Calls grow for ouster of Penn, Harvard, MIT presidents after antisemitism House hearing

The presidents of the University of Pennsylvania (Penn), Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) are facing growing calls to resign after a disastrous House hearing this week regarding how their schools are handling the rise of antisemitism.

Donors, students and faculty are revolting against their presidents after they were asked by Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) during the Tuesday hearing if a call for genocide against Jewish people would be considered harassment.

Harvard President Claudine Gay, Penn President Liz Magill and MIT President Sally Kornbluth all responded in similar fashions, saying the call would be investigated and it would depend on the context or the pervasiveness of it.

The clip went viral and has drawn bipartisan criticism, including from the White House, and attempts at cleanup from the presidents have failed to quiet critics.

“In light of your testimony yesterday before Congress, we demand the University clarify its position regarding any call for harm to any group of people immediately, change any policies that allow such conduct with immediate effect, and discipline all offenders expeditiously,” University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton Business School board said in a letter to Magill.

“Further, as a result of the University leadership’s stated beliefs and collective failure to act, our Board respectfully suggests to you and the Board of Trustees that the University requires new l leadership with immediate effect,” the letter continued.

Six House Republicans from Pennsylvania and long-time donor Jon Huntsman also say Magill should resign. Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) and the state’s two Democratic senators also condemned the testimony.

One donor went as far as to pull a $100 million donation to Penn after the hearing, with the donor’s lawyers putting in a letter they are “appalled by the University’s stance on antisemitism on campus.”

Antisemitism has soared, both on campuses and across the nation, amid Israel’s war with the militant group Hamas.

Gay has also faced multiple calls to resign after her testimony, in which she said it would depend on the context if a call for genocide against Jewish people would be considered harassment on campus.

Stefanik and Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-Calif.), both Harvard alums, said her testimony was unacceptable and she should step down.

“She is not the leader these times require,” Kiley said in a statement.

Gay initially released a statement after the backlash began saying, “Calls for violence or genocide against the Jewish community, or any religious or ethnic group are vile, they have no place at Harvard, and those who threaten our Jewish students will be held to account.”

On Thursday, in an interview with The Harvard Crimson, she went further and said she was “sorry” for her testimony and that “words matter.”

“I got caught up in what had become at that point, an extended, combative exchange about policies and procedures,” Gay told the student newspaper. “What I should have had the presence of mind to do in that moment was return to my guiding truth, which is that calls for violence against our Jewish community — threats to our Jewish students — have no place at Harvard, and will never go unchallenged.”

Stefanik on Friday morning responded on X, formerly known as Twitter, saying Harvard’s president was “given an opportunity to speak your truth. And you did.”

“I asked you 17x(!!!) in the hearing about whether calling for the genocide of Jews violates @Harvard code of conduct,” the New York Republican wrote. “You spoke your truth under oath 17x. And the world heard it.”

Rabbi David Wolpe, meanwhile, said he was resigning from a Harvard advisory board that was created a few weeks ago to address antisemitism on campus.

House Chair for the Committee on Education and the Workforce Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.), whose panel held the hearing, announced there would be an investigation into all three universities regarding the learning environment on campus and what their disciplinary actions are.

The investigation prompted a statement from MIT’s governing board announcing their support for Kornbluth.

“The MIT Corporation chose Sally to be our president for her excellent academic leadership, her judgment, her integrity, her moral compass, and her ability to unite our community around MIT’s core values,” the Executive Committee of the MIT Corporation said in their statement after the investigation was announced.

“She has done excellent work in leading our community, including in addressing antisemitism, Islamophobia, and other forms of hate, all of which we reject utterly at MIT. She has our full and unreserved support,” it added.

Kornbluth has not yet commented on the controversy.

Magill released a video in response to the criticisms saying she had been more focused on the legal side in her testimony at the hearing.

“In that moment, I was focused on our university’s longstanding policies aligned with the U.S. Constitution, which say that speech alone is not punishable,” Magill said. “I was not focused on, but I should have been, 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. It’s evil — plain and simple.”

Some free speech experts said that while legally the presidents weren’t incorrect in their testimonies, past incidents with how the universities handled unpopular views are making it hard for them to hold this position now.

“Of course, one can understand the frustration of critics who rightly observe how quickly college administrators — including those at Harvard, Penn, and MIT — will reach for speech codes when certain disfavored views are expressed, yet don the cloak of free speech when they are more sympathetic to the speech at issue,” the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression said in a statement.  

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