UPenn president Liz Magill resigns amid firestorm over House testimony on antisemitism, genocide

PHILADELPHIA — Liz Magill resigned on Saturday as president of the University of Pennsylvania amid scathing criticism over her performance at a House hearing earlier this week.

Penn Board of Trustees Chair Scott L. Bok announced the leadership change saying, “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.”

The video in the player above is from a previous report.

Magill faced a rebellion from the leaders of the university’s prominent Wharton School, and a growing coalition of donors, politicians and business leaders who denounced her testimony.

She had already been under fire from prominent donors, faculty, students and alumni prior to Tuesday’s hearing after multiple incidents of antisemitism on campus in recent months – and what critics have said was a tepid response to those incidents.

Magill became Penn’s ninth president on July 1, 2022 after serving as executive vice president and provost at the University of Virginia. Prior to that she was the Richard E. Lang Professor and Dean of the Stanford Law School.

During Tuesday’s House hearing, Magill, along with the presidents of Harvard and MIT, did not explicitly say that calling for the genocide of Jews would necessarily violate their code of conduct on bullying or harassment. Instead, they explained it would depend on the circumstances and conduct.

WATCH | Penn president testifies to House Education Committee about antisemitism on campus

After the fallout from Tuesday’s hearing, 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.”

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.

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro condemned Magill’s testimony as “shameful.”

Despite its name, Penn is a private school and is not run by the state.

White House spokesman Andrew Bates issued a statement Wednesday criticizing all three university presidents who testified, saying their responses did not go far enough to condemn antisemitism on campuses.

“It’s unbelievable that this needs to be said: calls for genocide are monstrous and antithetical to everything we represent as a country,” he said.