SWC Calls For Harvard, MIT Presidents to Step Down

December 10, 2023

The Simon Wiesenthal Center reiterates its call for the presidents of MIT and Harvard to step down following their failure to protect Jewish students on their respective university campuses.

This follows the resignation of University of Pennsylvania’s President Liz Magill after testifying at a House hearing over whether calls for the genocide of Jews would violate university policies. The Simon Wiesenthal Center had been calling for Magill to resign since October.

“These university presidents have failed to protect and treat their Jewish students equally,” said Rabbi Abraham Cooper, Simon Wiesenthal Center Associate Dean and Director of Global Social Action. “They have left open speech calling for the genocide of the Jewish nation,” he added. 

On October 20, 2023, the Center urged the University of Pennsylvania to immediately replace President Liz Magill for her continuing failure to deal with a hostile environment on campus that threatens Jewish students and the broader Jewish community.

Just last week, the Center commented on X, “Welcome to the thoroughly corrupt world of chiefs of elite institutions - @Penn - who are facilitating the purging of a Jewish presence on campuses as they continue to hide the level of funding from #Qatar and other foreign donors.”

For further information contact the Center’s Communications department at pressinquiries@wiesenthal.com, join the Center on Facebook, or follow @simonwiesenthal for news updates sent directly to your Twitter feed.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center is one of the largest international Jewish human rights organizations in the United States. It is an NGO at international agencies including the United Nations, UNESCO, the OSCE, the OAS, the Council of Europe and the Latin American Parliament (Parlatino).