The University of Pennsylvania Carey School of Law suspended tenured law professor Amy Wax on Tuesday for “flagrant unprofessional conduct.” The school’s board recommended several sanctions including a one-year suspension, half pay, and requiring Wax to disclaim any public statement as her own and not the view of the University.

Students and staff accused Wax of making “derogatory generalizations about groups by race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, and immigration status.” Additionally, Wax allegedly violated school policy by “publicly speaking about the grades of law students.” The discussion of grades was said to disparage students of specific racial and ethnic backgrounds.

The University’s board said in their decision that “[a]cademic freedom is and should be very broad,” but staff “must conduct themselves in a manner that conveys a willingness to assess all students fairly.” They claimed Wax’s alleged statements about specific groups of students impaired her ability to be an “impartial judge of their academic performance.”

Wax’s suspension raises questions about First Amendment rights in education. The First Amendment protects freedom of speech and expression. Established case law has generally focused on free speech principles in primary and secondary schooling and has not directly extended to colleges and universities. However, debates regarding higher education’s approach to race, gender identity and global conflicts have become increasingly common.

In 2023, the US Supreme Court effectively ended Affirmative Action. The policy allowed colleges and universities to consider race in their admissions programs. Proponents argued the policy allowed colleges the ability to create a more diverse educational environment, which leads to a variety of positive outcomes for their students. Opponents successfully claimed that Affirmative Action violated the US Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause by considering a potential student’s race as a factor in their college admissions program. Following the decision, numerous schools, including Harvard, reported a drop in black student enrollment.

Additionally, Gender identity has also been a flashpoint. The University of Pittsburgh witnessed several days of protests by LGBTQ+ advocates in response to conservative speakers invited to campus by a student organization. Community members protesting the events blamed the University “for being complicit in bringing transphobic events to the community.” Stanford University also saw LGBTQ+ student-led protests in which federal judges called for law schools to “crack down” on punishments for law student protestors.

Protests and public statements by both students and staff during pro-Palestinian demonstrations have been curtailed by colleges and universities across the US. Camps set up by protesters were forcibly disbursed by police at UCLA and Columbia Universities in April and May.

In response to the challenges on college campuses, the American Bar Association passed a rule for all accredited US law schools “to adopt and enforce policies to protect academic freedom and freedom of expression of law students, faculty and staff.” The stated purpose of the rule is for all students and staff “to communicate ideas that may be controversial or unpopular, including through robust debate, demonstrations or protests, and would forbid activities that disrupt or impinge on free speech.”