Can Liz Magill still lead Penn? Ed Rendell weighs in.

When University of Pennsylvania president Liz Magill was asked whether calling for the genocide of Jewish people would violate Penn’s code of conduct, she should have said two words: Yes, absolutely.

So says former Philadelphia Mayor and Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, a lawyer who teaches at Penn and who signed a letter earlier this semester faulting Penn for its handling of the Palestine Writes Festival. He asserted that as a private university, Penn could make such calls a school policy violation.

“Her testimony was God awful,” said Rendell, who served as Philadelphia’s mayor from 1992 to 2000 and then Pennsylvania’s governor from 2003 to 2011.

Magill, a lawyer and legal scholar, testified before the congressional committee that it was a “context dependent” decision. She later in a video clarified that she does consider it harassment or intimidation and that Penn would review its policies.

She has faced bipartisan criticism and further donor backlash following the hearing, as have the presidents of Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who also used the word “context” when answering the question.

» READ MORE: Penn president Liz Magill faces mounting pressure to resign from Capitol Hill as university backs her

Whether she should lose her job though is first something she must decide, Rendell said.

“Does all this controversy make it difficult for her to continue to lead the university?” he said. “The answer to that may be yes. If she feels it seriously compromised her ability to be an effective leader, then she should resign.

“If she feels she can still govern effectively and this doesn’t limit her ability to get things done, then she should hang in there.”

What would he do if he were Magill?

“If I had thought I had done a good job (before that), I would try to tough it out,” he said.

But he said: “This is going to be a hard thing for her to overcome.”

» READ MORE: Penn president Liz Magill got grilled by Congressional committee over the university’s response to antisemitism

Even if she opts to stay, the board of trustees may decide to take a vote of no confidence or reprimand her for the testimony, he said. If they contemplate such an action, he said he hopes they consider her full performance from the time she became Penn’s president in July 2022, not just her actions of the last couple months under extreme conditions.

Penn’s board plans to meet via telephone at 5 p.m. Sunday to discuss its next steps. It’s not clear whether board members will take any action or announce any steps after the meeting.

An email from board chair Scott L. Bok obtained by The Inquirer stated that the board during an informal gathering on Thursday expressed a “very wide range of views as to next steps.” Bok also said that statements from both Magill and the full board were under development but did not detail what those messages would state.

Also, the leaders of at least two schools at Penn have put out strong statements condemning genocide, according to the Daily Pennsylvanian, the student newspaper.

“I condemn calls for genocide,” said Katharine O. Strunk, dean of the Graduate School of Education. “Intimidation, bias, and harassment are unacceptable and will not be tolerated at GSE.”

J. Larry Jameson, dean of the Perelman School of Medicine and executive vice president of the University of Pennsylvania Health System, and UPHS CEO Kevin Mahoney wrote a letter Thursday, the DP said.

“Calls for genocide, echoing horrors of the past, violate our behavioral standards and remind us that we must forcefully condemn, prevent, and respond to hate in all forms,” said the Penn Med letter, according to the DP.

Neither letter referenced Magill’s testimony, the DP said.