At least one major university is finding out that allowing rampant antisemitism to flourish on campus is a costly mistake.
Venture capitalist David Magerman, who previously donated $5 million to the University of Pennsylvania, halted his financial support of the institution shortly after the outbreak of the war in Gaza. His decision was prompted by the school’s refusal to take action against the spread of antisemitism on campus and its failure to protect Jewish students from members of the pro-Hamas crowd, which held numerous demonstrations on the premises while threatening Jewish students.
Magerman recently announced that he plans to reallocate the funds he previously sent to UPenn to five Israeli colleges in $1 million increments. These include Tel Aviv University, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Bar-Ilan University, and Jerusalem College of Technology.
“I don’t see much value generated by giving to American universities. I think that liberal colleges in America are flawed institutions that are doing a poor job of preparing students for the real world,” he told Fox News.
Magerman urged other donors to follow his lead, arguing that universities are not “reformable.”
Asked what his message is to other prominent Jewish donors still contributing to Ivy League schools, Magerman said pointedly, “Stop.” He said it’s naive to believe that elite U.S. universities are “reformable.”
“They’re fulfilling the mission they want to fulfill. Their goal, it seems, is to indoctrinate their students to question the validity of Western civilization, to question the value of the Founding Fathers and to criticize Western society. I don’t think that’s what these philanthropists believe and I don’t think that they should be donating money to support propagating that ideology,” said Magerman.
Other high-profile donors have taken similar steps. Ross Stevens, CEO of Stone Ridge Asset Management, canceled a $100 million donation to UPenn in December over similar concerns.
Hedge fund billionaire Cliff Asness did the same shortly after the outbreak of the Gaza war. In an email to then-UPenn President Liz Magill, he said he would not donate again unless there is “meaningful change.”
He added: “It appears to be one of the only paths that has any hope of mattering.”
Magill later stepped down amid the controversy over antisemitism.
As we’ve reported Harvard University President Claudine Gay, University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill, and MIT President Sally Kornbluth made some astonishing statements in response to how they would deal for calls for Jewish genocide on their campuses and whether such statements would violate the code of conduct at their schools.
All the answers were bad as the presidents hedged and equivocated. Liz Magill said that it would depend upon the context. That caused understandable outrage. She then tried to clean it up, releasing a video with a groveling apology. But it was a day late and a dollar short. She may have known that her days as president were numbered.
But what may have sealed her fate as president of the school was donors pulling out their money from the university after her comments. If you don’t have the courage to do the right thing for the right thing’s sake, then the donors demanding it by pulling their money is going to get some real action.
The wave of donor withdrawals highlights the ongoing problems on college campuses. Feckless leadership has allowed pro-Hamas agitators to stage their demonstrations in which they shout antisemitic slogans while calling on the universities to divest from Israel. Those who would have definitely risen up to counter bigotry against other racial minorities remained conspicuously silent in the face of blatant anti-Jewish sentiment.
As this problem remains, there will likely be more donors who follow Magerman’s lead. Perhaps when these colleges are hit in their pocketbooks, they might take the issue seriously.
