The University of Pennsylvania has lost a donation of $100 million over the Ivy League’s handling of anti-Semitism on campus.
Ross Stevens, founder and CEO of Stone Ridge Asset Management, is withdrawing a gift of limited partnership units with his company, the current value of which is estimated to be about $100 million.
The tipping point for Stevens, a Penn undergraduate alumnus, came on Tuesday, when Penn’s president testified to Congress the rise of anti-Semitic hate speech at their schools.
Penn President Elizabeth Magill avoided answering questions from lawmakers on whether calling for the genocide of Jews violated the university’s codes of conduct.
Magill said that, “if the speech turns into conduct, it can be harassment,” adding that it is a “context-dependent decision.”
The presidents of Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) also testified. Both avoided answering the code of conduct question as well.
All three presidents have since backtracked after their congressional testimony prompted backlash, but it has not stopped the criticism.
Magill addressed the criticism in a video released Wednesday evening.
“In that moment, I was focused on our university’s longstanding policies aligned with the U.S. Constitution, which say that speech alone is not punishable,” Magill said in her video. “I was not focused on, but I should have been, the irrefutable fact that a call for genocide of Jewish people is a call for some of the most terrible violence human beings can perpetrate. It’s evil — plain and simple.”
The Penn donor, Stevens, sent a letter to the school through his lawyers on Thursday rescinding his large gift.
In his letter, Stevens accused the school of violating the terms of their partnership agreement, including the anti-discrimination and anti-harassment policies.
“Its permissive approach to hate speech caling 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.
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Previously, Stevens also withdrew another $100 million gift to Penn’s business school, the Wharton School, reportedly because he believed the school was prioritizing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) over academic excellence.
Steven redirected that previous gift to the University of Chicago.
Pro-Palestinian demonstrators have recently disrupted Penn’s campus.
Demonstrators have held huge protests and scrawled graffiti with slogans like “Free Palestine,” causing other students to plead with the administration to step in and prevent threats of violence.