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Penn Law professor Amy Wax Credit: Julia Schorr

As a Penn Law School alumnus, I do not share the recent call of 4,000 petitioners for the firing of law professor Amy Wax for her Trumpian denigration of Christine Blasey Ford and her sexual assault allegations as academic freedom protects academics even those who are fools or ideologues.

But I do concur in their condemnation of  Wax's view that Ford should have stayed silent and that Ford's trauma was "manufactured" as it reflects Wax's shocking lack of understanding, respect and empathy for a victim of sexual assault. Many of Wax's women students past and present at Penn have likely been sexual assault victims.

Wax and Judge, now Justice, Kavanaugh together share an extraordinary gap in human empathy which renders one unfit to be a teacher, and the other unfit to be a judge.

JONATHAN STEIN is a 1967 Penn Law School graduate. His email address is jonathanstein5@gmail.com.