The Donors’ Revolt against woke faculty and admin

Anyone who has ever attended college or university today, knows that freedom of speech goes only one way. Toe the leftist party line, or face shunning, if not outright expulsion. For decades the university donor class, consisting of any one university’s most successful (and generous) alumni, have declined to take a stand. Perhaps they feared that the cancel mob would come for them, too. But now a donors’ revolt has begun, after too many colleges and universities sided with those who committed wartime atrocities.

Who started the donors’ revolt?

Marc Rowan, CEO of Apollo Management and Chairman of the Board of Advisers of the Wharton School, started it. The Wharton School is, of course, the graduate business school of the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn). In September, UPenn hosted the Palestinian Writes Literary Festival. As Rowan would write later, “various UPenn academic departments and affiliates” “underwr[ote], supported, and hosted” this conference. It was supposed to highlight “Palestinian” art, culture and poetry. Instead it focused on the central grievance “Palestinians” have with the State of Israel.

That grievance would appear to be that anything called Israel exists. Why else would someone suggest removing all Jews from the land, or confining them to districts the speaker called “cantons”? Why else would someone else defend violence against Jews as necessary and proper? And why else would many speakers call Jews “European settlers”? (CNAV yesterday described Middle Eastern history; readers will find there a clear showing that the Land of Israel is the origin country of the Jews. Emperor Hadrian deported them to Roman Spain, Gaul, and Britannia in 135.)

Rowan would also describe “blood libels” against the Jews. He did not elaborate, but Merriam-Webster defines blood libel thus:

the false and maliciously perpetuated accusation that Jews have murdered non-Jews (such as Christian children) in order to use their blood in rituals.

Among the “rituals” to which Merriam-Webster and others doubtless refer, is the making of Passover matzah. This actually is bread made without yeast, and cannot have any blood in it, else it is definitely non-kosher. (In Hebrew, kosher literally means “fit” and usually means “fit to eat.”)

Enough is enough!

Before the festival began, several UPenn alumni and boosters signed an open letter calling on the university, and the departments involved, to rethink their sponsorship. Instead, UPenn President Elizabeth Magill and Board of Trustees Chairman Scott Bok demanded resignations of any signatories on the Board.

Two weeks after that festival, of course, the Fourth Arab-Israeli War began. And it began with the most horrific level of atrocities in the annals of human warfare. Even the Tiger of Malaya, General Tomoyuki Yamashita, would blush at what no one can now deny.

Apparently Rowan waited for Magill to condemn the atrocities, and at least reconsider her earlier approval of the festival. At first she did neither. On Columbus Day she posted to Instagram about “recogniz[ing] and honor[ing] native and indigenous peoples.” In reply, several students called her attention to the atrocities that the Gazan Army (Islamic Resistance Movement, Arabic Harakah al-Muqāwamah al-Islāmiyyah, abbreviated HAMAS) committed in their war, and about Jewish and Israeli students at the university. (Rowan would accuse the university of allowing some persons, whom he did not identify, to “target … Jewish students and spaces here at UPenn.” The Daily Pennsylvanian has taken note that such acts did occur.)

Another open letter

According to CNN, the administration did issue a statement on October 9. It criticized HAMAS’ sneak attack and mourning the “tragic loss of life and escalating violence and unrest in the region.”

That’s not good enough for Rowan, according to the New York Post. On October 11, he submitted a letter to The Daily Pennsylvanian, the UPenn student newspaper. This is where he described what happened at the festival, and how UPenn reacted to the open letter criticizing it. Now he was demanding more than that. He called on Magill and Bok to resign their positions. Furthermore, he called on the boosters to stop boosting – that is, stop giving money – until that happens.

The donors’ revolt has now begun.

