By Karen Sloan

Jan 17 (Reuters) - University of Pennsylvania law professor Amy Wax sued the school for racial discrimination on Thursday, escalating a long-running clash with administrators over her controversial statements on race.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Philadelphia, said Penn is quicker to discipline white people under its free speech policy while overlooking similar conduct by racial minorities.

Wax also claimed that Penn violated her tenure rights in October when it suspended her from teaching for one year with half pay following an investigation into public statements Wax made about minority groups that many deemed racist.

“White speakers are far more likely to be disciplined for ‘harmful’ speech while minority speakers are rarely, if ever, subject to disciplinary procedures for the same,” the lawsuit said.

A Penn spokesperson declined to comment. Neither Wax nor her attorneys at law firm Holtzman Vogel immediately responded to a request for comment Friday.

Wax has previously defended her right to hold unpopular opinions and referred to herself as a "casualty in the culture wars.” She denied being racist in her lawsuit.

A social welfare law and policy scholar who has taught at Penn’s law school since 2001, Wax has clashed for years with administrators. Students and faculty first called for her firing in 2017, after she co-authored a newspaper opinion piece that argued Anglo-Protestant cultural norms are superior.

The law school in 2018 banned Wax from teaching required first-year courses after she said on a podcast that she had never seen a Black law student graduate in the top quarter of the class, and rarely in the top half.

In 2022, Wax wrote a blog post saying the United States is “better off with fewer Asians and less Asian immigration” as long as most Asians vote for Democrats, after which former Penn law dean Ted Ruger asked the university’s faculty senate to impose a “major sanction” against her.

Wax’s lawsuit said the University's investigation was mishandled, and it cited other Penn faculty members who took controversial actions but were not disciplined, including a lecturer who posted a cartoon showing three Jewish men drinking from cups of blood labeled “Gaza” and a professor who posted a video celebrating the murder of UnitedHealth Group Chief Executive Officer Brian Thompson.

Read more:

Penn Law dean wants 'major sanctions' against lightning rod professor

Facing sanctions, Penn law prof Amy Wax files grievance against dean

(Reporting by Karen Sloan)