DV Journal

University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill is once again facing criticism for her slow response to antisemitism on campus.

Michael Balaban, president and CEO of the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia, and Jason Holtzman, director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia, sent an open letter to Magill asking her to respond after antisemitic graffiti was found on Oct. 20 at Penn’s Alpha Epsilon Pi (AEPi) chapter house, which is known as a Jewish fraternity.

The graffiti read: “The Jews R Nazis.”

“The University of Pennsylvania’s swift condemnation of this graffiti is needed to show Jewish students that you are committed to ensuring their safety and well-being, especially at a time when it is being threatened nationwide,” the Jewish leaders wrote.

M. Elizabeth “Liz” Magill, president of the University of Pennsylvania.

“While we understand that the University’s Division of Public Safety is still investigating the incident as ’a potential hate crime,’ the wording used is irrefutably antisemitic and therefore deeply painful for Jewish students and their allies to witness.”

“A recent Hillel International survey reported that since the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel, 56 percent of Jewish students feel scared on campus, and 1 in 4 report that there has been an act of antisemitic violence or hate on their campus in the last 10 days,” they added.

There have been pro-Hamas demonstrations, including one where a Jewish student was injured, Holtzman said.

“Faculty at Penn have participated in those rallies and promoted them in their classrooms,” said Holtzman. “And that’s unacceptable behavior, too. And I think President Magill needs to show leadership and make it clear that Penn will not tolerate rallies that promote jihad and where Jewish students get assaulted, and Jewish students are told to go back to Berlin, to go back to Poland…That type of rhetoric is unacceptable for a campus or anywhere in our society.”

And, they noted, “The Secure Community Network (SCN) has reported an alarming uptick in antisemitic incidents concentrated on college campuses since Oct. 7. SCN received 94 antisemitic incident reports on college campuses, representing 15 percent of the total 614 antisemitic incidents logged across the country during the month of October.”

“We appreciate your commitment to better supporting Jewish students on Penn’s campus following the Palestine Writes Festival held on campus in September. However, as the university continues to consider its policies to effectively combat antisemitism on campus, we remind you how critical timeliness and consistency are to setting the precedent that antisemitism and hate have no place at Penn. Penn’s statement on this matter is necessary to ensure that Jewish students understand that they have your protection and support on campus,” the letter said.

As of Monday evening, Magill had yet to respond to the federation. And a Penn spokesperson did not reply to DVJournal.

Holtzman told DVJournal he has heard from Penn, Temple, and Drexel students who are afraid on those campuses.

Students have “expressed the real feeling of being under threat and not feeling safe on campus,” said Holtzman. They “are not comfortable speaking Hebrew on campus. They’re not comfortable wearing a Star of David on campus.”

And other students have also stopped wearing the hijab or veil, he said.

“Penn Hillel is horrified by the recent uptick in antisemitism on campuses – including Penn – and in many spaces around the country and world,” said Rabbi Gabe Greenberg, executive director of Penn Hillel. “We will continue to work closely with university leadership to ensure they understand the severity of this issue and that they act upon it to ensure that Jewish students feel safe and secure on campus. We are also in close contact with the students of AEPi so that we understand their needs and can help amplify their voice to the administration.”

When asked if he thought this would be “the new normal,” Holtzman said he hoped it is not a permanent situation.

“But I think it’s very clear that there’s been a great deal of antisemitism existing in our society, in our city for a long time,” said Holtzman. “And it doesn’t take much for people to show the worst of themselves.”

“The truth is that Israel is responding to a terrorist group that invaded their sovereign borders and massacred people, tortured people, raped and kidnapped people,” Holtzman continued. “And Israel is forced to respond to those actions on behalf of Hamas. We saw within less than 24 hours after the attack occurred on Oct. 7, there were protests and rallies already taking place throughout Philadelphia and on and off campus.

“So we know that the people who hold these deeply problematic and bigoted views are here. And it doesn’t take much for them to act.”

Holtzman added, “We have a lot of work to do in terms of education. Israel is not fighting against the Palestinian people, against the Muslim people. Israel is fighting a war against the radical terrorist groups, and had Hamas not done what they did on Oct. 7, there would be no war.”

In Israel, 300,000 people are now homeless, he added.

The tragic circumstances unfolding in Israel cannot be overstated.

Mankind has a long and often unpleasant history in which the innocent suffer under the tyranny of the worst of humanity – corruption, power, brutality, cruelty, meanness, and more.

A shocking but not unexpected reaction to these events has unfolded on college campuses.

The knee-jerk reaction of 31 Harvard student organizations unquestioningly sided with Hamas, despite evidence of human atrocities. Harvard was not alone. Across the country, students from higher education learning institutions, including Penn, Yale, Stanford, Columbia, City University of New York, Tufts, and Portland State University, to name a few, came out in unquestioned support of Hamas.

