UPenn loses big donor, board member resigns citing ‘antisemitism’

The University of Pennsylvania has lost a major donor and a board member to allegations of anti-Semitism exacerbated by the school’s response to the Israel-Hamas war.

Former U.S. Ambassador and longtime UPenn donor Jon Huntsman announced after a university board of trustees meeting Friday that his family is cutting off funding.

“The University’s silence in the face of reprehensible and historic Hamas evil against the people of Israel (when the only response should be outright condemnation) is a new low. Silence is antisemitism, and antisemitism is hate, the very thing higher ed was built to obviate,” Huntsman said in a letter, obtained by The Daily Pennsylvanian, to UPenn President Liz Magill.

“Consequently, Huntsman Foundation will close its checkbook on all future giving to Penn — something that has been a source of enormous pride for now three generations of graduates. My siblings join me in this rebuke,” he added.

A number of universities across the country have faced internal tensions over how student groups and administrators are responding to the outbreak of violence in the Middle East.

Even before the Hamas attack on Israel, UPenn faced blowback from a Palestine Writes Literature Festival last month that included speakers with a history of anti-Semitic statements. 

“We unequivocally — and emphatically — condemn antisemitism as antithetical to our institutional values,” UPenn said in a statement at the time.

The statement did not quell critics, who say the school has not done enough to disassociate itself from the event or condemn the recent attack on Israel by Hamas. 

Trustee Vahan Gureghian resigned from UPenn’s board of trustees after the three-hour emergency meeting. 

“Just as at so many other elite academic institutions, the Penn community has been failed by an embrace of antisemitism, a failure to stand for justice and complete negligence in the defense of our students’ wellbeing,” Gureghian said in his resignation letter, CNN reported.

Magill released a statement Sunday condemning Hamas’s attack and addressing the situation with the festival back in September. 

“The University did not, and emphatically does not, endorse these speakers or their views. While we did communicate, we should have moved faster to share our position strongly and more broadly with the Penn community,” Magill said.

“I stand, and Penn stands, emphatically against antisemitism. We have a moral responsibility—as an academic institution and a campus community—to combat antisemitism and to educate our community to recognize and reject hate,” she added.