THE PENN DEBACLE: After President’s Remarks on Antisemitism, Penn Should Consider Her Future, the State’s Governor Says.
A day after M. Elizabeth Magill, president of the University of Pennsylvania, testified at a congressional hearing about campus antisemitism, the state’s Democratic governor said she had “failed” to “speak and act with moral clarity” and made an implicit call for her removal.
In her remarks, Magill did not directly answer pointed questions about whether students’ calling for the genocide of Jews violated Penn’s code of conduct. Gov. Josh Shapiro told reporters on Wednesday that Magill’s evasiveness was “absolutely shameful” and “unacceptable,” adding that Penn’s Board of Trustees “has a serious decision they need to make.”
Shapiro, a nonvoting member of the board, urged the trustees to meet soon, though their next scheduled public meeting is not until February, according to the board’s website.
Magill testified on Tuesday alongside Sally Kornbluth and Claudine Gay, the presidents of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, respectively, at a hearing convened by the Republican-led House Committee on Education and the Workforce. The committee had demanded that the three leaders “answer for mishandling of antisemitic, violent protests” on their campuses amid the Israel-Hamas war, according to a news release.
Late on Wednesday, Magill issued a video statement about her comments. “In that moment, I was focused on our university’s longstanding policies, aligned with the U.S. Constitution, which say that speech alone is not punishable,” Magill said. “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.”
Penn’s board chair did not respond immediately to requests for comment from The Chronicle. A Pennsylvania state senator on Wednesday called for Magill to resign, vowing not to support any state funding for the university until she does.
Everything is going swimmingly. Related: Harvard President Gay Traveled to Washington to Quell the Backlash. Her Testimony Only Made it Worse.