The University of Pennsylvania’s board of trustees held an emergency meeting Thursday as school president Liz Magill faces scathing criticism over her performance at a House hearing earlier this week.
A House committee is investigating Penn’s actions. A major donor is calling on Magill to resign and threatened to rescind stock, costing the university $100 million if she doesn’t. And a growing number of politicians and business leaders are also calling on Magill to step aide.
A university spokesperson told CNN the board of trustees gathered virtually. Although it wasn’t a formal board meeting, it was organized at approximately 2 pm ET Wednesday. That came just hours after Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro condemned Magill’s testimony as “shameful” and urged the board of trustees to meet and decide whether that testimony lives up to the school’s values. Despite its name, Penn is a private school and is not run by the state.
The hastily arranged meeting, which concluded by midday Thursday, comes as Magill faces intense pressure following Tuesday’s hearing in the House. Magill and the presidents of Harvard and MIT struggled to answer questions on Tuesday about whether calling for the genocide of Jews violates their respective school’s code of conduct on bullying or harassment.
It is unclear whether the board gathering Thursday is related to Magill’s future at the school, but that topic is sure to be on the minds of board members.
A disastrous hearing
During Tuesday’s hearing, none of the school leaders explicitly said that calling for the genocide of Jews would necessarily violate their code of conduct. Instead, they explained it would depend on the circumstances and conduct.
Magill attempted to clarify her message on Wednesday, posting a video on X where the Penn leader said she should have focused on 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.”
Magill said that Penn’s policies “need to be clarified and evaluated,” adding that in her view: “It would be harassment or intimidation.”
Calls on Magill to resign
Still, the hearing on Tuesday drew strong and widespread criticism.
Following the board’s virtual meeting, the House Education and Workforce Committee launched an investigation with full subpoena power into Harvard, MIT and the University of Pennsylvania, Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik announced Thursday afternoon.
“We will use our full Congressional authority to hold these schools accountable for their failure on the global stage,” Stefanik said in a statement. “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.”
In a Thursday statement to CNN, MIT’s deputy director of media relations, Sarah McDonnell, said the university “rejects antisemitism in all its forms.” Harvard on Wednesday clarified its president’s testimony, echoing Magill and MIT.
Wall Street CEO Ross Stevens sent a letter on Thursday to Penn threatening to take steps that would cost the Ivy League school approximately $100 million if Magill stays on as president, CNN has learned.
Stevens, a Penn alumni and CEO of Stone Ridge Holdings, argues he has clear grounds to rescind $100 million worth of shares in his company that are currently held by Penn. He specifically cites Magill’s disastrous testimony before Congress earlier this week.
“Absent a change in leadership and values at Penn in the very near future, I plan to rescind Penn’s Stone Ridge shares to help prevent any further reputational and other damage to Stone Ridge as a result of our relationship with Penn and Liz Magill,” Stevens said in a note to his employees on Thursday obtained by CNN.
Lawyers at Davis Polk, representing Stone Ridge, wrote a letter to Penn that cites an agreement between the school and the firm. That agreement, according to Stone Ridge, gives the firm the ability to retire the shares for cause, including potential damage to Stone Ridge’s “reputation, character, or standing.”
Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, called the testimony “catastrophic and clarifying” and said Magill’s attempt to clean-up her testimony “looked like a hostage video, like she was speaking under duress.”
“I understand why the governor of Pennsylvania and so many of the trustees don’t have confidence in her. I don’t have confidence anymore that Penn is capable, under this leadership, of getting it right,” Greenblatt told CNN’s Kate Bolduan, adding that he has spoken with Magill.
The ADL CEO said his organization did not have a position on whether or not the university presidents should step down – until Tuesday’s hearing.
“But when I watched these presidents flail and feebly, with legal-ish answers respond to a simple line of questioning, we have lost confidence with them,” he said.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren told CNBC on Thursday that “advocating for genocide is fundamentally wrong, full-stop. We just can’t have this.”
The Massachusetts Democrat said she’s worried that Americans can’t disagree with each other. “We have unleashed hate in this country – and that is wrong,” Warren said.
Asked if the college presidents should step down, Warren said: “If you can’t lead, if you can’t stand up and say what’s right and wrong – very much in the extreme cases, and these are the extreme cases – then you’ve got a problem.”
Billionaire Elon Musk, who graduated from Penn, added to the criticism.
“I am a Penn alum and this is indeed shameful,” Musk said on X on Wednesday.
Of course, Musk himself faced condemnation last month after agreeing with an antisemitic post. Musk later apologized for what he called his “dumbest” ever social media post.
Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand on Thursday said she agrees with calls for the presidents of Harvard, MIT and the University of Pennsylvania to resign, arguing they are “failing in the worst way.”
“Their statements were abhorrent,” Gillibrand told Fox News, referring to Tuesday’s hearing in the House. “Trying to contextualize what constitutes harassment? Jewish students are terrified on these campuses.”
The New York Democrat said that in some cases, students have been told to stay in their dorm rooms because their safety couldn’t be guaranteed.
“That is the definition of harassment: To instill fear and to not have a climate where kids can thrive and go to school and feel protected. They are failing in the worst way as college presidents,” Gillibrand said. “You cannot call for the genocide of Jews, the genocide of any group of people, and not say that that’s harassment.”
This is a developing story and will be updated.
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