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Pressure mounted on the presidents of Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology after 74 members of Congress — mostly Republicans — signed a letter urging their removal for failing to tackle antisemitism on their campuses.
The letter followed a disastrous appearance by Harvard’s Claudine Gay, Penn’s Elizabeth Magill and MIT’s Sally Kornbluth at a congressional hearing on Tuesday in which they struggled to muster a clear response when asked repeatedly by representative Elise Stefanik whether calling for the genocide of Jews violated their campus codes of conduct.
Both Gay and Magill issued subsequent statements to try to clarify their testimony and quell the outrage from Jewish and non-Jewish alumni and donors.
Yet the uproar has continued, with one donor rescinding a $100mn donation and the advisory board of Penn’s Wharton business school calling for Magill’s firing.
About 50 members of the university’s board convened for what a spokesperson called an “informal” meeting on Thursday that lasted roughly two hours. Afterwards, the spokesperson said: “There is no board plan for an imminent leadership change.”
Gay took further steps on Friday to try to repair the damage, formally apologising for her testimony in an interview with the university newspaper, the Harvard Crimson. “I’m sorry,” she said. “When words amplify distress and pain, I don’t know how you could feel anything but regret.”
After meeting on Thursday, the executive committee of MIT’s board gave its backing to Kornbluth, saying: “She has done excellent work in leading our community, including in addressing antisemitism, Islamophobia, and other forms of hate, which we reject utterly at MIT. She has our full and unreserved support.”
The congressional letter was addressed to the boards of the three universities and signed by leading Republicans, including Stefanik, and Louisiana’s Steve Scalise. It also included a handful of Democrats, such as Florida’s Jared Moskowitz.
They called the “explosion of antisemitism” on university campuses since Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel “a failure of university leadership” and dismissed the presidents’ testimony as “abhorrent”.
“We demand that your boards immediately remove each of these presidents and that you provide an actionable plan to ensure that Jewish and Israeli students, teachers and faculty are safe on your campuses,” they wrote.
The universities did not immediately comment on the letter.
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