That college students would organize a protest to make their voices heard is to be expected. What is shocking is the content of these protests.

USA Today, reporting on these campus developments, stated, “It’s hard to wrap your mind around: The social justice warriors on college campuses around America have come out in support of terrorists who last weekend raped and murdered and beheaded innocent people (including children, women and the elderly) in Israel.” In another post at the University of Washington, students were chanting, “There is only one solution. Intifada Revolution,” perhaps not fully recognizing or understanding the meaning and force of those words as calling for genocide against Jews.

Part of the shock associated with this student response is the apparent inability to think critically about a very complex circumstance with a very long history. In a reductionist approach, there must be an unquestioned binary of “good guys” versus “bad guys.” In tribalist rhetoric, atrocities committed by “our side” must be overlooked.

This binary perspective is in complete conflict with other cultural developments in which these same individuals insist that the issues are complex and nuanced.

For many years, people have been making observations and writing about the liberal indoctrination of college students by socialist progressives infiltrating campuses. Newsweek reported, “Dissent from, or even a lack of enthusiasm for, woke ideology is no longer tolerated on campus.” The Hoover Institution reported, “The politicization of higher education by activist professors and compliant university administrators deprives students of the opportunity to acquire knowledge and refine their minds.”

While the developments on college campuses are concerning, in and of itself, it does not tell the whole story.

How is it that bright-eyed, anxious, and aspiring freshmen arrive on campus so vulnerable to these progressive ideologies? What, if any, preparation in their secondary high school experience prepared them with critical thinking skills to be able to objectively evaluate these global developments?

The circumstantial evidence seems strong. It is unlikely that these students only started their journey – or slide – to an inability to think critically when they arrived on campus. That process began well before socialist, progressive professors began cultivating their liberal ideology. A recent Education Week article titled “Students Are Easily Duped Online. We Can Teach Them Better” touches on this subject.

It is quite possible that these students missed something substantive before they arrived at college – critical thinking skills. Either that or the same inculcation of progressive ideology affecting them once they reached college was initiated before they ever arrived. Canary Mission, a group that tracks “people and groups that promote hatred of the USA, Israel, and Jews” across the political spectrum, reported that “… 38 percent of the kinds of people who once marched around campus chanting about decolonization go on to teaching careers.”

In either case, we have not served these students well.

We have not served them well if their post-secondary college experience narrows their worldview and makes them see atrocities of rape, murder, and beheading of children, women, and the elderly as acceptable under any circumstances. We have not served them well when all they have is a post-modern perspective that there is no absolute truth and that even rape, murder, and beheading have a place in society. We have not served them well if we have not equipped them to help, serve, and love others, even those with whom they do not agree and may even vehemently disagree.

Secondary and post-secondary education has lost its way when it narrows students’ world by teaching them what to think rather than how to think.

Educators should reflect on the role they may have played in bringing students to a place where human atrocities do not evoke horror.

The unsettling response of students from across the country to the unfolding events in the Middle East shows that, for too long, this has been the case. We have not served our students or our country well.

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A 1988 University of Pennsylvania graduate is very unhappy with what is happening on campus. And he’s not alone.

The man, a suburban Philadelphia resident who asked that his name not be used, told DVJournal that despite denials from the university, he believes President Liz Magill will resign soon. And Scott Bok, UPenn’s board chairman, is also likely to leave.

Magill has been under pressure since she greenlighted a Palestinian writers’ festival with notorious antisemites like Roger Waters. Her first statement in response to the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attack on Israel, which appeared to equate those intentionally killed by terrorists with those unintentionally killed in military action targeting Hamas, sparked outrage from prominent Penn graduates.

After complaints from alums and donors, some of whom have said they will no longer monetarily support Penn, Magill issued a second statement clearly condemning Hamas and distancing the school from the Palestine Writes Literature Festival, which was held on campus on the eve of Yom Kippur.

“I stand, and Penn stands, emphatically against antisemitism,” Magill wrote. “We have a moral responsibility — as an academic institution and a campus community — to combat antisemitism and to educate our community to recognize and reject hate.”

It may be too little too late.

Donors such as Marc Rowan, Jon Huntsman, and Ronald Lauder, whose generous gifts have filled the Ivy League school’s coffers, are now threatening to withhold their largess.

At the time, area Jewish groups spoke out about the festival’s known antisemitic speakers and its proximity to where Jewish students would be praying on Yom Kippur.

Magill’s recent statement did nothing to change the views of the DelVal alumnus. He noted that after the first major donor pulled out, others began withdrawing their support.

