I wrote, in a comment on one of Robert Stacy McCain’s articles, “The over/under on Dr Magill’s resignation date is Monday, December 11th. There’s a meeting of the Board of Trustees set for Sunday, Sunday! afternoon.” Well, the lovely Dr Magill didn’t make it to Sunday, resigning on Saturday.
Breaking: Penn’s Magil Resigns.
by Robert Stacy McCain | Saturday, December 9, 2023
Mere hours after I blogged about this (“‘Context Dependent’: Ivy League President Belatedly Realizes Maybe She Answered That Question About Genocide Wrong”), now the University of Pennsylvania’s embattled President Liz Magill has resigned:
University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill has resigned as president of the university in the wake of intense backlash over her failure during a recent congressional hearing on Capitol Hill to say whether advocating for the genocide of Jews is permissible on campus.
“Dear members of the Penn community,” the university began in its announcement. “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,” the school added.
“On behalf of the entire Penn community, I want to thank President Magill for her service to the University of Pennsylvania and wish her well,” the university concluded.
“Thank you for your service and good-bye!”
That’s pretty much all of it. I wanted to write about it as soon as I heard, but the Army-Navy Game was on television, and I am most definitely an Army football fan.
Army holds on with a goal-line stand in final seconds to beat Navy, 17-11
Army quarterback Bryson Daily ran for 84 yards and threw Army’s first touchdown pass against Navy since 2015.
by Jimmy Golen, Associated Press | Saturday, December 9, 2023 | 7:42 PM EST
FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — Army linebacker Kalib Fortner scored on a fourth-quarter strip sack and then stuffed quarterback Tai Lavatai six inches from the goal line with 3 seconds left to help the Black Knights beat Navy, 17-11, on Saturday and win the 124th meeting of the nation’s oldest service academies.
After falling behind, 17-3, Lavatai led the Midshipmen on a touchdown drive to make it a one-score game and then drove them to the Army 6. With no timeouts and about 30 seconds left, Lavatai threw two incompletions before hitting Alex Tecza, who was tackled in bounds at the 2.
With no timeouts — and no opportunity to spike the ball on fourth down — Navy scrambled to line up and managed to get the play off. Lavatai surged forward as his whole team pushed, ahead of him and behind, but Army held its ground.
The play was whistled dead and the replay confirmed that the ball never crossed the goal line. To kill the remaining 3 seconds, Army quarterback Bryson Daily took a shotgun snap, hesitated, and stepped out of the end zone for an intentional safety.
There’s more at the original.
Army won the first half, 10-0, and only a fingertip deflection of an Army pass prevented Army from having a 17-0 lead. Navy, however, rallied, and dominated the fourth quarter. It was Army’s goal line stand, which stopped Navy quarterback Tai Lavatai less than a foot from the end zone with just three seconds left, on fourth down, that preserved the win. Having defeated Air Force earlier in the year, Army’s two victories over the other service academies brings the Commander-in-Chief’s Trophy back to West Point.
The Army-Navy Game was far more important than Dr Magill’s resignation, because we already knew that she was toast; the only question was who among Harvard President Claudine Gay, MIT President Sally Kornbluth, or Dr Magill would resign first. Now that Dr Magill is gone, it would seem unlikely that the other two highly educated fools could hang on to their jobs.
Of course, some other highly educated fools had to weigh in:
Penn chapter of national professors organization slams critics for ‘misrepresenting’ position of faculty and students
by Rob Tornoe | Saturday, December 9, 2023
The Penn chapter of the American Association of University Professors said in the wake of the attack on Israel by Hamas on Oct. 7, critics have “misrepresented” Penn students and faculty who have expressed concern for Palestinian civilians and criticized the war in Gaza.
“The ability of donors, lobbying groups, and members of Congress to destabilize the University of Pennsylvania reveals the need to restore a strong faculty voice in the governance of the institution,” the chapter said in a statement following Liz Magill’s resignation as Penn’s president.
“The next president must defend the principles of shared governance and academic freedom, which protect the educational mission of the university,” the group added. “And they must correct what has become a dangerous myth suggesting that the defense of academic freedom and open expression is in any way contradictory to the fight against antisemitism.”
Sorry, but that’s just silly: there would have been no question what the answer would have been had Representative Elise Stefanik’s question not been about whether ‘calling for the genocide of black people violates Penn’s rules or code of conduct’ or ‘calling for the elimination of homosexuals violates Penn’s rules or code of conduct’. Such would not ever be considered questions allowable under ‘academic freedom,’ and if some group wanted to sponsor a debate on such subjects, it would be shouted down from outside, and any students who participated in it disciplined and almost certainly expelled.
Many of the students were blasé about the whole thing, but:
Lucia Gonzales, 22, learned of the resignation from a friend’s text message. After experiencing mixed reactions, she believes Magill’s departure was to be expected.
“[Magill] was already so one-sided. She rarely ever mentions Palestinians or Islamophobia,” Gonzales said. “To see someone so pro-Israel was pretty much forced to resign makes me question who the university is going to put in place next.”
One doubts that Miss Gonzales knows up from down, but there’s a difference between a calm and reasoned debate about Israeli policies toward the Palestinians, and thinking that calls for the genocide of Jews is some sort of intellectual debate.
Shortly after President Magill’s resignation was announced, Chairman of the Board of Trustees Scott L Bok also said he was stepping down. And that meets the requirements set by deep-pockets donors Marc Rowan and Richard Wolf. Money talks, it has been said, and bovine feces walks. The University of Pennsylvania’s Board of Trustees, and all of its administrators realized, whether they agreed with Dr Magill’s idiotic remarks or otherwise, that losing multi-million dollar donors was something that just couldn’t be ignored. I suspect that the donors will be closely watching to see whom the Board appoints as President Magill’s replacement, and how the student body react.