Ex-US Ambassador Jon Huntsman says UPenn president must go following antisemitism hearing
Huntsman joins growing chorus calling for UPenn President Liz Magill to resign or be removed
Former Israeli Knesset member Michal Cotler-Wunsh says this has been a real moment of reckoning amid major U.S. colleges facing antisemitism backlash on The Evening Edit.
University of Pennsylvania alumni and former U.S. Ambassador Jon Huntsman says "it's not even debatable" that UPenn President Liz Magill should be removed from her post following her disastrous appearance at a House hearing on antisemitism earlier this week, joining a growing chorus of calls for her to resign or be ousted.
"Let’s make this great institution shine once again," Huntsman said in a statement to CNN on Thursday evening. "We are anchored to the past until the trustees step up and completely cut ties with current leadership. Full stop."
"At this point it’s not even debatable," Huntsman said. "Just a simple IQ test."
UPenn alum and former U.S. Ambassador Jon Huntsman is calling on UPenn President Liz Magill to be removed by the university's board of trustees. (Leigh Vogel/Getty Images for Concordia Summit / Getty Images)
Huntsman, who is also the former governor of Utah, announced in mid-October that his family was halting donations to UPenn because of the school's "silence" following the Hamas terrorist attack against Israel on Oct. 7.
Huntsman’s family has donated millions of dollars to Penn over the years, with Huntsman’s father, Jon Huntsman Sr., giving "$40 million in 1998" to the Wharton Business Schools, according to The Daily Pennsylvanian. It was the "largest-ever gift given to a business school" at the time, per the outlet.
Several other high-profile donors have pulled their funding from the institution in the past few months, accusing leadership of failing to adequately respond to antisemitism on campus.
Liz Magill, president of the University of Pennsylvania, during a House Education and the Workforce Committee hearing in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, Dec. 5, 2023. Lawmakers grilled the leaders of Harvard, Penn and MIT about their responses to prote … (Photo by Haiyun Jiang/Bloomberg via Getty Images / Getty Images)
However, Magill's controversial responses to questioning at Tuesday's hearing sparked further fury when she, Harvard President Dr. Claudine Gay and MIT President Dr. Sally Kornbuth all refused to say that calling for the genocide of Jews on their respective campuses breached their rules and amounted to harassment.
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In response to the backlash, Magill posted a video on Wednesday, when she said that her testimony during the hearing was focused on university policies and the constitutional protections of free speech, but that she wanted to be clear that "a call for genocide of Jewish people is threatening, deeply so."
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She added, "In my view, it would be harassment or intimidation," and that Penn’s campus policies should be "clarified and evaluated" and that as president she’s "committed to a safe, secure, and supportive environment, so all members of our community can thrive. We can, and we will, get this right."
However, Magill's cleanup attempt has not suppressed the growing pressure for her to go.
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On Wednesday, another major donor withdrew a $100 million donation from the university, but he said he would reconsider if Magill were replaced as president, and the Wharton Board of Trustees issued a letter calling on Magill to resign.
Fox News' Jeffrey Clark and FOX Business' Eric Revell contributed to this report.