Pennsylvania representatives call on Penn board to remove Magill

A group of six Pennsylvania Republicans called on the University of Pennsylvania (Penn) to fire its president, Liz Magill, following backlash against comments she made at a House committee hearing Tuesday.

At the hearing about antisemitism on college campuses, Magill and other college leaders controversially said that it would depend on context whether comments calling for genocide of Jewish people would be considered harassment.

“President Liz Magill’s actions in front of Congress were an embarrassment to the university, its student body, and its vast network of proud alumni,” Rep. Guy Reschenthaler (R-Pa.) said on X, formerly known as Twitter. “She has shown the entire world that she is either incapable or unwilling to combat antisemitism on the university’s campus and take care of its student body.”

Reps. Dan Meuser, Mike Kelly, John Joyce, Lloyd Smucker and Brian Fitzpatrick, all Pennsylvania Republicans, also signed onto the letter.

Magill later clarified her remarks after receiving criticism by Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) and university donors.

“In that moment, I was focused on our university’s long-standing policies, aligned with the U.S. Constitution, which say that speech alone is not punishable,” Magill said in a video Wednesday. “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.” 

Shapiro, who is Jewish, called on the university’s board of trustees to hold a meeting about the comments Wednesday, and a top university donor retracted a $100 million donation.

The board did meet earlier Thursday, but the contents of the meeting are unknown.

Lawmakers from both parties, the White House and GOP presidential candidates have criticized Magill, Harvard President Claudine Gay and MIT President Sally Kornbluth for their comments in the hearing, as Congress increasingly turns to college campuses as the locus for conversations around antisemitism amid the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.