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University of Pennsylvania president Liz Magill’s comments at Tuesday’s congressional hearing on campus antisemitism have attracted widespread criticism.
Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
The chair of the University of Pennsylvania’s Board of Trustees is expected to speak with President Liz Magill about stepping down after her highly criticized testimony at a congressional hearing on campus antisemitism Tuesday, according to CNN. The board held an emergency meeting Thursday to discuss the fallout from the hearing.
Axios reported late Thursday that the board of the Wharton business school went further, drafting a letter asking Magill to resign. The letter noted that the board had met “an unprecedented” eight times since mid-November and remained “deeply concerned about the dangerous and toxic culture on our campus.”
It went on, “As a result of the University leadership’s stated beliefs and collective failure to act, our board respectfully suggests to you and the Board of Trustees that the University requires new leadership with immediate effect.”
Magill also faced a harsh rebuke from major donor Ross Stevens, CEO of Stone Ridge Asset Management and a Penn alum, who reneged on a $100 million pledge to the university.
Stevens had first donated the money to the institution in 2017 as part of a limited partnership with his management firm. He said that Magill’s refusal to say calls for genocide against Jews would violate the university’s code of conduct amounted to a violation of the partnership’s “anti-discrimination and anti-harassment policies,” according to a letter sent by Stevens’s law firm to university leaders.
It’s not Stevens’s first major disagreement with his alma mater. He made headlines in October for redirecting another $100 million from Penn to the University of Chicago’s business school, part of a broader Penn donor revolt following what many saw as the university’s tepid response to the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks.
