UPenn President’s Departure Highlights Higher Ed Hypocrisy

Harrisburg, PA- The Pennsylvania Freedom Caucus released a statement today regarding the stepping down of University of Pennsylvania President, Liz Magill, following a disastrous testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives. Now, more than 70 members of Congress are demanding the top schools in the country review and update their school policies to ensure they protect Jewish students.

PA Freedom Caucus Member Rep Joe D’Orsie (R-York), who sits on the House Education Committee, says this fight had been a long time coming. In March of this year D’Orsie submitted legislation seeking to ban the free speech bias seen on Pennsylvania’s public campuses, even specifically warning of the troubling rise in on-campus antisemitism back in October.

“Our colleges have a longstanding heritage of stifling conservative speech and, in fact, exist today largely as a liberal vacuum. I’d argue this fact has directly led to the kind of antisemitism we’re seeing on campuses like Penn,” stated D’Orsie. “But the real story is in the blatant hypocrisy of school leaders. Conservative speakers are cancelled, yet students advocating for the liquidation of Jews are given generous latitude, and in some cases encouragement from bigoted faculty.” D’Orsie continued.

Although private, as a research institution Penn receives around $800 million from the state and federal government. PA Freedom Caucus Member Rep Aaron Bernstine (R-Butler, Lawrence) believes these institutions should be held to the same standards the Commonwealth was founded on. “For far too long these universities, who receive taxpayer money, have condoned, and even encouraged antisemitism and called it ‘free speech.’ If you condone harassment of individuals on your campus due to their religious beliefs, you should not receive one penny of taxpayer funding.”