A donor to the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn) is withdrawing a donation of roughly $100 million in response to its president’s congressional testimony Tuesday, according to Axios.
Several elite university presidents spoke before Congress Tuesday, including UPenn President Liz Magill, Harvard University President Claudine Gay, and Massachusetts Insitute of Technology President Sally Kornbluth, and they refused to answer whether calling for genocide against Jews on campus was a violation of their codes of conduct. Ross Stevens, founder and CEO of Stone Ridge Asset Management, decided to pull his donation Thursday, alleging that the school violated the terms of the donation by violating anti-discrimination and anti-harassment policies, according to Axios.
“Its permissive approach to hate speech calling for violence against Jews and laissez-faire attitude toward harassment and discrimination against Jewish students would violate any policies of rules that prohibit harassment and discrimination based on religion, including those of Stone Ridge,” Stevens wrote in a letter to the university.
[YouTube – Screenshot – House Committee on Education and the Workforce]
Stevens gave the university the donation in December 2017 to establish a new center for finance, according to Axios. The gift came to UPenn in the form of a limited partnership in Stone Ridge, with a value of around $100 million.
Large donors have been withdrawing from elite universities following their responses to antisemitism on campus.
Jon Huntsman Jr., a UPenn alumnus with an estimated net worth of $1 billion condemned the university’s “silence” regarding Hamas’ attack against Israel and halted donations to UPenn. Magill did not refer to Hamas as a terrorist organization until after prominent donor Huntsman said his family would stop donating to the university.
The Wexner Foundation, founded by billionaire Leslie Wexner, stopped donating to Harvard University following the university’s response.
Both Magill and Gay backtracked on their statements on that hearing and clarified that calling for the genocide of Jews is not acceptable on campus following backlash, including from the White House.
A “small number” of antisemitic threats on campus to university staff resulted in Penn contacting the FBI to investigate the matter.
Over 30 student organizations at Harvard University signed a letter blaming Israel for the Hamas terrorist attacks on Oct. 7, causing uproar. Gay released a statement later in October saying that the students did not speak for the university but that the organizations had a right to free speech.
UPenn did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
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