Time, Janet Lorin / Bloomberg, December 8, 2023
The presidents of Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania were forced to issue statements clarifying their responses to a U.S. congressional hearing on antisemitism after a barrage of criticism from business leaders and politicians that shows few signs of abating.
Harvard’s Claudine Gay and Penn’s Liz Magill were lambasted for refusing to say at the Dec. 5 event that calling for the genocide of Jews is against school policy, instead offering narrow legal responses.
The presidents backtracked in the face of widespread denunciations of their performances at the hearing, which also included Massachusetts Institute of Technology President Sally Kornbluth.
Pfizer Inc. Chief Executive Officer Albert Bourla, whose grandparents, aunt and uncle perished in the Holocaust, called it “one of the most despicable moments in the history of U.S. academia.”