“The university is going to be so financially impacted by this that they’re not going to be able to have her continue,” he said. Many alumni he is in contact with are fed up.

“Some of these protestors were aggressively chanting things, and I think the Philadelphia police hate crimes unit had to get involved,” he said. “It’s getting pretty serious now. Unless the university takes a stand, I don’t think it will end. And I don’t see how Penn can recover from this.”

He said his father was a student at Penn in the late 1940s after serving in World War II.

“Can you imagine if a group of students were walking down Locust Walk in support of the Germans? Right? That’s the analogy. Like a group of Nazi sympathizers shouting, ‘Death to the Jews,’ because that’s analogous to what you’ve seen over the last two days, and two professors were also participating.”

Rabbi Lance Sussman, rabbi emeritus at Reform Congregation Keneseth Israel in Elkins Park, said political and financial pressure is being brought on universities.

“Universities should be places of open dialogue for all types of ideas coming from every direction. But as with free speech, there is a limit,” Sussman said on the DVJournal podcast. “You can’t yell fire in a crowded movie theater and calls for genocide and mass murder or apologetics for mass murder and butchery do not belong on a university campus. Campuses should be the place where ideas are tested, where there should be many points of view, but within the bandwidth of humanity.”

Penn alumnus and billionaire donor Clifford Asness, the founder of AQR Capital Management, wrote a letter condemning his alma mater.

“What has been going on at Penn is unacceptable. The problems began before the recent horrors. I have long been discouraged at the drift away from true freedom of thought at our best universities, including my beloved alma mater, Penn…Then, a few weeks ago, Penn’s hosting an antisemitic ‘Burning Man Festival’ pushed matters further…Imagine Penn’s actions if that event was against any other group other than Jews. Hiding behind free speech when it is a right only imbued by antisemites and other fellow travelers is not OK… You’re giving direct succor to evil.”

And a Tinder founder who was supposed to speak at Penn next month canceled his speech.

“I was supposed to speak at Penn in late November. I’m canceling. Penn needs to ensure that it is a safe and hospitable place for Jewish students—not an antisemitic cesspool. A change in leadership is necessary at this point,” Elie Seidman posted to X (formerly Twitter).

The University of Pennsylvania is hardly the only school with pro-Palestinian student groups. Locally, La Salle University students and Swarthmore students issued statements blaming Israel for the violence in the wake of the Oct. 7 attack.

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Sunday night, I was sitting in a café watching the Eagles lose to the Jets. Admittedly, I was not in a very good mood to begin with. Alas, a few shots of anisette didn’t lighten my spirits. My lone ray of emotional sunshine was the prospect of a Phillies sweep of the Arizona Diamondbacks in the NLDS.

And then I saw the waiters rushing to the door of the restaurant, and I saw police lights glaring through the windows. When I got up to see what was happening, a phalanx of Philadelphians marched by waving Palestinian flags and signs that supported Gaza.

As I inched closer, I noticed a few anti-Israel signs as well. And as if that weren’t bad enough, there were chants of “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be Free.”

Not one to miss the opportunity to have my opinions heard, I grabbed my cell phone and started recording, expressing my views on people marching in support of terrorists. You might quibble with my characterization of support for “Palestine” (not a historically recognized country) and Hamas, and they are not necessarily equivalent.

But the fact that there were seemingly hundreds of Philadelphians wrapping themselves not in the flag of persecuted Israeli women and children but of the people who attacked them infuriated me. And I said so.

Two men behind me called me the “B” word (and I am not referring to “beautiful”) and laughed at my one-woman counterprotest. They were older men, stout and grizzled, with the colors of Palestine in the scarves wrapped around their necks. I glared back at them and asked how they felt about the murder of babies. They laughed again and walked on with fists raised, screaming, “Palestine will soon be free.”

So, you will excuse me if I don’t celebrate the belated attempts at PR triage being done at some of the elite institutions around the country. When Hamas launched its genocidal attack against Israel last Saturday, several student groups at universities like Harvard and Columbia — and locally, like Swarthmore and LaSalle — issued statements blaming Israel for the shed blood of its own people. Others remained silent.

Most notably, Penn, which has a flourishing Jewish community, didn’t issue any words of condemnation for the Palestinian terrorists.

And people started noticing. Donors like Marc Rowan, a Wharton grad, penned an op-ed exhorting other alums to withhold funding from the school unless and until it condemned Hamas. His request went further. Last month, on the eve of Yom Kippur, Penn hosted the Palestine Writes Literature Festival on its campus. This event included well-known, vocal antisemites as featured speakers. This caused a great deal of anguish for Jewish students at Penn, and Rowan condemned the school for not doing enough to take their feelings into consideration before allowing this sort of event to take place.

