<\/strong>a congressional hearing on campus antisemitism.<\/p>\n\u201cI write to share that President Liz Magill has voluntarily tendered her resignation as President of the University of Pennsylvania,\u201d Scott L. Bok, the chair of the Penn Board of Trustees, wrote in a message to the Penn community Saturday. \u201cShe will remain a tenured faculty member at Penn Carey Law.\u201d<\/p>\n
Shortly after Bok announced Magill\u2019s resignation,\u00a0he announced he\u00a0would also step down from his position,\u00a0according to a\u00a0statement\u00a0from Bok published by the Daily Pennsylvanian student newspaper. \u201cI concluded that, for me, now was the right time to depart,\u201d Bok said\u00a0in the statement.<\/p>\n
A university spokesman confirmed Bok’s resignation.<\/p>\n
In a five-hour House hearing Tuesday, Magill and her counterparts at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology were grilled over how their institutions responded to the rise in anti-Jewish hate since Oct. 7.<\/p>\n
In their testimonies, the three university leaders each condemned antisemitism. The outcry centered on a contentious exchange with Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., who asked whether \u201ccalling for the genocide of Jews\u201d would violate each school\u2019s code of conduct.<\/p>\n
Instead of directly replying to Stefanik\u2019s yes-or-no question, Magill said that decision would be \u201ccontext-dependent.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIf the speech turns into conduct, it can be harassment,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
In his statement, Bok said Magill \u201cmade a very unfortunate misstep\u201d in her testimony but praised her leadership skills and insisted she was \u201cnot the slightest bit antisemitic.\u201d He went on to say that Magill was \u201cworn down by months of relentless external attacks\u201d and \u201cprovided a legalistic answer to a moral question,\u201d making for a \u201cdreadful 30-second sound bite.\u201d<\/p>\n
Harvard President Claudine Gay responded to Stefanik\u2019s line of questioning in similar terms. She testified that when \u201cspeech crosses into conduct, that violates our policies.\u201d<\/p>\n
MIT President Sally Kornbluth said she had not heard of students on her campus calling for the genocide of Jews, adding that such rhetoric would be \u201cinvestigated as harassment if pervasive and severe.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a two-minute video message posted Wednesday night on the social media platform X, Magill elaborated on her answer and condemned calls for the genocide of Jewish people in more unequivocal terms.<\/p>\n\n\u201cI was not focused on, but I should have been, the irrefutable fact that a call for genocide of Jewish people is a call for some of the most terrible violence human beings can perpetrate,\u201d she said in the video.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s evil, plain and simple,\u201d Magill added.<\/p>\n
Gay has apologized for her remarks. In an interview with the Harvard Crimson student newspaper, she said in part: \u201cI got caught up in what had become at that point, an extended, combative exchange about policies and procedures.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI failed to convey what is my truth,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
The national outcry<\/h2>\n
The university presidents\u2019 exchanges with Stefanik went viral on social media and drew furious criticism from political leaders in both parties, as well as Jewish community advocates, alumni and donors.<\/p>\n
In a statement Wednesday, White House spokesman Andrew Bates said: \u201cIt\u2019s unbelievable that this needs to be said: Calls for genocide are monstrous and antithetical to everything we represent as a country.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAny statements that advocate for the systematic murder of Jews are dangerous and revolting \u2014 and we should all stand firmly against them, on the side of human dignity and the most basic values that unite us as Americans,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro told reporters Wednesday that Magill\u2019s response was \u201cunacceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve said many times, leaders have a responsibility to speak and act with moral clarity, and Liz Magill failed to meet that simple test,\u201d Shapiro, a Democrat, said. \u201cI think whether you\u2019re talking about genocide against Jews, genocide against people of color, genocide against LGBTQ folks, it\u2019s all in the wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n
The governor added that he believed the university\u2019s board needed to make a \u201cserious decision\u201d about Magill\u2019s leadership at the Ivy League university.<\/p>\n
Ross Stevens, a Penn alumnus and the CEO of the financial firm Stone Ridge Holdings, sent a letter to the university Thursday threatening to pull $100 million worth of shares in his company that are held by the university unless Magill vacates her post.<\/p>\n
In the letter, which was obtained by NBC News, Stevens cited Magill\u2019s congressional testimony and said he is \u201cappalled by the University\u2019s stance on antisemitism on campus.\u201d<\/p>\n
Magill\u2019s high-profile critics included the billionaire investor Bill Ackman, who repeatedly called for her ouster on X. \u201cNow the focus turns to Presidents Gay and Kornbluth and the boards of @Harvard and @MIT,\u201d he tweeted Saturday in the wake of Magill\u2019s exit.<\/p>\n
Stefanik announced Thursday that the House\u2019s Education and Workforce Committee was launching a congressional investigation with \u201cthe full force of subpoena power\u201d into Penn, MIT, Harvard and other unspecified universities.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will use our full Congressional authority to hold these schools accountable for their failure on the global stage,\u201d Stefanik said in a statement.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n[ad_2]\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
[ad_1] University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill resigned from her post Saturday after facing intense criticism from the White House, lawmakers and alumni for appearing to dodge a question at a congressional hearing on campus antisemitism. \u201cI write to share that President Liz Magill has voluntarily tendered her resignation as President of the University of …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15017,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15015"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15015"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15015\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15017"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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