Penn president Liz Magill’s testimony ignited a political firestorm ahead of 2024

Rep. Susan Wild knew the committee hearing convened to grill university professors over antisemitism on campus would be heated. She didn’t expect Penn president Liz Magill to ignite a political firestorm that she now fears could play out in a highly politicized investigation in Congress.

Magill’s statements, particularly her hedge on whether someone calling for genocide of Jewish people would amount to harassment under the school’s code of conduct, has landed Magill, Penn, and two other institutions in congressional investigations announced by the committee this week.

The hearing reverberated across the nation, drawing criticisms from the White House to the statehouse as politicians on both sides of the aisle grapple with a moment that could play long into the 2024 election as colleges and universities have become the centers of roiling debate around freedom of expression, hate speech, and the Israel-Hamas war.

And with Penn, the city’s largest employer and a critical institution to the state in the spotlight, responses from those leaders came fast and furious.

By Friday afternoon, 71 members of Congress had signed onto a letter calling on Penn, Harvard, and MIT to remove their presidents or risk committing “an act of complicity in their antisemitic posture.”

“I really hope it doesn’t become a big partisan exercise,” Wild, the lone Pennsylvania Democrat on the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, said of the congressional investigation. “That’s one of my concerns about this committee in general, is that it’s often very polarized along political lines and when you’re talking about something like antisemitism, or hate speech, or college students feeling safe on campus … it really should be able to be free of partisan bias.”

It’s unlikely university policies and Magill’s comments will have much of an impact on voters in 2024 but it’s already a topic Republican candidates for president are talking about more generally on the debate stage and flared up as a broader stand-in for issues surrounding the Israel-Hamas war.

Wild, for her part, said she thinks Magill, who has since walked back her response, “has lost the trust of people who matter.”

“I don’t think she can stay on,” Wild said. “And I’d frankly be surprised if this is even a question by the end of the weekend.”

Republicans had started a crusade on woke culture at colleges and universities long before Magill testified or the war between Israel and Hamas began.

The hearing represented an opportunity to discuss the increase in antisemitism on campuses amid a larger Republican argument that elite institutions are not in touch with everyday Americans. In her introductory remarks, the chair of the committee Virginia Foxx (R., NC), called antisemitism the “poisoned fruits” of the colleges’ cultures and drew a connection between a rise in antisemitism and universities’ antiracism and DEI missions.

“For years, universities have stoked the flames of an ideology which goes by many names — antiracism, anticolonialism, critical race theory, DEI, intersectionality, the list goes on,” she said.

Six of the state’s seven Republican congress members — Chief Deputy Whip Guy Reschenthaler and Reps. John Joyce, Mike Kelly, Brian Fitzpatrick, Meuser, and Lloyd Smucker (who is also on the committee with Wild) — wrote a letter calling for Magill to be removed by the board.

“President Magill’s testimony is a clear reflection of the pervasive moral and educational failures prevalent at your university and other premier universities across the country,” the members said in a joint letter to Penn Thursday.

At the state level, a trio of Republican lawmakers in Pennsylvania responded directly to Magill’s testimony. The lawmakers introduced legislation Friday that would “ensure that any institution of higher education in Pennsylvania which receives a direct appropriation from the state acknowledge antisemitism as harassment and/or bullying.”

There are early signs Magill’s fate is becoming a political litmus test. This week, the campaign arm of the House Republicans blasted out a release criticizing Democratic House members who had not called on Magill to resign, accusing them of silence “while antisemitism is exploding at Penn.”

Wild said on Friday she thought Magill should have answered with a simple, “yes,” to the question of whether Jewish genocide amounted to harassment. Instead, she said the committee got “word salad.”

“The hearing was specifically titled and called for the purpose of exploring antisemitism,” Wild said. “So all of them should have been prepared for this line of question,” she said.

As President Joe Biden contends with low approval ratings on his response to the Middle East, the White House issued a strong condemnation of the comments from the presidents of Penn, Harvard, and MIT, which they called “dangerous and revolting.”

“It’s unbelievable that this needs to be said: Calls for genocide are monstrous and antithetical to everything we represent as a country,” White House spokesperson Andrew Bates said. “Any statements that advocate for the systematic murder of Jews are dangerous and revolting — and we should all stand firmly against them, on the side of human dignity and the most basic values that unite us as Americans,” White House spokesperson Andrew Bates said in a statement Wednesday.

A dozen House Democrats sent a letter to Penn, MIT, and Harvard on Friday asking the schools to review and update school policies and codes of conduct to ensure that they protect students from hate. The lawmakers also asked for detailed action steps the schools are taking to “to ensure Jewish and Israeli students, teachers, and faculty are safe on your campuses”

Pennsylvania Democrats have struck a sharply critical tone on Magill though most haven’t gone so far as to seek her removal. The party has for months been trying to grapple with the larger issue of the Israel-Hamas war, which has caused deep frustrations among some of its more progressive members who favor a cease-fire.

Sen. Bob Casey (D., Pa.), who is up for reelection next year, called Magill’s comments “offensive. But equally offensive was what she didn’t say,” he said. “The right to free speech is fundamental, but calling for the genocide of Jews is antisemitic and harassment, full stop.” He later sent a letter to the Department of Education asking for more funding to combat antisemitism and Islamophobia on college campuses.

His likely challenger, GOP Senate candidate Dave McCormick, called on Penn’s board to remove Magill.

“She lacks the depth, understanding, and awareness of how antisemitism is real and how it must be fought,” McCormick said. “She has failed the students of Penn, its alumni, and our state.”

Sen. John Fetterman, who has been extremely outspoken in his support for Israel, told the New York Times that Magill’s testimony was “a significant fail,” and called the exchange “embarrassing for a venerable Pennsylvania university.”

Perhaps the most visible politician in the state has been Gov. Josh Shapiro, the state’s third Jewish governor, who had previously weighed in here and there on the Israel-Hamas war but actively engaged this week as the issue sparked a protest he described as antisemitic, and Penn was thrust into the national debate. Shapiro visited the falafel restaurant, Goldie, where the protests broke out this week, and then marked the beginning of Hanukkah at Penn’s Hillel.

He twice publicly condemned Magill’s comments, becoming one of the first and highest profile Democrats to do so, though he has said it should be up to Penn’s board to determine whether Magill remains president.

For Shapiro, who has long been rumored to have national ambitions, it was another nationally watched moment in which he seized a leadership role. And by both criticizing Magill but also joining with students on campus, he was able to both condemn a problematic statement while also showing support for the university, which is an economic engine for the state.

At a news conference on Friday, Shapiro reiterated that the board of trustees need to “make a determination” as to whether Magill’s comments to Congress “reflect the views of the university at large.”

Earlier in the week he called her comments “absolutely shameful.”

“It should not be hard to condemn genocide,” he said.