Penn president resigns

The president of the University of Pennsylvania (Penn) announced her resignation today, according to The Daily Pennsylvanian, the university’s newspaper. Liz Magill obviously bowed to pressure from the trustees of one of Penn’s member schools, after her testimony before the House Education and Workforce Committee created a campus-wide, indeed a national, scandal.

Penn drama – how it began

The University of Pennsylvania, for what it’s worth, began with a motto that calls it to be a moral leader. Leges sine moribus vanae does not speak of “laws without dead bodies.” The object of that preposition sine is the ablative or “carrying-away” case of the noun mos, moris – whence “moral(s).” Originally it meant, literally, behavior – and in this case, it means behavior that follows a law. So this motto translates as: Laws without good behavior are in vain. Or: laws without the willingness to follow them are a waste of time.

One could argue that Penn has failed for a long time to be a moral leader, or to teach moral precept. Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-S.C.), Chairman of the House Education Committee, said so in an interview after the rather disturbing hearing over which she presided. There, Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) questioned three Ivy League university presidents on whether the raucous, threatening, and even outright violent behavior the country has witnessed on their campuses is in accord with their codes of conduct and their policies regarding bullying or harassment.

Liz Magill, President of Penn, was one of them. Her testimony, and that of the other two, according to Bill Ackman of the Pershing Square fund, was weak.

CNAV analyzed that testimony in depth the day after Magill and her colleagues gave it. The next day, Magill made this weak apology.

But then came the fallout.

The fallout builds

Ross Stevens, head of Stone Ridge Asset Management, started it. Stevens had planned to finance a $100-million institute for teaching high business finance. He even signed a Limited Partnership Agreement to that effect. But after Magill’s performance before Congress on Tuesday, he withdrew his gift, saying Penn was not living up to its side of the agreement.

In fact his attorneys said worse, in their letter to Magill and to Scott Bok, Chairman of Penn’s Board. They said no further discussion could happen until Penn had a new president!

Mr. Stevens and Stone Ridge would welcome the opportunity to discuss this matter further and give the University a chance to remedy what Stone Ridge believes are likely violations of the Limited Partnership Agreement if, and when, there is a new University President in place. Until then, there can be no meaningful discussion about remedying the University’s ongoing failure to honor its obligations. Neil Barr and Dana M. Sheshens, Attorneys at Law, Davis, Polk and Wardwell LLP, 450 Lexington Avenue, New York, N.Y.

Shocked and furious, the Board of Advisers of Penn’s Wharton School of Business called an emergency meeting. As a result of that meeting, they demanded her resignation.

In light of your testimony yesterday before Congress, we demand that the University clarify its position regarding any call for harm to any group of people immediately, change any policies that allow such conduct with immediate effect, and discipline all offenders expeditiously.

Technically that would be ex post facto – but the offenders would be hard-pressed to defend their conduct if they requested judicial intervention. (The Constitution says neither the United States nor any State may pass bills of attainder or ex post facto laws. Whether that would apply to Penn, which is a public university though it is in the Ivy League, is unclear.)

Even more insistent was this next paragraph:

Further, as a result of the University leadership’s stated belief and collective failure to act, our Board respectfully suggests to you and the Board of Trustees that the University requires new leadership with immediate effect.

In the next paragraph they demanded that the larger Board’s Executive Committee take these matters up at once.

What the Advisers were talking about

The Board of Advisers had every reason for concern, even outrage. They referred to a “select group of students and faculty” leading a “dangerous and toxic culture” on campus. Furthermore, the Advisers have held eight emergency meetings, in addition to the last one. They sent several resolutions to Magill calling for policy changes to enhance the safety of all students. And she failed to act on a single one. Her testimony before Congress was, quite simply, the straw that broke the camel’s back.

One can certainly appreciate that. As Todd Starnes reported earlier this week, several Jewish students at Penn had to hide in their dorm rooms. This after a mob of students – and professors! – formed outside their dorms and shouted, “Death to Jews!”

Starnes wasn’t reporting on any incidents that took place in Berlin on November 9, 1938. This happened this year, at a university that says it stands for the rule of law. What part of “Laws without the willingness to follow them are a waste of time” did those students not get? And what shall we say of professors who joined that disgraceful chant?

The Penn X account had nothing to say. But The Daily Pennsylvanian cited (but did not link to) an email from Magill. She released that at 4:30 p.m. EST today – and said she would stay on as a law professor.

Penn needs to clean house

The Daily Pennsylvanian also reports that this resignation comes two months after Marc Rowan, Chairman of the Wharton Board of Advisers, started a donors’ revolt at the school. This was over the Palestinian Writes festival in September. He protested that event, but nothing came of that. Then the Fourth Arab-Israeli War began – and the behavior of certain people on campus prompted Rowan to demand that Magill and Bok both resign.

Magill becomes the first President of Penn to resign for reasons other than taking a government appointment. Her tenure will also be the shortest on record – a mere seventeen months, one week, and one day.

But she should not remain as a law professor, tenure or no. She should resign from both and retire to private life. And every professor who took part in that chant should consider himself fired.

Further to this, Scott Bok should resign also. His handling of earlier controversies was as enabling of the threatening behavior Todd Starnes’ radio guests described, as was anything Liz Magill did.

Remember once again Penn’s motto: laws without the willingness to follow them are a waste of time. That applies equally to precepts and policies about how students and faculty treat one another on campus.

Rep. Foxx was correct in saying, after that hearing, that colleges and universities no longer teach critical thinking or moral behavior. That’s enough to suggest that “higher education” itself is a waste of time – at least at some institutions.