Charles Lipson
Real Clear Politics, Dec. 11, 2023
“They are the ones who demean all Israelis as “settler colonialists” who have no right to live there. They are the ones who call the generous donors of buildings, professorships, and student scholarships “exploitative capitalists,” hardly better than slave owners. And so on.”
Chicken Little was right about the Ivy League. The sky really is falling. The cleanup can’t begin until we hear a resounding crash and see the debris.
That cleanup job should begin with firing some university presidents. The University of Pennsylvania went first. That great university, founded by Benjamin Franklin, announced that “President Liz Magill has voluntarily tendered her resignation.”
Calling it “voluntary” is reminiscent of the famous old radio joke in which a robber confronts Jack Benny and demands all his money. After a long pause, the robber has to repeat his demand. Benny finally replies, “I’m thinking it over.” Penn’s PR flaks would have said, “Mr. Benny voluntarily tendered his wallet.”
If feckless college presidents don’t turn over the keys voluntarily to leave, take them away. Fire them. Don’t reward them with cushy jobs in their schools’ hidden nooks and crannies. Why such harsh treatment? Because they have inflicted enormous damage on the universities they were entrusted to lead.
Now, the firings have begun with one of the terrible triumvirate who testified before Congress last week. It shouldn’t be the last one. Magill, Harvard president Claudine Gay, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology president Sally Kornbluth spent the days since their testimony trying to walk it back. But their problem was not misstatements. Their problem was that they said the quiet part out loud.
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