A few days later, Jon Huntsman, former governor of Utah, former presidential candidate, former ambassador and 1987 Penn grad, announced that his family’s foundation would no longer contribute to Penn, writing in a letter that it would “close its checkbook” to further donations.

This caused Penn President Liz Magill to issue a statement condemning terrorist acts. It was much too little and far too late. Some of the students whose names were affixed to those condemnations of Israel from Harvard also walked back their support for Palestine, claiming that they hadn’t fully understood what they were signing.

All of this is a sign of cowardice, a form of cowardice that is shameful in the face of the greatest attack on the Jewish people since the Holocaust. There should be no place in our society for those who sit back and wait to see which way the wind is blowing before they condemn the gruesome evil we’ve seen inflicted on the people — the children, the babies — of Israel.

The time for speech and support was in the moments after news emerged of the massacres in Gaza, not a week later when job offers were rescinded and checkbooks began to close. There should never have been a “Hamas is bad, but so is Netanyahu” narrative while children were dying in their cribs. The obscenity of the reaction from some in elite academia is appalling, and Magill’s attempt at triage, most likely to keep her donors happy, is repugnant.

There have been courageous voices, but they are not coming from academia. One of the most courageous was the Vatican’s representative in Jerusalem, Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzabella, who offered himself to Hamas in exchange for the release of Israeli children being held hostage. He did not have to wait to see which way the wind was blowing to find his humanity.

It’s a shame that Liz Magill and her colleagues across the country found safety in silence. Only it wasn’t that safe, after all.

The Palestine Writes Literature Festival—featuring well-known anti-Israeli activists like rocker Roger Waters and cable news personality Marc Lamont Hill — kicked off on Friday at the University of Pennsylvania.

On Thursday, someone vandalized the campus Hillel and yelled antisemitic “obscenities,” according to reports.

In a statement, the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia said it has joined with the Anti-Defamation League’s Philadelphia chapter, which has been “privately urging University of Pennsylvania officials to publicly condemn the Palestine Writes festival since the middle of August.”

According to the Federation, “The conference includes multiple presenters with a history of spreading inflammatory rhetoric and antisemitism that go against the fundamental principles of academic integrity and respectful discourse. The impact of these narratives will create a hostile environment for Jewish students on campus, especially on the eve of the Yom Kippur holiday.”

Despite repeated requests from Jewish organizations and concerned students, however, Penn President Elizabeth Magill has declined to take any action regarding the festival.

As first reported by Jewish Insider, Penn President Elizabeth Magill cited “academic freedom” in her response to the Anti-Defamation League and declined to take any action. She also said the university is taking steps to support the Jewish community and combat antisemitism.

That did not satisfy critics, like a group of attorneys from the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law who wrote to Magill accusing her of a double standard on hate speech.

“It is apparent that the Festival has been ‘hijacked’ by controversial figures who espouse antisemitic rhetoric and call for the destruction of Israel,” they wrote. “Although Penn has faced mounting calls to take action against the antisemitism on full display at the Festival, your administration has refused to [act].”

They contrast that to UPenn’s willingness to “take action against speakers who traffic in hate against other minorities.”

Roger Waters

Among the scheduled participants in the festival are Waters, who has compared Israel to the Third Reich and recently wore a Nazi-style uniform while performing onstage in Berlin; Randa Abdel-Fattah, an Australian writer who recently called Israel “a demonic, sick project,” and  Marc Lamont Hill, a Temple University professor who was fired from CNN in 2018 for calling for a free Palestine “from the river to the sea” — a phrase many view as a call for the destruction of the Jewish state.

Jason Holtzman, director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia, said the atmosphere on campus has inspired at least one act of violence.

“The Palestine Writes Festival has already emboldened antisemitism on Penn’s campus. Yesterday morning, a perpetrator ran into the Penn’s Hillel building, spewing antisemitic tropes and vandalizing the Hillel lobby,” Holtzman said. “The perpetrator has since been arrested. With student safety paramount, we encourage anyone on campus to report any incidents to the University of Pennsylvania police officials.”

ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt tweeted: “Yesterday the State of PA issued a Cease & Desist Letter to the organizers of the #PalestineWrites festival for their unauthorized use of a state logo, falsely claiming sponsorship. No surprise. Thanks to @GovernorShapiro for your swift action and courageous leadership.”

According to a report from Rabbi Gabe Greenberg, executive director of Penn Hillel, “At 6:55 a.m. (Thursday), before the building was formally opened, a member of the Penn Hillel community opened the door to come in for morning prayer services. As the door was opened, an unknown member of the Penn community ran into the building. He stayed for less than a minute, and while he was in the building, he knocked over several pieces of furniture while shouting antisemitic obscenities about Jewish people.

