The fallout over the University of Pennsylvania’s reluctance to distance itself from a pro-Palestinian event and condemn the terror attacks in Israel continues, as another major donor closed his checkbook to the Ivy League school and called for all “self-respecting Jews” to do the same.
A UPenn graduate, Mr. Magerman specifically took issue with his alma mater’s handling of the Palestine Writes Literature Festival that took place last month, an event that featured speakers who had made anti-Semitic comments in the past, sparked criticism from both the campus community and national Jewish groups.
In response to the criticism, UPenn President Liz Magill and other administrators condemned anti-Semitism but emphasized that the university would “fiercely” back the “free expression of views,” including those that are “incompatible with our institutional values.”
“We unequivocally—and emphatically—condemn anti-Semitism as antithetical to our institutional values. As a university, we also fiercely support the free exchange of ideas as central to our educational mission,” the administrators wrote on Sept. 12, a week ahead of the event. “This includes the expression of views that are controversial and even those that are incompatible with our institutional values.”
This free speech argument, combined with the UPenn leadership’s initial ambivalence in the wake of Hamas terrorists’ deadly rampage in Israel, suggests that the institution has a “misguided moral compass,” Mr. Magerman argued.
“My only conclusion, from your fierce support for the Hamas-affiliated speakers at the Palestine Writes festival, followed by your equivocating statements about the heinous acts of barbarism perpetrated by the same Hamas you allowed these speakers to promote, from your failure to call out evil, is that you are ambivalent to the unprecedented evil their acts represent,” he wrote.
“The University of Pennsylvania does not condemn as evil the butchers who behead babies and kidnap and rape girls. The University of Pennsylvania does not consider those actions to be evil and their perpetrators to be evil,” he continued. “Why can’t you call it evil? I can only conclude that you don’t consider it evil.”
Mr. Magerman, who is known for building trading algorithms at hedge fund giant Renaissance Technologies, said there’s nothing the school can do to change his mind.
“I’m not asking for any actions. You have shown me who you are,” he wrote. “My only remaining hope is that all self-respecting Jews, and all moral citizens of the world, dissociate themselves from Penn.”
The latest statement also referred to the Palestine Writes Literature Festival, which triggered much “anger and frustration,” particularly given that it coincided with the start of the Jewish holiest day of Yom Kippur. Ms. Magill admitted that the university “should have moved faster” in communicating its opposition against anti-Semitism expressed by some of the event’s speakers.
“The University did not, and emphatically does not, endorse these speakers or their views,” she wrote.
Among the festival’s speakers was Roger Waters, a Pink Floyd co-founder notorious for performing in a Nazi-like uniform. The event also featured Marc Lamont Hill, a former CNN commentator fired after he gave a speech calling for a “free Palestine from the river to the sea,” a Palestinian nationalist chant many see as equivalent to a call for the extermination of Israel and its people.
The event’s primary organizer herself, self-described “exiled Palestinian” Susan Abulhawa, also has a track record of controversial remarks, including a Twitter post this January saying that she “take[s] comfort in knowing without a doubt” that the “colonial apartheid state” of Israel will eventually be “wiped off the map.”
Multiple UPenn donors have withdrawn their financial support to the Ivy League school over the past few days, notably Former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman and Apollo chief executive Marc Rowan, who is also chairman of the board of advisors at UPenn’s Wharton School of Business.
