal institutions?”

In an interview with Tucker Carlson last week, Wax called India a “hole” and said South Asian-American women should be more grateful to be in America.

“I made those remarks pretty clear,” Yang said. “People of color in general are greatly underrepresented in the legal field. For her to remain a professor only reinforces the stereotype that minorities are not in the legal field. “

Both Garzola and Yang said they were worried about new law students arriving at the school when the likes of Wax might be able to escape overt racism. As leaders on campus and among minority students across the country, the two said they’ve heard first-hand reports about what racism looks like in academia. .

Although Wax has now been dropped from teaching the required first-year course, the damage to students’ prior years of study may have been done, they said.

“Starting to study law in itself is very difficult,” Yang said. “A lot of times you feel, ‘I don’t know if I can do this, I don’t know if I belong’. And taking a freshman class with her will only reinforce that feeling. ”

They said they released the letter to pressure Penn to do more than they have so far.

“As descendants of our ancestors who were enslaved, immigrants, refugees, asylum seekers and people with many of these identities, we reject Amy Wax’s hateful claim that we and the community Our community is dangerous, incompetent, does not belong to us, contributes less and is inherently the letter. “Minority law students belong in the space they occupy.”

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