University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill resigned on Saturday, the day before the school's board of trustees was expected to consider her future in light of her response to antisemitism on campus. Magill's resignation came "four days after she appeared before Congress and appeared to evade the question of whether students who called for the genocide of Jews should be punished," as The New York Times puts it. Harvard President Claudine Gay and Massachusetts Institute of Technology President Sally Kornbluth, who testified at the same hearing last Tuesday, are charged with the same offense, and critics say they should resign too.
The bipartisan outrage provoked by Magill et al.'s testimony is puzzling when you consider their comments in context. All three witnesses already had condemned the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel and the anti-Jewish tenor of demonstrations that celebrated the group's barbaric terrorism as a legitimate form of resistance. But while unambiguously rejecting that position, the college presidents pushed back against the notion that students who endorse it should face discipline.
