Penn President Liz Magill Resigns After ‘Genocide Requires Context’ Comments

…live by the sword, DEI by the sword!

Amid exponentially mounting pressure following her disastrous testimony to Congress this week, Liz Magill has “voluntarily resigned” as the President of the University of Pennsylvania.

Axios reports that the board of Penn’s Wharton business school on Friday sent a letter to the university’s board of trustees, after receiving no reply to a letter they sent on Thursday to Magill, in which they requested her resignation.

The letter read, in part:

“The Board will, of course, vote based upon each member’s beliefs and only the Board of Trustees, as the University’s fiduciaries, can determine the actions that are in the best interests of the University.

However, University inaction cloaked in statements of intent and informational meetings has fostered the current climate of fear on campus and has resulted in Government inquiries, Title VI litigation, and declarations by numerous media outlets that our beloved university is ‘ground zero for antisemitism on college campuses.’”

The letter comes after Magill rapidly backtracked on her congressional testimony in a video released Wednesday.

“In that moment, I was focused on our university’s long-standing policies, aligned with the U.S. Constitution, which says that speech alone is not punishable,” she 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. It’s evil, plain and simple.”

But now, she’s gone…

Here is the full letter: (emphasis ours)

Dear Members of the Penn community,

I write to share that President Liz Magill has voluntarily tendered her resignation as President of the University of Pennsylvania. She will remain a tenured faculty member at Penn Carey Law.

On behalf of the entire Penn community, I want to thank President Magill for her service to the University as President and wish her well.

We will be in touch in the coming days to share plans for interim leadership of Penn. President Magill has agreed to stay on until an interim president is appointed.

President Magill shared the following statement, which I include here:

“It has been my privilege to serve as President of this remarkable institution. It has been an honor to work with our faculty, students, staff, alumni, and community members to advance Penn’s vital missions.”

Best,

Scott L. Bok
Chair, Penn Board of Trustees

Her resignation comes a day after a bipartisan group of House lawmakers is demanding the governing board members of Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn) dismiss their presidents following their controversial responses at a campus anti-Semitism hearing.

In a Dec. 5 letter, 72 lawmakers expressed their disappointment over the responses from the three college presidents during the hearing “Holding Campus Leaders Accountable and Confronting Anti-Semitism” held the same day.

In the letter, the group, led by Representatives Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) and Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.), noted that:

“The university presidents’ responses to questions aimed at addressing the growing trend of anti-Semitism on college and university campuses were abhorrent.”

“This should have been an easy and resounding ‘yes.’”

“There is no context in which calls for the genocide of Jews are acceptable rhetoric. Their failure to unequivocally condemn calls for the systematic murder of Jews is deeply alarming. It stands in stark contrast to the principles we expect leaders of top academic institutions to uphold,” the letter wrote.

“It is hard to imagine any Jewish or Israeli student, faculty, or staff feeling safe when presidents of your member institutions could not say that calls for the genocide of Jews would have clear consequences on your campus.”

One down, two to go…

(L-R) Claudine Gay, president of Harvard University, Liz Magill, president of University of Pennsylvania, Pamela Nadell, professor of history and Jewish studies at American University, and Sally Kornbluth, president of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, testify before the House Education and Workforce Committee at the Rayburn House Office Building in Washington, on Dec. 5, 2023. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

The resignations won’t be enough though…

On Dec. 7, Chairwoman Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) of the House Education and Workforce Committee announced that the committee had launched an investigation of Harvard, MIT, and UPenn.

The committee said it would review the schools’ policies and disciplinary records and examine “their seemingly deplorable record.” “The testimony we received earlier this week from Presidents Gay, Magill, and Kornbluth about the responses of Harvard, UPenn, and MIT to the rampant anti-Semitism displayed on their campuses by students and faculty was absolutely unacceptable,” Ms. Foxx said.

…and remember, Marc Morial told us all that DEI departments aren’t responsible for the safety of Jews on campus.