“Our staff chased him out of the building, where he was quickly apprehended by Penn Police. Penn Police had previously noted his presence as he had been knocking over trash cans on Walnut Street and acting erratically before entering our building,” Greenberg said.

No students saw the incident, and no one was hurt.

University spokesman Ron Ozio released a statement saying Penn Police “intercepted the individual at Steinhardt Hall (Hillel), where the individual was making offensive statements and overturning furniture.

“Penn Police determined the individual was experiencing a crisis and safely removed the individual and transported the individual for further evaluation.”

Officials noted another antisemitic incident had also occurred. At the Weitzman School of Design a group of students found a swastika painted on the wall of a painting spray booth. Penn administrators released this statement. 

Greenberg said the incident was not a random attack.

“This person did not accidentally choose to enter our building. He did not accidentally choose to shout antisemitic slogans. He chose our building. He chose to do so just three days before Yom Kippur. He chose to do so one day before a number of speakers are coming to campus who have histories of making antisemitic and hate-filled statements against Jews. This was not a coincidence.”

But Penn Hillel will not stop serving Jewish students.

“This past year, 3,000 undergraduate students stepped through our doors to attend classes, celebrate holidays, eat together, attend one of our many different prayer services, learn about Israel and its people, and experience all the joys of Jewish life that our vibrant campus community has to offer,” he said.

Hillel plans to hold a large Shabbat Together gathering as the three-day Palestine Writes Festival begins.

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Jewish leaders are asking the University of Pennsylvania to distance itself from a campus festival scheduled to overlap with Yom Kippur featuring speakers who espouse anti-Israel and antisemitic rhetoric.

With antisemitic incidents rising and Jewish students reporting bullying and discrimination on college campuses, Jewish students and organizations are raising concerns about the Palestine Writes Literature Festival.

In a statement, the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia said it has joined with the Anti-Defamation League’s Philadelphia chapter in “privately urging University of Pennsylvania officials to publicly condemn the Palestine Writes festival since the middle of August.

“The conference includes multiple presenters with a history of spreading inflammatory rhetoric and antisemitism that go against the fundamental principles of academic integrity and respectful discourse. The impact of these narratives will create a hostile environment for Jewish students on campus, especially on the eve of the Yom Kippur holiday,” it added.

Among the scheduled speakers is Roger Waters of Pink Floyd fame, an outspoken supporter of the “Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions” movement who has compared Israel to the Nazi Germany. Earlier this year, the U.S. State Department said Waters has “a long track record of using antisemitic tropes.” And it said a concert he gave recently in Germany “contained imagery that is deeply offensive to Jewish people and minimized the Holocaust.”

Also among the speakers is Noura Erakat, a Rutgers University professor who called Zionism a “bedfellow” to Nazism.

The news site Jewish Insider, which first reported on the controversy, said the festival would also include Marc Lamont Hill, who was fired from CNN after using the phrase “free Palestine from the river to the sea,” often viewed as a call for the destruction of Israel and the Jews who live there.

A group of Jewish students wrote a letter to Penn administrators about the festival, claiming the “co-sponsorship and partnership by four Penn departments make us, as students who take classes in those departments and are Jewish, feel less welcome, safe, and accepted, given the inclusion of these speakers.”

They added, “This event is at a particularly sensitive time for our community as it takes place right as Yom Kippur, the holiest day in Judaism, begins. On this day, Jewish students will be walking to services in Houston Hall, observing the holiday, and be noticeably Jewish and vulnerable on campus.”

Penn sent DVJournal a statement from President M. Elizabeth Magill, Provost John J. Jackson Jr., and Steven J. Fluharty, dean of the School of Arts and Sciences: “The Palestine Writes Literature Festival, a multi-day event featuring Palestinian writers, filmmakers, and artists, will take place on the University of Pennsylvania’s campus later this month. This public event is not organized by the university. As is routine in universities, individual faculty, departments and centers, and student organizations are engaged as sponsors, speakers, and volunteers at this conference intended to highlight the importance and cultural impact of Palestinian writers and artists.

“While the festival will feature more than 100 speakers, many have raised deep concerns about several speakers who have a documented and troubling history of engaging in antisemitism by speaking and acting in ways that denigrate Jewish people. We unequivocally — and emphatically — condemn antisemitism as antithetical to our institutional values.

“As a university, we also fiercely support the free exchange of ideas as central to our educational mission. This includes the expression of views that are controversial and even those that are incompatible with our institutional values,” he said.

Rav Shai Cherry, the chief rabbi at Congregation Adath Jeshurun in Elkins Park, said Susan Abulhawa, the executive director of Palestine Writes Literature Festival, “is using the old playbook. She does her cause no service by promoting speakers who seek the elimination of the one Jewish state in the world.”

