BREAKING NEWS: UPenn Board of Trustees hold ’emergency meeting’ as president Elizabeth Magill faces calls to resign from donors and students after ‘unacceptable’ statements at congressional hearing

The University of Pennsylvania’s board of trustees is holding an “emergency meeting” as President Elizabeth Magill faces calls to resign from donors and students following her “unacceptable” statements at a congressional hearing.

The hastily organized board meeting began at 9 a.m. and is being held virtually, following a deafening outpouring of calls for the Ivy League college president to be fired.

It’s the latest sign of growing and intense pressure on Penn to oust its president, who has told Congress that reprimanding students who call for Jewish genocide is not paramount – instead, it depends on “context.”

Magill, a lawyer by profession, grinned and grinned as she publicly refused to classify calls for the genocide of Jews as harassment or a violation of the school’s code of conduct.

UPenn President Liz Magill said the school has demonstrated its “steadfast commitment to combating anti-Semitism” but also refused to classify calls for Jewish genocide as harassment or a violation of the school’s code of conduct. She grinned while speaking before Congress

A petition By Thursday morning, the number of signatures calling for Magill’s resignation had grown to more than 10,300 signatures.

Organizers said her failure to condemn anti-Semitic acts “actually reinforced their message by creating an environment in which university leadership feels tolerated, if not condoned.”

Students, faculty and donors expressed their disdain for the president, whose words and actions demonstrated her little desire to stop rampant anti-Semitism on the University of Pennsylvania campus.

In a sensational attempt to retract her appalling behavior before Congress, Magill released a humiliating video statement on Wednesday.

But this didn’t help her much. She tried to explain her argument that the discipline of anti-Semitism depends on the context.

In the video, she said she was not “focused” on the issue and said she wanted to “make it clear” that calls for genocide were “evil, plain and simple,” although she said the blame lay with her university’s policies and constitution. and not with her.