University of Pennsylvania president Liz Magill resigns amid firestorm over House testimony

This story originally appeared on 6abc.

Liz Magill resigned on Saturday as president of the University of Pennsylvania amid scathing criticism over her performance at a House hearing earlier this week.

Penn Board of Trustees Chair Scott L. Bok announced the leadership change saying, “I write to share that President Liz Magill has voluntarily tendered her resignation as President of the University of Pennsylvania. She will remain a tenured faculty member at Penn Carey Law.”

Magill faced a rebellion from the leaders of the university’s prominent Wharton School, and a growing coalition of donors, politicians and business leaders who denounced her testimony.

She had already been under fire from prominent donors, faculty, students and alumni prior to Tuesday’s hearing after multiple incidents of antisemitism on campus in recent months – and what critics have said was a tepid response to those incidents.

Magill became Penn’s ninth president on July 1, 2022 after serving as executive vice president and provost at the University of Virginia. Prior to that she was the Richard E. Lang Professor and Dean of the Stanford Law School.

During Tuesday’s House hearing, Magill, along with the presidents of Harvard and MIT, did not explicitly say that calling for the genocide of Jews would necessarily violate their code of conduct on bullying or harassment. Instead, they explained it would depend on the circumstances and conduct.