“The Palestinians need to trade in their old playbook and stop condemning their own people to a life filled with indignities. Palestinians deserve better leadership. Alas, they are not getting it from those who seek to deny Jewish Israelis of what they seek for themselves—dignity, security, and peace,” Cherry said.

Rabbi Lance Sussman, author of the new book, “Portrait of an American Rabbi,” called it “a classic scenario where an outside group uses a university as a venue to give itself legitimacy and then have the university provide a defense in the name of freedom of inquiry.”

“However, a truly literary festival does belong on campus. I think Penn erred by scheduling the event on Yom Kippur and having the festival so physically close to Jewish worship services. Jewish pro-Israel students are thereby effectively blocked from protesting because of the holiday. It’s hard to reconcile the school’s claim of nobility of purpose with its (hopefully) logistical naivete.”

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Thank goodness for Harvard, the only school in the country with a worse record on free speech than the University of Pennsylvania.

Of the 248 colleges and universities evaluated by the free speech organization FIRE (the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression), the Quakers ranked 247, kept out of the bottom slot solely by the Harvard Crimson.

According to FIRE’s Director of Polling and Analytics, Sean Stevens, the “very poor” ranking for the Ivy League school is a trend. The elite colleges in the Ivy League were all at the lower end of the rankings.

“The Ivies are interesting. Brown has the highest rank at 70. Quite a few do pretty poorly,” Stevens said.

While progressive institutions like UPenn pride themselves on “diversity, equity, and inclusion,” the FIRE review found their actions didn’t match their words. As part of FIRE’s review, students were surveyed about free speech on campus and in the classrooms. 

Most UPenn students claimed they would be very tolerant of liberal speakers invited to the school, ranking 32 on the matrices. When it came to tolerating conservative speakers, though, UPenn students ranked 220. This is a school with almost eight liberal students for every one conservative student.

“There’s a strong bias in favor of the liberal speakers,” Stevens said.

Not only are non-liberal speakers unwelcome on campus, but many students say they believe it is okay to disrupt conservative speakers by shouting them down, protesting, or even the use of violence. According to FIRE’s data, only 23 percent of UPenn students thought it was unacceptable to shout down speakers. 

That is not a bug, it is a feature in the eyes of campus progressives, Stevens said.

“As you get more and more liberal on the spectrum, they are more likely to say those things are… acceptable,” Stevens said. 

Drexel University ranked 91 out of 248, earning a Gentleman’s C compared to UPenn’s F. Still, only 32 percent of Drexel’s students said disrupting a speaker is always unacceptable. 

Many UPenn students told FIRE they were uncomfortable voicing their opinions on campus and in class, and at least one student said antisemitism is a problem at the school.

“Antisemitism is not considered a valid issue,” the student wrote anonymously.

Another wrote, “In my writing seminar, I disagreed with the notion that private property is a burden on humanity that makes people slaves to capitalism.”

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Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon (D-Delaware/Philadelphia) used her position on a key House committee to promote so-called “gender-affirming care” for minors, dismissing testimony from opponents as “far-right ideology.”

Scanlon’s passionate defense came during a recent meeting of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government featuring testimony from de-transitioner Chloe Cole, who calls herself a “victim of ‘gender-affirming care” (GAC). Swimmer Paula Scanlan, a University of Pennsylvania women’s swimming team member who was forced to compete with biological male Lia Thomas, also spoke about her experience.

Scanlon rejected any criticism of GAC.

“Make no mistake, today’s hearing is not about protecting children’s or parents’ rights. It is a cynical and dangerous political attack on transgender children and their families. It is not driven by science or facts, but by polling and political strategists determined to mobilize conservative voters through fear,” Scanlon said in her opening statement.

GAC doesn’t have a uniform medical definition and can be used to describe treatments ranging from social affirmation to hormone administration/puberty blocking to mutilating surgeries such as mastectomies for teenagers.

The New York Times reported, “The treatments are relatively new, and few studies have tracked their long-term effects.” The available data have raised so many questions about the treatment that the American Academy of Pediatrics has “commissioned a fresh look at the evidence,” according to the Times.

Cole, who spoke at a No Left Turn in Education event in Huntingdon Valley in March, told her story to the committee on her 19th birthday.

Cole said she began experiencing gender dysphoria when she was 12, and her parents took her to doctors who advised hormones and puberty blockers. The medical professionals convinced her parents by asking them, “Would you rather have a dead daughter or a trans son?” Cole said.

“We became victims of gender-affirming care,” said Cole, whose breasts were removed at 15. By 16, she realized she had made a horrible mistake and wanted to be female. The medical professionals, who she is now suing, preyed on “an insecure teenage girl,” said Cole. She had thoughts of suicide after her surgery, not before.