Thus far, The Daily Pennsylvanian has declined to publish Rowan’s letter – though they have written about it. Both the Post and CNN report that UPenn spokespersons have issued bland condemnations of HAMAS’ atrocities, but defended their decision to let the Palestinian Writes festival to take place. But already one trustee has quit on the strength of these events – and donors have revolted. The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that President Magill is in damage control mode. She has condemned HAMAS slightly more strongly, and publicly re-examined her approval of the Palestinian Writes festival.

The donors’ revolt spreads

Rowan appeared on CNBC’s Squawk Box program to explain his letter and the reasons for it.

Steve McGuire of the American Council for Trustees and Alumni, noted the most visible sign of the donors’ revolt at UPenn.

Today Jacob Savage, at The Free Press, described the donors’ revolt in greater detail. Bari Weiss, Savage’ boss, left a preface on his article asking whether the “woke bill” has fallen due.

Savage mentions Bill Ackman, who famously put Harvard students on a hiring blacklist after they blamed Israel for everything. Ackman took note of the doings at UPenn and offered this:

None of these institutions are solvent without the support of their alumni. Perhaps this is the beginning of a catalyst for change.

The donors’ revolt also spread to Harvard. The Wexner Foundation announced today that its association with Harvard Kennedy School (formerly JFK School of Government) is now ended.

The Wexner Foundation starts by noticing that HKS students and faculty “marginalize” and “shout down” the Israeli students the Wexner Foundation sponsors. And HKS administration did nothing to stop it. And after the latest war began, Wexner Israel Fellows reported feeling abandoned. Fed up, the Wexner Foundation has ended all programs with HKS.

Realities at various universities

The reaction to the above post includes mention of a connection The Free Press might have missed. Leslie Wexner not only founded the women’s intimate apparel chain Victoria’s Secret, but also had a connection to suspected child megatrafficker Jeffrey Epstein.

Another user pointed to the exquisite irony of Harvard’s situation:

A third user pointed to the real issue: that universities have lost their moral compass.

That’s truer than Ms. Scott knows, because most Ivy League institutions in fact began as divinity schools. UPenn traces its origin to Founding Father Benjamin Franklin. But nearly all universities in America have lost whatever moral compass they once had. They became part of the liberal coalition. And what many should have realized is that the universities (except for Jewish institutions) barely tolerated their Jewish students. Since the war began, university students and some faculty have openly taken sides against Jews.

This has demonstrably resulted in some nasty antisemitic incidents, including one in the Philadelphia area, though not at UPenn. At Drexel University, someone set fire to a Jewish student’s dorm room door, according to WCAU-TV (Channel 10, NBC, Philadelphia). And at Stanford University, an instructor singled out his Jewish students and ordered them to stand in the corner. He then informed them they were getting the treatment their Israeli coreligionists meted out to Palestinians. (Source: Todd Starnes, and The Forward. Stanford has since suspended that instructor, according to The Post Millennial.)

It’s about time!

The donors’ revolt is long overdue, and CNAV hopes it has “legs.” Sadly, it took a war featuring atrocities not seen since the Second World War to provoke it. That war has brought out the worst in university faculties and administrations. They actually defend atrocities, and blame their victims.

But those expressing conservative opinion have suffered in silence for decades – if they haven’t foregone university education entirely. Does anyone still ask why education correlates positively with leftist voting (and negatively with rightist voting)? That’s why.

Your editor attended Yale College in 1976-80. TwiceCNAVhas written open letters decrying “woke” decisions by the college and the medical school. CNAV has also noted how overrated college has become, unless a student majors in Science, Technology, Engineering, or Mathematics. And now we see colleges managing to ruin even those disciplines, which once taught the quintessence of objective reality.

If a donors’ revolt can repair that problem, then higher education can again become “high.” Today it is low – so low that the campus reaction to the present war was inevitable. CNAV is pleased with the donors’ revolt, but only middling pleased, by reason of the delay. CNAV calls on university donors everywhere to reexamine what they wish to accomplish with their donations, and the actual and present missions of the institutions they support.