Melissa Korn, Rachel Louise Ensign and Douglas Belkin
WSJ, Dec. 11, 2023
“The beginning of the end for Magill came this summer, when advertisements went out for the Palestine Writes Literature Festival, billed as a celebration of Palestinian writers and artists and set to take place on Penn’s campus with backing from some Penn programs.”
By Thanksgiving, University of Pennsylvania trustees thought they had weathered the worst of an aggressive campaign mounted by rich alumni to fire President Liz Magill over concerns about antisemitism on campus. That hope died when Magill appeared before Congress last week.
Magill said context was needed to determine whether calling for the genocide of Jews would be considered bullying or harassment at Penn. The clip went viral. Pennsylvania’s governor called the comments “shameful.” The Penn president rushed out a video backtracking her remarks. But by the weekend, Magill and board chairman Scott Bok resigned.
At Penn, the university’s response to the Oct. 7 attacks in Israel was the final straw for a largely Jewish group of prominent alumni who felt the school wasn’t adequately protecting Jewish students. They campaigned both behind the scenes and publicly for the president and chairman to step down, threatening to withhold millions of dollars if the leadership stayed in place. They borrowed a playbook from the business world, approaching the typically genteel world of higher education like activist investors.
It worked.
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