“We need to stop telling 12-year-olds they were born in the wrong body,” said Cole. And “gender-affirming care” is a medical scandal.

Swimmer Paula Scanlan said that as a victim of sexual assault, having a “6-foot-4-inch tall biological male, fully intact with male genitalia” in the women’s locker room was extremely disturbing. University officials refused to listen to the women swimmers’ complaints and offered them “counseling” instead. The university said, “We, the women were the problem, not the victims. We were expected to conform, to move over and shut up.”

She expressed her concerns in an op-ed in The Daily Pennsylvanian, only to have it removed hours later, a violation of her First Amendment rights, she said.

Scanlan also noted that men are biologically stronger and are taking wins from women athletes.

“This is real,” said Scanlan. “I know women who lost roster spots and spots on the podium.”

“The University of Pennsylvania nominated (transgender swimmer) Lia Thomas as NCAA Woman of the Year. I find that very offensive,” she added.

Jennifer Baulwens, Ph.D. director of the Center for Family Studies with Family Research Council, told the committee several other countries, including the United Kingdom, France, Norway, Finland, and Sweden, no longer allow surgeries and therapies to change children’s gender. She said 85 percent of cases of sexual dysphoria resolve by themselves if “left alone.” And 45 percent of those claiming to be transgender had previously experienced sexual abuse. As for the “suicidal claim,” it is “not supported by the literature.” Instead, a 10-year Swedish study showed a  suicide rate 19 times higher than the general population after transition and that people may not regret it for five or more years.

In her opening statement, Scanlon said that “parents have the ultimate right” over their children’s healthcare.

Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Calif.) suggested they write a bipartisan bill affirming that children cannot undergo transgender medical care without the “informed consent” of their parents. He noted that some states, including California and Washington, now disregard parents’ opposition to that care and step in to have minors undergo it without parental permission.

But Scanlon backed off.

“I think you’re mischaracterizing the complete agreement,” she said.

McClintock said, “I thought we had arrived at that agreement until it comes down to doing it. Then you seem to have a change of heart.”

A parent of a transgender teenager and an LGBTQ-plus advocate testified that “gender-affirming” is necessary and is the medical standard in the U.S. Opposition witnesses swayed neither Democrat nor Republican committee members.

Rep. Wesley Hunt (R-Texas), the father of two daughters, talked about substituting children’s judgment for parents, using a food pyramid with only ice cream as a food choice.

“This is ridiculous. I don’t care what party you’re a part of. If you think we’re all equally the same biologically, you literally lost your mind.

“And when my two daughters work hard in a sport, work hard in their craft to be the best that they can be amongst other women, they will compete against other women. I owe Victoria and Olivia and every other young lady in this country that.”

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The University of Pennsylvania is America’s oldest university. It was founded by Benjamin Franklin in 1740.

But Franklin, an outspoken writer, printer, and one of the men who fomented the American Revolution, might have been disappointed to learn Penn is in the bottom five universities in the country for free speech. In fact, it came in second to last, ahead of its fellow Ivy League competitor Columbia.

The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), in partnership with College Pulse, released its third annual College Free Speech Rankings on Wednesday. Ranking the speech climates of 203 of America’s largest and most prestigious campuses, FIRE gave the University of Chicago top marks for the best campus climate for free speech.

“That so many students are self-silencing and silencing each other is an indictment of campus culture,” said FIRE Senior Research Fellow Sean Stevens. “How can students develop their distinct voices and ideas in college if they’re too afraid to engage with each other?”

A spokesman for Penn did not respond to a request for comment.

It was the largest survey on students’ free expression, with 45,000 students included, according to FIRE. It found many students are afraid to speak out on their campuses while others want to cancel the voices of those who do not share their points of view.

The top colleges for free speech behind the University of Chicago were Kansas State, Purdue, Mississippi State University, and Oklahoma State University. With Columbia and Penn at the bottom of the survey were Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Georgetown University, and Skidmore College.

Dr. Mehmet Oz, the Republican running for the U.S. Senate, holds degrees from Penn’s medical school and its business school, Wharton.

“Students and speakers at colleges and universities, like the University of Pennsylvania, deserve to have a platform to speak freely and have open and honest conversations. As Pennsylvania’s next senator, Dr. Oz will push back on cancel culture by protecting the First Amendment and defend individuals’ freedom to say what they see,” said Brittany Yanick, communications director for the Oz campaign.

A graduate of the Penn School of Veterinary Medicine said he was surprised by the results of the survey. He also asked DVJournal not to use his name for fear of repercussions.

Several other Penn alumni contacted by DVJ declined to comment.

