University of Pennsylvania president Liz Magill resigned from her position days after she downplayed the rise of antisemitism on her campus while testifying before the House.
Scott Bok, chairman of the university’s board of trustees, shared a letter with the UPenn community Saturday afternoon, announcing that Magill voluntarily handed in her resignation. She will stay on until an interim president is appointed and retain her position as a tenured faculty member at Penn Carey Law.
“It has been my privilege to serve as President of this remarkable institution,” Magill said. “It has been an honor to work with our faculty, students, staff, alumni, and community members to advance Penn’s vital missions.”
Following the announcement, Bok also tendered his immediate resignation.
“Today, following the resignation of the University of Pennsylvania’s President and related Board of Trustee meetings, I submitted my resignation as Chair of the University’s Board of Trustees, effective immediately,” Bok said in a statement. “While I was asked to remain in that role for the remainder of my term in order to help with the presidential transition, I concluded that, for me, now was the right time to depart.”
Both departures come after a bipartisan group of 74 congressmen urged Magill, Harvard University president Claudine Gay, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology president Sally Kornbluth to step down in light of their contentious testimonies on Capitol Hill earlier this week.
When asked to directly answer whether calling for the genocide of Jews would violate university policy, Magill said “it is a context-dependent decision” for UPenn. “If the speech becomes conduct. It can be harassment, yes,” she added.
Gay and Kornbluth, the other two witnesses who testified before the House Education and Workforce Committee on Tuesday, have also been met with strong criticism for the way they answered questions about antisemitism on their respective campuses.
Asked whether such rhetoric violates Harvard’s rules for bullying, Gay similarly said “it depends on the context” of the situation. Kornbluth responded by saying MIT would deem calls for Jewish genocide as harassment only if it was “targeted at individuals, not making public statements” and if it was “pervasive and severe.”
The House committee was dissatisfied with their answers, leading to the panel’s decision to formally investigate the three higher-education institutions in the wake of rising antisemitism in the U.S. and around the world since the October 7 terror attack on Israel.
“After this week’s pathetic and morally bankrupt testimony by university presidents when answering my questions, the Education and Workforce Committee is launching an official Congressional investigation with the full force of subpoena power into Penn, MIT, & Harvard and others,” Representative Elise Stefanik (R., N.Y.) announced Thursday. “We will use our full Congressional authority to hold these schools accountable for their failure on the global stage.”
In recent weeks, reports of antisemitic incidents have skyrocketed. According to the Anti-Defamation League, at least 1,481 such incidents have been reported. Of those instances, 292 occurred on college and university campus grounds. Additionally, 73 percent of Jewish college students said they experienced or witnessed antisemitism on campus since their fall semester began, as found in a recent ADL-Hillel International study.
Neither Gay nor Kornbluth have stepped down yet, but calls for their resignation are growing via circulating petitions. Facing public pressure, Gay made a public apology for her remarks. Kornbluth, according to a statement, has the “full and unreserved support” of the MIT board.