It was the House hearing heard ‘round the world – or at least heard ‘round the United States. During a five-hour House hearing last week, University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill and colleagues at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) showed up to discuss how their institutions have responded to the rise in the hate against Jews since the Hamas attacks on October 7th. Their answers were not well received by some of the congressmen and women – or the rest of the public.
NBC News reports that four days after the hearing, President Magill turned in her resignation after receiving criticism from all sides, including the White House and Democrats as well as donors and alumni from the university. She will, however, remain a tenured faculty member at Penn Carey Law. Of course she will.
Scott L. Bok, the chair of the Penn Board of Trustees, tendered his resignation as well, effective immediately, saying, “now was the right time to depart.” In his resignation statement, he said that Magill was a “good person” as well as talented and “beloved” by her team and he defended her by saying that she gave a “legalistic answer to a moral question,” admitting that she had answered the question the wrong way. However, it sounds like Bok mostly considers the whole thing a PR problem as he talked about how it led to a bad 30-second “sound-bite.”
Most likely, Magill was pressured to step down from her position because of money woes that were coming to the university. Axios has reported that a University of Pennsylvania donor, Ross Stevens, the founder and CEO of Stone Ridge Asset Management, has withdrawn a gift worth approximately $100 million in protest of the school’s response to antisemitism on the campus – and because of Magill’s testimony in front of Congress. He has withdrawn support of the university in the past, including after disagreeing with them about prioritizing DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) over enhancing the business school’s academic excellence.
Concerning her resignation, Representative Elise Stefanik (R-NY) said, “One down. Two to go.”
Although the university folks who testified in front of congress (all women) gave lip service to condemn anti-semitism, they did not give good answers when Rep. Stefanik asked asked whether “calling for the genocide of Jews” would violate each school’s code of conduct.
Magill said that decision would be “context-dependent” saying that “If the speech turns into conduct, it can be harassment.”
Stefanik said: “I am asking, specifically, calling for the genocide of Jews, does that constitute bullying or harassment?”
Magill said it was a “context-dependent decision.”
Harvard President Claudine Gay gave a similar answer saying when “speech crosses into conduct, that violates our policies.”
MIT President Sally Kornbluth said that rhetoric at her university would be “investigated as harassment if pervasive and severe.”
Hm… is calling for genocide against certain members of their school and the community not pervasive and severe??
One has to ask what their answer would have been if asked if asked if the calling for the genocide of blacks in America would violate their school’s code of conduct. Somehow, I don’t think we would have heard the same answers as the ones that were given to congress.
One also has to ask what’s going on with so many female leaders in the country and why they think they are above criticism over their own bigotry and intolerance on issues that are important to them – and why they think they are immune to being decent people just because they think they hold some sort of special privilege? Do they think that their own “minority” status keeps them shielded from anything they say or do? That seems to be the case quite often so it’s nice to see when they actually have to pay a price once in a while.
However, so far only Magill has paid a price. Gay and Kornbluth haven’t submitted their resignations yet. They are probably waiting for the whole thing to blow over. But that might not happen. The House Education and Workforce Committee is now opening an investigation into the three universities after members of Congress were dissatisfied with their weak responses to their questions.
Meanwhile, almost 700 professors at Harvard signed a petition to keep Gay as president, most likely because she is Harvard’s first black president in its 368-year history and they would have additional protests on their hands if they got rid of her after taking on her role less than six months ago.
However, even Democrats weren’t happy with their testimony including Pennsylvania Democrat Senator John Fetterman who called the testimony of the three women “appalling.”
He went on to say, “I would really like to say to all the presidents and remind them that you’re the president of the university…Who runs it? Are the crazy protesters that are saying these ridiculous antisemitism kinds of things, or are you?”
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