Amy Wax has hired a new attorney to support her legal fight against Penn: John Eastman, a conservative lawyer who previously advised President Donald Trump.
Penn imposed sanctions on Wax — a professor at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law — in 2024 over controversial remarks on race and immigration, which prompted her to file two lawsuits. She will now be represented by Eastman, who previously advised Trump and was disbarred by the California Supreme Court in April.
Eastman has since appealed his disbarment to the United States Supreme Court. According to a case filing submitted last Friday, he will argue on behalf of Wax at a November hearing.
Requests for comment were left with Wax’s existing representation and a University spokesperson.
“I was delighted to accept Professor Wax’s request to represent her on this important appeal,” Eastman wrote in a statement. “In many ways, Penn’s efforts to cancel her are part of a broader, despicable cancel culture of which my own Cal Bar proceedings are a part.”
Wax initially sued the University in January 2025, alleging that Penn’s speech policies were racially discriminatory and violated core First Amendment principles. The case was dismissed in August of the same year, but Wax requested that a federal appeals court review the dismissal. That request is currently pending in the Third U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
She filed her most recent suit, for which Eastman is now advising her, last November. This latest effort alleges that Penn has violated Wax’s academic freedoms and breached its contract obligations.
“I look forward to the argument in November and addressing for the Court the very significant issues raised by the appeal,” Eastman wrote.
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Wax was initially suspended following a determination by the Faculty Senate’s Committee on Academic Freedom and Responsibility. The suspension entailed a one-year academic leave at half pay for the 2025-26 school year and permanent loss of her named faculty chair and summer pay.
Eastman previously served as the Henry Salvatori Professor of Law & Community Service and Dean at Chapman University’s Dale E. Fowler School of Law.
He sought to invalidate votes in four states where Trump alleged voter fraud had occurred during the 2020 presidential election. Trump graduated from the Wharton School in 1968 with a bachelor’s degree in economics.
Weeks after that election, Eastman drafted legal memos suggesting that then-Vice President Mike Pence could refuse to accept certain electoral votes from several battleground states, which would overturn the election’s results after Congress ratified the final vote count.
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Staff reporter Cathy Sui covers politics and can be reached at sui@thedp.com. At Penn, she studies finance and statistics.
