A Wall Street tycoon Thursday vowed to claw back a $100 million donation to the University of Pennsylvania if the Ivy League school doesn’t boot UPenn President Liz Magill following her disastrous congressional testimony that failed to condemn rampant antisemitism on campus.
Ross Stevens, the boss of Stone Ridge Asset Management, joined a growing chorus of high-powered donors and outraged elected officials – that now include Keystone State Gov. Josh Shapiro – who are calling for Magill’s head.
The hedge fund titan said he has “clear grounds” to rescind his donation and that law firm Davis Polk has sent the school a letter saying as much.
“Absent a change in leadership and values at Penn in the very near future, I plan to rescind Penn’s Stone Ridge shares to prevent any further reputational and other damage to Stone Ridge as a result of our relationship with Penn and Liz Magill,” read the letter, which was obtained by The Post.
“ I love Penn and it is important to me, but our firm’s principles are more important.”
Magill made a groveling apology Wednesday for her refusal to condemn calls for the genocide of the Jewish people on campus in her remarks to Congress.
However, her mea culpa may not be enough.
Early Thursday, the school’s Board of Trustees called an informal meeting over Zoom that sources told The Post was monitored by a representative for Shapiro, who had condemned Magill’s testimony as “shameful.”
“The Congressional testimony changed everything,” a source with knowledge of the Board’s thinking said.
Shapiro’s proxy said the governor is looking for “action on the board’s part.”
At the meeting, a handful of trustees said they want Magill to step down while others voiced their support for her, sources said.
Scott Bok, the chairman of the Board of Trustees, also apparently came under scrutiny with some members encouraging him to resign.
While the board didn’t make any key decisions during the hours-long discussion, a decision was made to call another meeting “very soon,” sources added.
“They seem to be moving fast,” another source said of Board members’ plan to schedule a four- to five-hour meeting in the coming days.
A spokesperson for Penn declined to comment. A spokesperson for Gov. Shapiro did not respond to a request for comment.
The pressure on Magill to get pushed out is also being ratcheted up by the Wharton Board of trustees — a group chaired by Apollo CEO Marc Rowan that includes a veritable who’s who of business leaders.
The group — which includes financier Ronald Perelman, banker Ken Moelis, and billionaire sports team owner Josh Harris – has called for a change in leadership.
Rowan had called for UPenn alums to “close their checkbook” following the rise of antisemitism on the school’s campus.
“As confirmed in your congressional testimony (Tuesday), the leadership of the University does not share the values of our Board,” a letter sent to Magill read.
“Further, as a result of the University leadership’s stated beliefs and collective failure to act, our Board respectfully suggests to you and the Board of Trustees that the University requires new leadership with immediate effect.”
The group called for a number of amendments to the Wharton Code of Conduct that it recommends be adopted by both Wharton and the University of Pennsylvania that includes standards of behaviors including demanding no one use language to incite violence or threaten the safety of other members on campus.
Magill posted a video on the Ivy League’s website Wednesday in which she tried to explain her head-scratching testimony by saying she was not “focused” on the issue, and said that she wanted to “be clear” that calls for genocide were “evil, plain and simple.”
But she also seemingly blamed university policies and even the US Constitution for allowing the calls to be made on campus.
“There was a moment during yesterday’s Congressional hearing on antisemitism when I was asked if a call for the genocide of Jewish people on our campus would violate our policies,” Magill began the two-minute-long video.
“In that moment, I was focused on the university’s long-standing policies — aligned with the US Constitution — which say that speech alone is not punishable.
Shapiro had previously been nudged to consider getting involved, as The Post reported.
According to an esoteric law, if the governor shows up to a meeting of UPenn’s Board of Trustees, he can run the meeting.
David Krone, an Apollo executive who previously served as Chief of Staff to then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, is a close friend of the Pennsylvania governor, sources said. At the time, Shapiro was considering making an appearance at the meeting as a card up his sleeve.
Shapiro called out Magill after her testimony.
“That was an unacceptable statement from the president of Penn,” Shapiro said. ”Frankly, I thought her comments were absolutely shameful. It should not be hard to condemn genocide.”
Chatter of ousting Magill comes just a month after a fizzled effort by a few trustees on UPenn’s board to stage a no-confidence vote to oust UPenn Chair Scott Bok.
But the university said in a statement following the event that Magill received a “standing ovation” from trustees after announcing that there was “overwhelming support for the current chair continuing in his role.”
One source close to the situation called trustees who decided to support Bok “spineless weasels” and “pathetic.”
University leadership came under fire for its failure to condemn the Hamas attacks and its subsequent inability to protect Jewish students on campus.
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