Ex-Penn Prez Talks Regrets With Politico
"I just didn’t seem like a person." Magill on the moment that ended her tenure — and how the hearing reshaped the politics of higher ed.
Penn president Liz Magill at the congressional hearing on anti-semitism in 2023. She would resign four days later. / Image from CSPAN
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Ex-Penn Prez Talks Regrets With Politico
Politico has a lengthy story on/interview with former University of Pennsylvania president Liz Magill, who stepped down in 2023 following a congressional hearing on antisemitism during which she would not say outright that protestors calling for genocide were against university policy.
PA Governor Josh Shapiro, a non-voting board member at Penn, was among those pressed Magill during the televised hearing, saying there was a “failure of leadership” at the university. Magill soon released an apology video but it didn’t quell the outcry and she resigned four days after the hearing.
Magill is not resentful about how things went down but she does have regrets, writes Politico’s Evan Mandery (who, by the way, is also the author of Poison Ivy: How Elite Colleges Divide Us): “I wish I could’ve done it again because this harmed Penn’s reputation … I just didn’t seem like a person with common sense and humanity, and I am.”
And now we know that hearing has had implications beyond Penn. Writes Mandery:
The fallout has been staggering. Under the guise of combatting antisemitism, 60 universities have been targeted for investigation by the Trump administration, which has either frozen or is reviewing billions in funding. This justification — and actions taken in its name — have the potential to end or at least curtail the independence of the academy, just as it claimed the nascent presidency of Liz Magill. All under the battle cry of fighting antisemitism.
Petty Officers Unite
The Inky has an interesting story about an 1800s war ship called the Niagara, in the care of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission. The commission appears to have violated maritime code back in 2023 when it hired a Canadian company to steer the “wooden-hulled snow-brig” to a shipyard for repairs.
“Under that regulation, at least 75% of a Coast Guard-registered ship’s crew must be staffed with U.S. citizens. The Niagara’s crew log from the two-week October voyage, however, shows that at one point, four of seven members were Canadian nationals.”
Meaning for some period of time, the crew was only 42% percent American. Who cares? Somebody always cares. And all parties involved have access to warships.
By the Numbers
$0: A new agreement between the city and Planet Fitness allows Philly high schoolers the gyms for free this summer. No, they don’t do pizza day anymore.
$20,000: The treasurer of the PTA at an elementary school in Bucks County was arrested for allegedly stealing 20K from the till. Mental note: Bucks County PTAs are funded.
$103,000: A Bucks County man is charged with allegedly swindling people with intellectual disabilities out of $103,000 over six years. You sir are a disgrace, a scoundrel, and PTA material.
99: In addition to the making the cover of Madden 26, Saquon Barkley also earned a coveted “99” rating in the game, the first Eagles player to do so. (Near as I can tell, he’s also the first Life Surge alum to do so. Sorry, Tim Tebow.) By the way, that Madden cover image is a recreation of Barkley’s famous reverse leap against the Jaguars. Here, watch them lift him up with wires for the photo shoot.
