The president
of the University
of Pennsylvania, Liz
McGill, has resigned.
And we've just gotten word
that the chair of the University
of Pennsylvania's
Board of Trustees, Scott
Bock, has also resigned
effective immediately.
The new Penn controversy
began spiraling earlier
this week after McGill's
testimony before Congress
about anti-Semitism on campus
specifically calling
for the genocide of Jews.
Does that constitute
bullying or harassment?
If it is directed
and severe or pervasive,
it is harassment.
So the answer is yes.
It is a context dependent decision.
Congresswoman, it's
a context dependent decision.
That's your testimony.
Today.
Calling for the genocide of Jews
is depending upon the context
that was Tuesday.
And this was the clean up
attempt by Liz McGill on Wednesday.
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.
These policies need to be clarified
and evaluated
That obviously was not enough.
And of course, she has now stepped down.
So has the
chair of the board of trustees
at the University of Pennsylvania.
And we have team coverage on all of this
union's polls and of all, Matt Egan.
Paula, let me start with you.
What's the latest? What can you tell us?
The developments have been swift moving
here, Jim,
with Liz McGill tonight
announcing that she will be
stepping down amid
that growing chorus of calls
for asking for her resignation.
In light of that testimony,
that she offered in Washington
just this
past Tuesday in a statement
released by the university.
We have learned that McGill is expected
to remain tenured as faculty at Penn
Carey Law
and that she has also agreed to stay
on at least until the interim
president
can potentially be
be appointed for some context here.
McGill has been under growing scrutiny
for her
handling of anti-Semitism on campus.
And that testimony
that was offered on Tuesday
was really
the last straw here,
mainly referring to that,
or at least her
her inability to just equivocal to say
that any mention of genocide of Jewish
people would
be against the code of conduct
at the university.
We should also mention that, you know,
we heard from other university
officials tonight,
including
one that we'll talk about here
in a few moments,
but basically trying
to paint a clearer picture
of what he believed
played out
on Tuesday,
saying that McGill was,
quote, overprepared,
that she was overly lawyered
and essentially provided
a legalistic answer to a moral question.
So what you have now
is coming from the now former chair
of you, Penn's board of trustees,
trying to explain
what was an
absolutely disastrous testimony
that played out on Tuesday.
And let me go to Matt Eagan.
Matt, I know you've been reporting
on the school
being under tremendous pressure
from donors
the donor community
has been outraged over these comments.
Take us behind the scenes on that
Jim, of remarkable developments
this evening at one of the nation's
most prestigious schools.
First, the board chair, Scott
Bok, sent out a letter
saying that
the president, Liz McGill, is out.
Then Scott Bok
sent out a statement saying
he's out to now.
Make no mistake, both of these leaders
were under pressure for months,
as Polo just said.
And again, it was over
issues of anti-Semitism on campus.
But Tuesday's hearing,
which can only be described
as disastrous,
really was the final straw.
I mean, that hearing lasted for hours,
but it really just came down
to just a precious few minutes where
the leaders of Penn and Harvard and MIT,
they struggled. Right?
I mean, they struggled to answer
a question
that many people would think
would be easy to answer. Right.
Does calls for genocide of Jews,
does that break the school's route rules?
And the leaders, including McGill.
They think they fumbled that response.
Right.
They did give kind of a legal answer.
And that moment went viral
on the Internet. It just exploded.
The backlash was so intense.
We heard from
the Walton Board of Advisors,
which is basically a who's
who of business leaders.
They called for an immediate
leadership change at the school.
More than 70 members of Congress, a
bipartisan group
calling for McGill to resign.
It's it's
hard to get 70 members of Congress
to agree on much,
but they agreed on that.
You also had the former U.S.
ambassador, John
Huntsman, telling me
that it wasn't even debatable
whether or not McGill should leave.
And you also had one mega-donor
threatening to cancel a $100 million
gift if a change wasn't me.
Now, Scott Bok was effusive
in his praise of Liz McGill,
calling her a very good person,
saying that she's
not in the slightest bit anti-Semitic.
I want to read you a
one line from boxed statement.
He said,
talking about the hearing,
overprepared and over lawyer
given the hostile forum in high stakes,
she provided
a legal is the answer
to a moral question.
And that was wrong.
It made for a dreadful 32nd soundbite
in what was more
than 5 hours of testimony.
So, Jim, there you have it.
You have both Liz McGill and Scott Buck
stepping down after that disastrous
hearing on Tuesday.
Yeah, just a devastating afternoon
for the University of Pennsylvania.
All right.
Polo Sandoval and Matt Egan,
thanks to both of you.
I want to bring in Alex Project.
He's a professor
with the UPenn School of Medicine.
Professor, what's your response tonight?
Well, frankly,
I can't say I'm happy
because it's hard to be happy
about all the things
that have been
happening at the university.
But I do believe that Louis McGill
could not have continued
being the president, given
the number of
I would see mistakes
that she and people who
I guess may be lawyers tear up
and prepared to provide.
I think she lost the trust
of the community, of faculty,
donors, students.
Of course,
people have very complex opinions
about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
But this is about something
completely different.
And I mean,
the chair of the board Scott Bok,
tried to describe it
as just a 32nd soundbite
that did not go
well for President McGill.
But we talked to a Penn student
in the last hour
who has described
a pretty hostile atmosphere on campus
and that this has been
building for some time.
How would you describe things?
Well, I definitely think
that the sound bites during
the hearings did not help, but
that Miss McGill
could have helped herself
by issuing a once lawyered up apology or
explanation of what happened
during that hearing.
And unfortunately,
that, too, was kind of canned.
And I don't think anybody who heard
that post sort of post-hoc
description felt
that it was at all sincere.
So I don't think it is
fair to say
it's just an unfortunate
sound like we will said things
we did not mean,
but given an opportunity
to clarify the situation.
She she did not do that.
And how do you think this news
is going to be received
by students, by the faculty?
What do you think
Well,
I think people have different opinions.
And maybe that's the important
bit is that I understand that you know,
the lack of desire
to unequivocally condemn
calls for genocide
is sort of coached
within the framework of free speech.
But unfortunately, and many people
have written
and spoken about this, it's
hard to cast universities you like.
You can
sort of very much pro-free speech.
Speech tends to be limited
in many different respects.
So I am actually
a proponent of free speech.
So I think people are probably going
to have very different opinions
depending on where they stand politically
and how they feel
about the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict, etc.
And that's a good thing.
People shouldn't be having debates.
They shouldn't cross over into violence.
They shouldn't cross over into hate
speech, etc.
But within the sort of norms of
human behavior,
I think people should differ
on their opinions and have conversations.
And why do you think
we saw the chair of the board,
Scott Bok, resign in addition to that to
the university's president?
You know,
I'm not really
privy,
of course, to any of these discussions.
I suspect that
maybe there is a realization
that they've waited a bit too long,
that maybe
with the number of again, unfortunate
and in my opinion, incorrect moves
she could not have really governed
and sort of corrected the course.
So I don't know if the idea to
keep loose.
McGill longer
than she probably
should have stayed came from Buck
and maybe that is why
he decided to step down but
I would be just guessing. I don't know.