Univ. of Pennsylvania President Resigns After ‘Genocide of Jews’ Testimony

Liz Magill — the president of the University of Pennsylvania — is stepping down after equivocating over the “genocide of Jews” and whether or not calling for that violated their guidelines.

The announcement over Magill’s resignation got here down Saturday straight from Penn itself — with a press release from a member of the Board of Trustees studying … “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.”

This follows a turbulent week on Capitol Hill, the place Magill and two different presidents of Ivy League universities — particularly, Harvard and MIT — have been grilled by lawmakers over the rise in antisemitism on faculty campuses after the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks in Israel.

When requested by Rep. Elise Stefanik, a Republican, if calling for the genocide of Jews, in and of itself, violated Penn’s guidelines or code of conduct … Magill gave a qualifying reply as a substitute of simply saying sure or no — basically explaining that it relied on the context.

Magill went on to say if the speech Stefanik referred to become precise motion, it may then doubtlessly represent harassment. Stefanik gave her yet one more alternative to reply extra immediately — once more, over whether or not calling for the genocide of Jews was a rule-breaker — and Magill saved giving conditional responses … which become a testy alternate.

That every one went viral, and Magill later apologized in a video posted to Penn’s social media pages — the place she was way more clear … sure, calling for the genocide of Jews is clearly in violation of the college’s insurance policies — one thing she ought to’ve simply mentioned up entrance.

Nearly everybody was surprised that Magill would not simply acknowledge that what Stefanik was (actually) asking was horrible and never in keeping with the college’s values — even when there’s nuanced context to what precisely college college students are saying/protesting for on campus.

We obtained into this situation additional with a MIT free speech advocate … who gave us a puzzling response as to whether the KKK calling for the genocide of African-People on a school campus can be met with the identical form of response as calling for the genocide of Jews.

Apparently, it would be handled in another way … however the causes for why are nonetheless unclear, it appears.

After all, this all stems from the continued struggle between Israel and Hamas — which has thrust harmless individuals into the combo … and has spurred lots of people throughout the nation to hit the streets to voice help … principally for Palestine. Lots of that rhetoric although — particularly, criticizing Zionism — has been considered as outright antisemitic hate speech by some.