{"id":286327,"date":"2026-09-15T07:10:16","date_gmt":"2026-09-15T07:10:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/286327\/"},"modified":"2026-09-15T07:10:16","modified_gmt":"2026-09-15T07:10:16","slug":"trump-ally-to-help-represent-amy-wax-in-lawsuit-against-penn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/286327\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump ally to help represent Amy Wax in lawsuit against Penn"},"content":{"rendered":"

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.<\/p>\n

Penn imposed sanctions<\/a> on Wax \u2014 a professor at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law \u2014 in 2024 over controversial remarks on race and immigration, which prompted her to file two lawsuits<\/a>. She will now be represented by Eastman, who previously advised Trump and was disbarred<\/a> by the California Supreme Court in April.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Requests for comment were left with Wax\u2019s existing representation and a University spokesperson.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was delighted to accept Professor Wax\u2019s request to represent her on this important appeal,\u201d Eastman wrote in a statement. \u201cIn many ways, Penn\u2019s efforts to cancel her are part of a broader, despicable cancel culture of which my own Cal Bar proceedings are a part.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Wax initially sued<\/a> the University in January 2025, alleging that Penn\u2019s speech policies were racially discriminatory and violated core First Amendment principles. The case was dismissed<\/a> in August of the same year, but Wax requested<\/a> that a federal appeals court review the dismissal. That request is currently pending in the Third U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.\u00a0<\/p>\n

She filed<\/a> her most recent suit, for which Eastman is now advising her, last November. This latest effort alleges that Penn has violated Wax\u2019s academic freedoms and breached its contract obligations.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI look forward to the argument in November and addressing for the Court the very significant issues raised by the appeal,\u201d Eastman wrote.<\/p>\n

Wax was initially suspended following a determination by the Faculty Senate\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

Eastman previously served as the Henry Salvatori Professor of Law & Community Service and Dean at Chapman University\u2019s Dale E. Fowler School of Law. \u00a0<\/p>\n

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\u2019s degree in economics.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s results after Congress ratified the final vote count.<\/p>\n

Staff reporter Cathy Sui covers politics and can be reached at sui@thedp.com<\/a>. At Penn, she studies finance and statistics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Amy Wax has hired a new attorney to support her legal fight against Penn: John Eastman, a conservative…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":286328,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[69,71,70],"class_list":["post-286327","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286327","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=286327"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286327\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/286328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=286327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=286327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=286327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}