By Kanishka Singh
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -College of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill, who got here below hearth for her stance on antisemitism on campus, has resigned, the Ivy League faculty mentioned on Saturday.
Magill was one among three prime college presidents who have been criticized after they testified at a congressional listening to on Tuesday a couple of rise in antisemitism on faculty campuses following the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas struggle in October.
She has agreed to remain on till an interim president is appointed, Scott Bok, chair of the Philadelphia-based college’s board of trustees, mentioned on Saturday in an announcement posted on the college’s web site. Bok additionally stepped down.
“I write to share that President Liz Magill has voluntarily tendered her resignation as President of the College of Pennsylvania,” Bok mentioned within the announcement launched by the college. Magill will stay a tenured college member on the college’s regulation faculty, Bok mentioned.
Magill, Harvard College President Claudine Homosexual, and Massachusetts Institute of Know-how President Sally Kornbluth testified earlier than a U.S. Home of Representatives committee on Tuesday.
As they tried to stroll a line that protected freedom of speech, they declined to offer a definitive “sure” or “no” reply to Republican Consultant Elise Stefanik’s query of whether or not calling for the genocide of Jews would violate their faculties’ codes of conduct concerning bullying and harassment.
Requires Magill’s and Homosexual’s resignations particularly mounted within the days after that testimony. Magill launched a video on Wednesday through which she expressed remorse, Homosexual apologized on Friday.
Jewish college students, households and alumni have accused the colleges of tolerating antisemitism, particularly in statements by pro-Palestinian demonstrators for the reason that Islamist group Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7 and killed round 1,200. That assault prompted a large counterattack by Israel that has left over 17,700 Palestinians useless, in accordance with the Gaza well being ministry.
“One down. Two to go. That is solely the very starting of addressing the pervasive rot of antisemitism that has destroyed probably the most ‘prestigious’ larger schooling establishments in America,” Stefanik mentioned on social media website X after Penn’s announcement.
She mentioned Magill’s resignation was the “naked minimal of what’s required” and urged Harvard and MIT to take comparable motion.
Antisemitism and Islamophobia have risen sharply in america and elsewhere since October.
Antisemitic incidents in america rose by about 400% within the two weeks after the Hamas assault on Israel, in accordance with the Anti-Defamation League.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations mentioned this week that within the two months after the struggle started, incidents motivated by Islamophobia and bias towards Palestinians and Arabs rose by 172% in comparison with the identical interval final yr.
Eyal Yakoby, a College of Pennsylvania scholar who has sued the varsity alleging inadequate response to antisemitism, mentioned on CNN that Magill’s resignation was one step towards a broader change on the college.
“This has been one thing that myself and plenty of alumni and fellow college students, mother and father been engaged on for some time … (however) that is simply the primary domino in a tradition for a lot of leaders together with Chairman Bok who’ve allowed this to occur,” Yakoby mentioned.
(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; further reporting by Ismail Shakil and Susan Heavey, Enhancing by Cynthia Osterman and Jonathan Oatis)
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