Penn Law flyered with fake articles mocking Law dean Ted Ruger and professor Amy Wax

Flyers satirizing Penn Law School Dean Ted Ruger and Penn Law professor Amy Wax were circulated at Penn Law this morning. 

The flyer, stylized like The Daily Pennsylvanian's website, was titled "The Daily Goat" and included stories with headlines such as "Penn Law officially extends inclusion policy to racists" and "Dean Ruger's Opinion: Don't blame me, I literally have no spine." A similar flyer was found at the school last weekend, with the "centerpiece story" headlined "Penn Law currently hoping this whole racist professor thing will blow over." 

In response to the flyers, Ruger wrote in an emailed statement, "I’m pleased that our students have a sense of humor to go along with their sense of justice."

Wax did not respond to request for comment.

The flyers were circulated less than a week after Ruger announced that Wax will no longer be allowed to teach a mandatory first-year course after she claimed that black students have never graduated at the top of her class. 

On March 13, Ruger said Wax would no longer be allowed to teach a mandatory first-year Penn Law course starting in the fall semester. This decision comes in light of a video from last fall in which Wax said that she had never seen a black student graduate in the top quarter of the Penn Law class.

"I don't think I've ever seen a black student graduate in the top quarter of the [Penn Law School] class and rarely, rarely in the top half," Wax said in the lecture titled "The Downside to Social Uplift," which was part of the series hosted by Brown University professor Glenn Loury. "I can think of one or two students who've graduated in the top half of my required first-year course."

Her remarks sparked outrage among many student groups, as well as an online petition written by Penn Law students and alumni that called on Ruger to dismiss Wax's claims and ideally remove Wax from teaching first-year courses and from committees involving the direction of the school.

Nick Hall, third-year law student and president of the Black Law Student Association, told The Daily Pennsylvanian that members of BLSA promoted the petition and spoke with Ruger over spring break. He added that more than 780 people had signed the petition.

Hall did not respond to request for comment on the flyering. 

"As a scholar she is free to advocate her views, no matter how dramatically those views diverge from our institutional ethos and our considered practices," Ruger wrote regarding his decision. "As a teacher, however, she is not free to transgress the policy that student grades are confidential, or to use her access to those Penn Law students who are required to be in her class to further her scholarly ends without students’ permission."

The flyer also addressed Ruger's previous statements supporting Wax's right to free speech. 

"Despite resistance from sane people, Ruger remains confident the blowback will settle once people realize that inaccurate and belittling statements about black people are just part of a 'robust dialogue,'" it said. 

Wax surfaced to the spotlight last August following her controversial op-ed in The Philadelphia Inquirer that called for a return of "bourgeois" cultural values. Over the past year, various student groups and faculty campaigned for her removal as the professor of the mandatory first-year Penn Law course. 

The flyer did not state its authors. However, it listed several email addresses of contact info for students and faculty. 

"Are you a student who wants to help? Email us at: TheDailyGoatEmail@gmail.com," it said. "Are you an angry member of this joke of an administration? Email us at SorryNotSorry@YoureTheWorst.com."