Stevens told DVJournal that cancel culture and social media play a role in creating an anti-free-speech environment on campus. But students also fear what professors might think of them or that they might receive lower grades if their views do not jibe with a professor’s. Some 40 percent of students are uncomfortable disagreeing with a professor—in public or a written assignment, the survey found.

The FIRE survey began in 2020 with 55 colleges and universities. This year it surveyed 203 campuses in 49 states, with only North Dakota not included.

Stevens said the group hopes to continue each year and increase the data available to researchers.

Students were asked how comfortable they felt talking about their opinions, he said. And even some students at the more liberal end of the spectrum, who comprised the majority of those surveyed, were fearful.

While the goal is to let prospective students and parents take this indicator into account when selecting a college, FIRE also hopes to make university administrators more aware of this issue, Stevens said.

Some administrators contacted FIRE after previous reports to see what they could do to improve their scores, he said.

While the rankings rely heavily on student responses, each school’s speech code rating also factored into the scoring. Most schools without any policies that imperil free speech rose in the rankings, while those with restrictive speech codes fell, according to FIRE.

This year, FIRE also took into account which schools sanctioned faculty for their speech or disinvited guest speakers based on viewpoint since 2019, giving the institutions that did lower marks.

Self-censorship is pervasive across top-ranked and bottom-ranked schools alike; 63 percent of respondents worried about damaging their reputation because someone misunderstood something they said or did. Disturbingly, an equal percentage said that students shouting down a speaker to prevent them from speaking on campus was acceptable to some degree.

Other findings from the report include: Conservative students are most likely to feel they cannot express their opinions freely, with 42 percent reporting that they “often” feel uncomfortable speaking freely, compared to 13 percent of liberal students. Some 40 percent of students are uncomfortable disagreeing with a professor — in public or in a written assignment. And the three most difficult topics to discuss on campus are abortion, racial inequality, and COVID-19 vaccine mandates.

FIRE is a nonprofit organization based in Philadelphia that is dedicated to defending and sustaining the individual rights of all Americans to free speech and free thought.

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Sports have always been a big part of my life. In the first grade, I started playing basketball in a South Philly CYO league and played in very competitive leagues well into my 40s. Sports appealed to me because of the competition, the thrill of winning, and learning how to deal with defeat.

The playing of sports was only surpassed, eventually, by the fun and thrill of coaching my sons in various sports. I also enjoyed seeing my five sisters play in CYO leagues and eventually at the high school and college levels. When they started, society was just beginning to realize the value of women’s sports in developing young women as teammates and leaders.

Therefore, when I see the controversy over transgender Penn swimmer Lia Thomas shattering women’s swimming records, I ask, isn’t anybody in authority going to step in and restore opportunity for women to compete fairly in their sport?

On my radio show last week, I asked that question of Nancy Hogshead-Makar, a three-time gold medalist and four-time medalist in swimming at the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles and now a civil rights attorney who is advising 16 Penn women’s team swimmers who recently drafted a letter that said they didn’t believe Thomas should be allowed to compete.

Hogshead-Makar told me women who objected to Thomas were told, “If they speak out, they will never get a job again.” In other words, their desire to have an even playing field would be seen as discriminatory and they would carry that stigma for a long time. Hogshead-Makar likened the situation American swimmers faced during her career when they faced East German women swimmers who were doping. She recalled that they were coached to be gracious losers.

Whether or not her comparison is completely correct, she is right that the other Penn swimmers can’t compete with Thomas.

She went on to clearly detail Thomas’ advantages. First, she pointed out that the average qualifying differential for NCAA swimming events is 11.4 percent faster for men. To put this in perspective, legendary swimmer Michael Phelps held just a .08 percent of an advantage over his U.S. teammates in the 100-meter butterfly in the 2004 Olympics. However, she points out, Phelps held a 12.62 percent advantage over the women’s gold medalist, Australian Petria Thomas.

Throughout my talk with Hogshead-Makar she repeated that she is not in any way anti- transgendered people. However, she thought the situation involving Thomas would only breed resentment. She wants sports to make space for transgendered athletes but not at the expense of opportunities for women.

The most compelling part of my interview with Hogshead-Makar was our discussion of what could be done to aid the Penn swimmers. We know that if they speak out publicly, they will be stigmatized now, and they will have difficulty with being hired in many situations in the future. She proposed a solution. She told me she is on a public and private campaign to get swimming icons, sports icons, and others to stand up for women in sports and particularly the Penn swimmers who object to Lia Thomas.

That would seem to be an easy thing to do, but I believe it will also take a lot of courage. Twitter and the rest of social media will not be kind to those who speak up for the women. I hope they also remind the University of Pennsylvania that they are not fulfilling their duty to protect female athletes and they shouldn’t posture that they are a place that truly wants to advance women.

Women athletes have come a long way, but this university is not continuing their progress.

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