Penn president resigns; Stefanik vows Harvard and MIT next - POLITICO
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Penn president resigns; Stefanik vows Harvard and MIT next
Rep. Elise Stefanik grilled Penn President Liz Magill, along with the presidents of Harvard and MIT, during a hearing Tuesday over their response to antisemitism on their campuses.
University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill listens during a hearing of the House Committee on Education on Capitol Hill on Dec. 5, 2023 in Washington. | Mark Schiefelbein/AP
University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill on Saturday voluntarily stepped down from her role after facing intense blowback following a House Education committee hearing this week.
Magill has agreed to stay in her role until an interim president is selected, according to a statement from Penn Trustee Board Chair Scott Bok. He also resigned Saturday.
"It has been my privilege to serve as President of this remarkable institution," Magill said in the statement. "It has been an honor to work with our faculty, students, staff, alumni and community members to advance Penn's vital mission."
Magill, along with Harvard President Claudine Gay and Massachusetts Institute of Technology President Sally Kornbluth, participated in a contentious, more than five-hour grilling from lawmakers Tuesday over their response to antisemitism on their campuses.
They faced backlash for evading a question from Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) who asked about pro-Palestinian student protestors' calls for "intifada" or "the genocide of Jews."
"Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate Penn's rules or code of conduct, yes or no?" Stefanik asked Magill on Tuesday, to which Magill responded: "If the speech turns into conduct, it can be harassment."
Stefanik slammed the response, saying: "Conduct meaning committing the act of genocide? The speech is not harassment? This is unacceptable."
The other presidents responded similarly to the question. They said they personally did not agree with the rhetoric used by those students and were committed to preserving free speech on campus.
Stefanik, who led the toughest questioning Tuesday and has called for all of the presidents to be fired, wrote on X that Magill's "forced resignation" is only the beginning for addressing antisemitism on college campuses.
"One down," Stefanik said. "Two to go."
Magill is the first president to step down over a response to campus antisemitism. Several lawmakers and top officials across the aisle have slammed the leaders for refusing to say calls for "Jewish genocide" violate their codes of conduct around bullying or harassment Tuesday.
Magill has faced scorching criticism from top Democrats in her state and other lawmakers. Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) called Magill's comments "offensive," and said "calling for the genocide of Jews is antisemitic and harassment, full stop." Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) said Magill's testimony was "embarrassing for a venerable Pennsylvania university." And Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, a first-term Democrat, also slammed Magill's testimony as a "failure of leadership." Hundreds of Penn alumni, donors and students have also called on Magill to resign.
Shapiro, who is a nonvoting member on Penn's board, had called on the university's board of directors to meet to determine whether Magill should be asked to resign.
Magill on Wednesday released a video statement apologizing for her testimony amid intense backlash. The video, published on X, has been viewed more than 37 million times.
In the video, she said that during her testimony she was "focused on our university's longstanding policies aligned with the U.S. Constitution, which say that speech alone is not punishable." Magill also said her school would "initiate a serious and careful look at our policies."
"I 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," she said.
The Wharton Board of Advisors on Thursday called for new university leadership, according to a letter obtained by The Daily Pennsylvanian. The Board of Trustees also held an emergency gathering that morning, according to the student newspaper, and had an executive committee luncheon.
More than 70 lawmakers on Friday urged the boards of Harvard, MIT and Penn to remove their presidents. About a dozen Democrats, however, urged the boards to fix their campus policies on bullying and harassment to ensure antisemitism is included.
House Education and the Workforce Chair Virginia Foxx (R-N.C), who held the hearing, said she "welcomed" Magill's resignation.
"President Magill had three chances to set the record straight when asked if calling for the genocide of Jews violated UPenn's code of conduct during our hearing on antisemitism," Foxx said in a statement. "Instead of giving a resounding yes to the question, she chose to equivocate."
Magill had been in the role for about a year and a half. She previously held positions at University of Virginia and Stanford University.
She will remain a tenured faculty member at Penn Carey Law.
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When something becomes so outrageous, the American people have to notice. It took the anti-Semitism at the university to finally put American higher education, which is challenging the values of Western Civilization, up for public examination.
Commie commie commie !
You do understand that Karl Marx was the product of "western civilization" dont you?
What the hell??????
Where did he say any of that??????
Buy a clue.
So was another German named Hitler, what’s your point?
What is your point?
Marxism came from western civilization.
We all know what some people mean by "western civilization", and it has more to do with demographics.
Did Vic or the author mean more than demographics?
We got a university president to be somewhat held accountable. As soon as Israel eliminates Hamas, our university administrators expect to go right back to their progressive program of speech is violence.
We can't let them.
[deleted]
[JR is not the topic]
Says the guy who claimed that a Native American boy was in "blackface."
Yes, so what?
Makes one wonder what the reaction would be if a group on campus protested and said all Muslims are terrorists or all blacks should go back to where their people originally came from.
There would have been an immediate response from the administration. They have even suspended students for using the wrong pronouns.
“Did Vic or the author mean more than demographics?”
