Another One: UPenn Donor “Deeply Embarrassed” by University Over Pro-Hamas Support but Apparently Not Over a 6’1 Male Beating Women
After the heinous terrorist acts that took place in Israel last weekend, leaving over 1400 dead including 31 Americans, pro-Hamas protests have sprung up over the last week on college campuses around the country.
Harvard University, which FIRE ranked dead last in free speech with the worst score ever recorded, came under tremendous scrutiny when at least 31 student groups signed a letter claiming Israel was at fault for the terrorist attack on October 7th. It has been reported that Josh Wilcox, the son of Estee Lauder perfume brand founder, was one of three who initiated the letter.
Harvard’s Charles W. Eliot University Professor and President Emeritus publicly called out the student body and lack of response from Harvard leadership regarding the letter:
In nearly 50 years of @Harvard affiliation, I have never been as disillusioned and alienated as I am today.
— Lawrence H. Summers (@LHSummers) October 9, 2023
Victoria’s Secret founder Leslie Wexner announced he would cut ties the Ivy League school over the debacle.
Now another Ivy League donor has joined the exodus. David Magerman, who helped build the hedge fund Renaissance Technology (RenTech), has cut ties with University of Pennsylvania (UPenn) over the university’s lack of condemning the attack and the “fierce support for the Hamas-affiliated speakers at the Palestine Writes Festival.” The “festival” was planned before the attack in Israel and featured Roger Waters (via Zoom as he is banned from UPenn campus) who famously dressed up as a Nazi’esque figure at a recent concert.
“Over the past month, I have been deeply embarrassed by my association with and support for the University of Pennsylvania,” he wrote in the letter Monday.
“The leadership of the university has failed to demonstrate the values I expect from an institution that purports to educate young adults and prepare them for a lifetime of leadership and to be emissaries for good in the world.”
…
Magerman went on to hammer Magill and Bok for what he described as their “fierce support for the Hamas-affiliated speakers at the Palestine Writes Festival, followed by your equivocating statements about the heinous acts of barbarism perpetrated by the same Hamas you allowed these speakers to promote.”
The pro-Palestinian festival included author Aya Ghanameh, who has called for “Death to Israel,” and writer Randa Abdel-Fattah, who has said Israel is a “demonic, sick project” and that she “can’t wait for the day we commemorate its end.”
While it is encouraging to see the Marxist Ivy-League Universities losing their donors, it is disheartening to see that it wasn’t the Riley Gaines incident that drove this.
In March of 2022, a fully intact 6’1 biological male, Lia Thomas, won the NCAA Women’s Division I National Championship. Riley Gaines, who competed against Thomas in that championship meet, testified before Congress about the difficulties a biological woman faces competing against a biological male. The amount of work, a lifetime worth, that a woman puts in to reach that level only to have it stolen away by the 554th ranked male swimmer apparently wasn’t embarrassing enough to discourage donations.
But take the social victories where you can get them.
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