Apollo CEO is calling for University of Pennsylvania leaders to resign after he says they refused to strongly condemn antisemitism

• Apollo Global Management CEO Marc Rowan is calling for University of Pennsylvania leaders to resign.
• He says they haven’t condemned antisemitism, especially in light of the attack on Israel by Hamas.
• Hedge fund chief Bill Ackman also called for Harvard to name students who are part of groups blaming Israel for the conflict.

Apollo Global Management CEO Marc Rowan is the latest business leader to slam an Ivy League institution for not taking a stronger stance against what he called antisemitism.

The private-equity billionaire wrote an op-ed for the student newspaper of his alma mater, the University of Pennsylvania. The guest column hasn’t yet been published, but was viewed in full by Insider. In it, he demanded that the school’s president, Elizabeth Magill, and the chairman of its board of trustees, Scott Bok, both step down.

He urged his fellow alumni to “close their checkbooks” until the university top brass resign. “Join me and many others who love UPenn by sending UPenn $1 in place of your normal, discretionary contribution so that no one misses the point,” he wrote.

Rowan’s letter points to the Palestine Writes Literary Festival, which was hosted at the university last month and has been a lightening rod of controversy. The festival prompted more than 4,000 alumni, including Rowan, to sign an open letter to Magill, saying that “platforming of outright antisemitism without denunciation from the university is unacceptable.”

At the time, the university responded, saying in a statement that “we unequivocally — and emphatically — condemn antisemitism as antithetical to our institutional values.”

“As a university, we also fiercely support the free exchange of ideas as central to our educational mission,” the statement continued. “This includes the expression of views that are controversial and even those that are incompatible with our institutional values.” 

But, in light of the attack by Hamas on Israel, Rowan has said the response was not enough.

“President Magill’s allowing of UPenn’s imprimatur to be associated with this conference, and her failure to condemn this hate-filled call for ethnic cleansing, normalized and legitimized violence that ranged from the targeting of Jewish students and spaces here at UPenn to the horrific attacks in Israel,” Rowan wrote in his op-ed this week.

Organizers of the festival have denied that it embraced antisemitism, according to stories in The Daily Pennsylvanian. The organizers didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment from Insider. The Daily Pennsylvanian reported that some Jewish students and groups on campus objected to some of the event’s speakers, which included Pink Floyd frontman Roger Waters, whom the Anti-Defamation League and others have accused of being anti-Jewish.

Rowan, who chairs the Wharton School’s Board of Advisors, and his wife, Carolyn, donated $50 million to Penn’s business school in 2018. He is the latest Wall Street titan — and big-money donor — to condemn an alma mater for a response, or lack thereof, to the crisis in Israel. 

On Tuesday, Pershing Square Capital Management CEO Bill Ackman called on Harvard to release the names of students in groups holding Israel solely responsible for Hamas’ violence. Ackman said that he didn’t want to “inadvertently hire” students who were part of the organizations. Several CEOs voiced their agreement, including Jonathan Newman, the co-founder of salad fast-food chain Sweetgreen and Jake Wurzak, the CEO of Dovehill Capital Management.

“We see sickening parallels between Harvard leadership’s inaction against Harvard’s  antisemitism and the failure by UPenn’s leadership to take a stand against hate,” Rowan wrote in his letter.

Ackman has tweeted his support of Rowan’s letter.

Stok and spokespeople for Penn did not respond to Insider’s request for comment before publication.