Neither did, but hey, we can’t have an article without half-witted accusations of racism.
Perhaps in your seemingly race obsessed mind.
Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness: this triptych succinctly defines the attractiveness and superiority of Western civilization. In the West we are free to think what we want, to read what we want, to practice our religion, to live as we choose. Liberty is codified in human rights, a magnificent Western creation but also, I believe, a universal good. Human Rights transcend local or ethnocentric values, conferring equal dignity and value on all humanity, regardless of sex, ethnicity, sexual preference, or religion. At the same time, it is in the West that human rights are most respected.
The Superiority of Western Values in Eight Minutes – Westminster Institute (westminster-institute.org)
Again, is that what Vic or the author meant or is this just another attempt to inject race into a conversation?
The later as Western Civilization has been studied and taught for centuries long before the alt-right.
Life liberty and the pursuit of happiness are in the American founding documents, why bring "western civilization" into it instead of just saying the university presidents are "un American" in your opinion?
The "intellectual" right thinks people are stupid.
Seems that the same people that are constantly hijacking or changing meanings of words and phrases are accusing others of changing the meaning of "Western Civilization".
Seems like you are trying to tell someone what they really meant even after they clarified.
Nowhere near as stupid as Biden thinks Americans are when he tells them how great things are and to ignore what they see and feel.
Western values extend far beyond those expressed in America's founding. That's why I linked the article.
I don't think you are denying that American universities are challenging those values. You seem to be defending that challenge.
YOU posted that.
That is but one paragraph from the article. Do you think those values should be challenged?
You have yet to prove that these universities dont represent western civilization.
Exhibit A: The right to practice religion.
As of twenty years ago, the top fifty univer mo longer req a Western Civ class. Thirty four of them no longer even offered a course. Seventeen percent, the nation still required it. Yale dropped its famous intro to Art History: Renaissance to the Present, due to “student uneasiness over an idealized Western ‘canon’.
What does that have to do with them representing western civilization?
I think graduates of the "top 50" universities in America would be surprised to learn they are not associated with "western civilization".
When you think about it, it is ludicrous.
Business, Education, Engineering, Science, Government, and Medicine. All related, in specifics, to "western civilization".
I’ve not used the term “representing”. What’s ludicrous is the notion that studying the history that shaped modern theories of government, science, and aesthetics might get you labeled as a racist, sexist or white nationalist on Americas best campuses.
You guys vastly exaggerate .
You guys? Vastly exaggerate, example?
In The Souls of Black Folk, Du Bois wrote:
Du Bois lived and wrote post slavery but in very ugly racist time, yet he viewed the legacy of Western Civilization as a heritage common to all, and not a barrier to the progress of people of color. Apparently white privileged kids today have a different view.
Hire people because of the boxes they check and you end up with chaos.
DEI is poison for this country.
We finally got Americans to get a look at what is being taught at the university. Hopefully we will keep people's attention fixed on it.
The letters in DEI need to be rearranged, I before E except after C. In that order it shows what this misguided silliness needs to do.
The 3 university heads were wrong ... dead wrong, however, that will never excuse Stefanik's hypocrisy.
It is very serious situation for Jewish students going to those schools.
How do you explain antisemitism via Harvard, MIT and (dare I call it) PU?
As I wrote, "The 3 university heads were wrong ... dead wrong ...". As to how I might or might not explain it, 3,000 years of history does not fit in this wee box.
Good answer.
In case anyone missed it: Antisemitism is wrong even when the left engages in it.
As the events of the last couple of months have played out, I don't think many of them have figured that out.
Many prefer the comfort of safe spaces.
Hey, "there were good people on both sides". No side gets a freebie write-off because of the latest squirrel-du-jour.
Indeed, I understand Donald has rented Joe's basement.
Joe set the standard. Why not?
True but the difference lies in the extend of each of the events.
Charlottesville, a far right event, lasted one day.
Left wing antisemitism "protests" have been going for 2 months now.
There is no comparison in the extent of antisemitism of the left.
Those who wanted to remove statues and those who didn't?
Don't look now, but you got caught.
I could be fully clothed and you would claim you caught me naked. Your self-defensive gear is always in partisan overdrive.
What was her hypocrisy?
Carl Paladino comes to mind.
Is she a fan?
An electric one.
No. Not meaning committing the act of genocide. How about getting in someone’s face about it? How about following them around and saying it? Maybe putting up signs outside their dorm? As is so typical of politicians, she creates a false, limited choice. It’s either A or B. No in-between. But that’s not reality.
This seems wildly unfair to me. At no point did any of these people say they personally were ok with genocide - or calls for genocide. They were asked a legal question and gave legal answers.
Whether we are talking about statute law or university regulations, terms have definitions. Harassment is a legal term with a specific definition. Not every example of offensive speech will legally constitute harassment. Acting like these people are ok with genocide is egregiously dishonest and unfair.
We complain all the time that free speech is under assault on our campuses. So three university presidents indicate that offensive speech might be allowed on campus and people are outraged? You have to pick. Do you want free speech or not?