University of Pennsylvania president resigns after anti-Semitic testimony – Reuters

© Reuters. University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill testifies during a House Education and Labor Committee hearing titled “Holding Campus Leaders Accountable and Confronting Anti-Semitism,” at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., December 5, 2023. Reuters/

Kanishka Singh

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill has resigned after coming under fire for anti-Semitic stances on campus, the Ivy League school said on Saturday.

Magill was one of three top college presidents who came under fire after testifying at a congressional hearing Tuesday that anti-Semitism has increased on college campuses since the Israel-Hamas war broke out last October.

She has agreed to stay on until an interim president is appointed, Scott Bok, chairman of the Philadelphia-based university’s board of trustees, said in a statement posted Saturday on the university’s website. Mr. Bok also resigned.

“I am writing to inform you that President Liz Magill has voluntarily resigned from her position as president of the University of Pennsylvania,” President Bok said in a statement released by the University of Pennsylvania. Magill will remain a tenured professor at the university’s law school, Bok said.

Magill, Harvard University President Claudine Gay and MIT President Sally Kornbluth testified before a U.S. House of Representatives committee Tuesday.

Trying to toe the line of protecting free speech, they refused to give a definitive “yes” or “no” answer to a question from Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik who asked whether calling for the genocide of Jews violated the school’s code of conduct. Bullying and harassment.

In particular, calls were made for the resignation of Magill and Gay just days after that testimony. Magill released a video expressing regret on Wednesday and Gay apologized on Friday.

Jewish students, families and alumni have accused the school of tolerating anti-Semitism in statements by pro-Palestinian protesters, especially after the Islamist group Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, killing about 1,200 people. The attack prompted a massive Israeli counteroffensive that left more than 17,700 Palestinians dead, according to Gaza’s health ministry.

“One left, two left. This is just the beginning of addressing the rampant anti-Semitism that has devastated America’s most ‘prestigious’ institutions of higher education,” Stefanik said on the social media site X following Penn’s announcement.

She said Magill’s resignation was “the bare minimum necessary” and urged Harvard and MIT to take similar action.

Anti-Semitism and Islamophobia have risen sharply in the United States and elsewhere since October.

Anti-Semitic incidents in the United States increased by about 400 percent in the two weeks after Hamas attacked Israel, according to the Anti-Defamation League.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations said this week that in the two months since the war began, incidents motivated by Islamophobia and prejudice against Palestinians and Arabs have increased 172% compared to the same period last year. Yes.

Eyal Yakoby, a University of Pennsylvania student who sued the school over its lack of response to anti-Semitism, told CNN that Magill’s resignation was a step toward broader change at the university.

“This is something I and many of our alumni, fellow students and parents have been working on for some time… (but) this is just the first cultural domino for many of the leaders, including President Bok, who allowed this to happen.” Jacobi said: