University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill on Saturday voluntarily stepped down from her role after facing intense blowback following a House Education committee hearing this week.
Magill has agreed to stay in her role until an interim president is selected, according to a statement from Penn Trustee Board Chair Scott Bok. He also resigned Saturday.
“It has been my privilege to serve as President of this remarkable institution,” Magill said in the statement. “It has been an honor to work with our faculty, students, staff, alumni and community members to advance Penn’s vital mission.”
Magill, along with Harvard President Claudine Gay and Massachusetts Institute of Technology President Sally Kornbluth, participated in a contentious, more than five-hour grilling from lawmakers Tuesday over their response to antisemitism on their campuses.
They faced backlash for evading a question from Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) who asked about pro-Palestinian student protestors’ calls for “intifada” or “the genocide of Jews.”
“Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate Penn’s rules or code of conduct, yes or no?” Stefanik asked Magill on Tuesday, to which Magill responded: “If the speech turns into conduct, it can be harassment.”
Stefanik slammed the response, saying: “Conduct meaning committing the act of genocide? The speech is not harassment? This is unacceptable.”
The other presidents responded similarly to the question. They said they personally did not agree with the rhetoric used by those students and were committed to preserving free speech on campus.
Stefanik, who led the toughest questioning Tuesday and has called for all of the presidents to be fired, wrote on X that Magill’s “forced resignation” is only the beginning for addressing antisemitism on college campuses.
“One down,” Stefanik said. “Two to go.”
Magill is the first president to step down over a response to campus antisemitism. Several lawmakers and top officials across the aisle have slammed the leaders for refusing to say calls for “Jewish genocide” violate their codes of conduct around bullying or harassment Tuesday.
Magill has faced scorching criticism from top Democrats in her state and other lawmakers. Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) called Magill’s comments “offensive,” and said “calling for the genocide of Jews is antisemitic and harassment, full stop.” Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) said Magill’s testimony was “embarrassing for a venerable Pennsylvania university.” And Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, a first-term Democrat, also slammed Magill’s testimony as a “failure of leadership.” Hundreds of Penn alumni, donors and students have also called on Magill to resign.
Shapiro, who is a nonvoting member on Penn’s board, had called on the university’s board of directors to meet to determine whether Magill should be asked to resign.
Magill on Wednesday released a video statement apologizing for her testimony amid intense backlash. The video, published on X, has been viewed more than 37 million times.
In the video, she said that during her testimony she was “focused on our university’s longstanding policies aligned with the U.S. Constitution, which say that speech alone is not punishable.” Magill also said her school would “initiate a serious and careful look at our policies.”
“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,” she said.
The Wharton Board of Advisors on Thursday called for new university leadership, according to a letter obtained by The Daily Pennsylvanian. The Board of Trustees also held an emergency gathering that morning, according to the student newspaper, and had an executive committee luncheon.
More than 70 lawmakers on Friday urged the boards of Harvard, MIT and Penn to remove their presidents. About a dozen Democrats, however, urged the boards to fix their campus policies on bullying and harassment to ensure antisemitism is included.
House Education and the Workforce Chair Virginia Foxx (R-N.C), who held the hearing, said she “welcomed” Magill’s resignation.
“President Magill had three chances to set the record straight when asked if calling for the genocide of Jews violated UPenn’s code of conduct during our hearing on antisemitism,” Foxx said in a statement. “Instead of giving a resounding yes to the question, she chose to equivocate.”
Magill had been in the role for about a year and a half. She previously held positions at University of Virginia and Stanford University.
She will remain a tenured faculty member at Penn Carey Law.