Apollo CEO Marc Rowan’s plan to oust the leadership of his alma mater, the University of Pennsylvania, is picking up steam and could blow a $1 billion hole in the school’s fundraising efforts, the Post has learned.
Rowan’s attacks on the school stem from what he believes is an atmosphere of antisemitism, including administrators’ failure to quickly condemn the recent deadly Hamas terrorist attacks.
Now so many potential and current donors are joining his effort that the $21 billion UPenn endowment could be deprived of as much as $1 billion in funding, these people say.
And Rowan won’t back down unless Liz Magill and Scott Bok, the UPenn president and the chair of the school’s Board of Trustees, respectively, are booted from their positions — a very real possibility given the surge in alumni support for his defund-antisemitism effort.
The details of this groundswell of support for Rowan’s plan have not been reported, and it is said to be unprecedented in the clubby world of fundraising for university endowments.
For years, top alumni fundraisers like Rowan have chosen to voice their criticism of school policy to college administrators in private; high-profile alumni have traditionally stayed out of divisive cultural debates that occur on our nation’s campuses.
That might be changing given the rampant antisemitism on college campuses that exploded in recent weeks, and school administrators like Bok and Magill failing to promptly condemn both the terrorist attacks as well as their students’ displays of support for the killing of innocents.
For Rowan and now thousands of UPenn grads and benefactors, the tipping point occurred in September when UPenn’s leadership ignored their warnings that pro-Palestinian student groups were featuring antisemitic speakers during a “Palestine Writes Literature Festival.”
The festival took place during the Jewish high holy days and featured speakers who called for “death to Israel.”
People who know Rowan say he was doubly horrified to learn UPenn student groups also supported the Hamas terrorists who on Oct. 7 killed and kidnapped innocent Israelis — beheading some infants at a kibbutz near the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.
One of the worst atrocities in recent history occurred while school administrators remained initially silent.
That prompted an open letter demanding the resignations of Magill and Bok; Rowan accused the school’s leadership of fostering a climate of hate that condoned the violence and killing.
“I call on all UPenn alumni and supporters who believe we are heading in the wrong direction to close their checkbooks until President Liz Magill and Chairman Scott Bok resign,” he wrote.
The open letter has grown to include some 7,000 current and potential donors and graduates, some of whom are on the school’s Board of Trustees, people close to Rowan tell me.
They include UPenn grads Ron Lauder of the Estée Lauder cosmetics empire.
Former UN Ambassador Jon Huntsman, whose family are long-time donors to the university, joined the donor boycott as well.
Rowan has also accused Bok, who is chairman of the investment bank Greenhill & Co., of going to Penn’s Board of Trustees in an effort to remove four board members who signed his letter.
Press officials from UPenn had no comment.
A decision to oust Bok and Magill will be up to the 60-member UPenn board, and it’s unclear if there is, at least for now, the stomach to do so.
A dangerous foe
That said, Rowan’s background in finance highlights why he’s such a dangerous opponent.
He’s a graduate of UPenn’s prestigious Wharton School of Business and his estimated net worth is close to $6 billion.
His Rolodex of rich people is among the best on Wall Street, which means that without him, UPenn will be deprived of a significant funding source.
Don’t believe me? Consider: In 2018, he and his wife donated $50 million to the school.
A press release announcing the gift described Rowan as “chair of Wharton’s Board of Overseers, a Penn trustee, and co-chair of the school’s More than Ever fundraising campaign,” which is looking to raise $1 billion for the business school.
In 2019, the school boasted that the fundraising drive is “80% of the way to its historic target.”
People on Wall Street who know Rowan say his efforts have certainly shaken UPenn’s leadership, with Bok and Magill calling alumni and board members in an effort to keep their jobs.
“Penn will lose hundreds of millions of dollars unless those guys are fired,” one private equity official told me.
This column has addressed the lame response our virtue-signaling CEO class mounted, and why, to the massacre near Gaza. So kudos to Rowan for standing up.
Yet, as much as you want to root for him and the others, you also have to ask what took them so long.
Long before CEOs of major American public companies embraced wokeism at the office, the progressive left thoroughly infiltrated some of our most prestigious universities.
Far-left faculty members have been indoctrinating students on lies that America is systemically racist and Israel is a partner in our alleged attempts to colonize the Arab world.
Free thinkers on campuses are routinely silenced and canceled.
The end result is what we are seeing now: College kids brainwashed into rationalizing and even romanticizing the wanton murder of Jews by terrorists.
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