10/19/2023

UPenn Crisis Deepens

Former trustee calls for president to resign as donors bail

Former University of Pennsylvania trustee Vahan Gureghian is calling for Liz Magill, the Ivy League school’s president, to step down and warned the backlash from powerful donors will likely get worse over a growing uproar over how the school has dealt with allegations of antisemitism on campus.

"She is negligent and not really up to the job of being the president of one of the eight or so most elite universities in the world," Gureghian, a charter-school magnate, told CNN in a phone interview on Wednesday.

A growing list of high-profile donors have pulled their funding from Penn, arguing Magill and her administration did not go far enough to condemn the Palestine Writes Literature Festival that took place last month on campus. UPenn leaders acknowledged that event included speakers with a history of making antisemitic remarks, issuing a statement ahead of the festival condemning antisemitism broadly – though not the festival specifically.

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