Liz Magill Resigns as President of Un. of Pennsylvania
Long ago when I was a mayor remember seeing on my schedule a coming visit with someone named Liz Magill. I figured out she was the daughter of Federal Judge Frank Magill who was a conservative Federal Judge. Judge Magill was a very likeable guy other than his views on some things.
I assume Liz Magill was coming to visit about some Catholic issue since her father was widely known as a Catholic and Liz went to the local Catholic High School. Her visit was to request endorsement of some liberal issue. She made a point of telling me she had quite different political views from her father.
Because she was such an impressive young woman I made note of what happened to her over the decades since. She was dean of a law school, a university provost and eventually President of the Un. of Pennsylvania.
Very recently she and two other university presidents were interrogated by some Republican members of a committee. They wanted the university presidents to say their universities condemned antisemitism. From the clips I saw they all used what I would call inside university language in their answers. They repeated, "It depends on the context." I didn't look into the entire matter but I assume conservatives were trying to trip up the presidents who demand certain gender terms and other matters conservatives consider sins.
Liz's answer enraged a big donor at the Un. of PA, He withdrew a $100 million donation. Needless to say, she resigned today. Money talks in everywhere including, or maybe especially, universities. I think Liz would have been fired if she had said what the politicians wanted her to say--she got fired for not saying it.
Nevertheless, Liz received a tenured position at the Un. of PA law school. She will be fine. The next President will get caught in some unresolvable cross fire as well.
Jewish students at UPenn were and are being harassed, bullied and, in some cases being physically abused by self-described free-thinking liberal students, staff and faculty.
ReplyDeleteThe same held at MIT and Harvard, whose presidents rounded out the 3 presidents giving testimony.
None of the Presidents gave even half-hearted concern for the lives and safety of these students.
Anonymous--"Jewish students at UPenn were and are being harassed, bullied and, in some cases physically abused by self-described free-thinking liberal students and faculty."
DeleteI looked around the net at news stories coming out of UPenn and could not find any independent confirmation of your statement. Certainly there are claims by Jewish students. It's obvious UPenn is a place with lots of students from Israel, both Palestinians and Jews. Recently there was a conference there billed as a discussion of Palestinian art and culture. Some said there were presentations that were political, anti Israeli. The line between culture and politics is not always easy to draw. There was at least one pro Palestine student demonstration, not part of the conference. At least one student who is. or dressed as, an orthodox Jew showed up and claimed to have been insulted. UPenn like all large universities has a formal procedure to deal with all of this. It, like society in total, has to navigate between freedom of speech and equal treatment. All accusations need to be heard in formal setting or hearings where each sides version of what happened can be heard. In my view, Harvard did the right thing by sticking with its President. All three of them need to learn how to navigate self-serving Republican politicians. They were not good at that.
Google, "examples of antisemitism at Penn."
DeleteYou are biased. You state, "I looked around the net at news stories
coming out of UPenn but could not find any independent confirmation of your statement. Certainly there are claims [of antisemitism] by Jewish students."
Is not the verifiable word of Jewish students enough?
Did the large visual light displays of Jewish hatred happen, or not?
You will find many stories of verified antisemitism.
"Is not the verifiable word of Jewish students enough?"
DeleteNo, it is not. On your advice I looked some more for verifiable information the Un. of Penn is an antisemitic place. There is a news story that two Jewish students have filed a case making this claim. Students from Palestine have their own attorneys and are making claims about discrimination. If we used only the "verifiable word" of students from both side they would be offsetting.
"Visual light displays of Jewish hatred.." I saw a reference to that but did not see who put up the lights or whether the lights had a direct link to the Un. of PA. If you have a site that proves there is a link between the lights and the Un. please tell us about it.
There is an article in the NYTimes today about the feeling among some Jewish students and faculty the Harvard Campus is not friendly to Jews. Their numbers have fallen in the recent decade. I've read for years both Jews and women are underrepresented at the top of major corporations.
DeleteAll this said, I find it hypocritical when someone from a branch of Christianity which does not allow woman to be clergy finds fault the any campus' treatment of Jews.