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Disgraced Former University of Pennsylvania President Lands Gig at Harvard After Campus Antisemitism Uproar
University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill testifies before a House Education and Workforce Committee hearing titled “Holding Campus Leaders Accountable and Confronting Antisemitism” on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, Dec. 5, 2023. Photo: Reuters
Harvard University has hired disgraced former University of Pennsylvania (Penn) president Elizabeth Magill as a visiting fellow at its law school, a move that may be perceived as rewarding her alleged failure to manage the antisemitism crisis which crumbled her administration.
The news, first reported by The Daily Pennsylvanian, marks a change of fortune to an administrator whose career in higher education seemed all but over just nine months ago, when she was pushed out of office amid numerous antisemitism scandals and an exodus of some of Penn’s most generous donors. Magill has also signed a three-year contract with the London School of Economics to teach as a visiting professor, the paper added, commenting that her “life after Penn shapes up.”
As previously reported, Magill had several opportunities throughout her tenure at Penn to denounce hateful, even conspiratorial, rhetoric directed at both Israel and the Jewish community. However, Magill repeatedly declined to respond to the mounting incidents of antisemitism, especially anti-Zionism, on campus, according to an analysis by The Algemeiner of public statements she had issued since July 2022, when she assumed the presidency at Penn.
Only once did she comment on issues of race and identity, addressing in June the US Supreme Court’s restricting of race-conscious admissions programs through affirmative action. Up to that point, her public statements were limited to discussing climate change and marginal university business despite an anti-Zionist group, Penn Students Against the Occupation (PAO), regularly distributing literature blaming Jews for the world’s social problems and inviting to campus a speaker, Mohammed El-Kurd, who accused Israel of harvesting Palestinians’ organs.
Even the school’s hosting known antisemites at the “Palestine Writes Literature Festival,” which took place on campus from Sept. 22-24, did not immediately move her to address antisemitism. When she did, she defended the event — whose itinerary listed speakers such as Palestinian researcher Salman Abu Sitta, who previously said during an interview that “Jews were hated in Europe because they played a role in the destruction of the economy in some of the countries, so they would hate them” — as an expression of free speech rather than cancel it and protect the university from extremists whose intellectual credentials were suspect and whose utterances violated principles of “diversity and inclusion” the school purported to uphold.
“We unequivocally — and emphatically — condemn antisemitism as antithetical to our institutional values,” Magill said at the time in a statement cosigned by two other high-level school officials. “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.”
By the time Magill was summoned to testify before the US House Committee on Education and the Workforce last December, anti-Israel protests at the university, precipitated by the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war, had descended into demagoguery and intimidation of Jewish students. At one point, during a protest outside the Van Pelt Dietrich Library, a high school senior — referred to as “MJ,” who attends the Specialized Science Academy in Philadelphia — screamed: “The Israeli Jew has bastardized Judaism! Bastardized it! Trampled on it! How could you let this genocidal regime crap all over your God and your religion like this?”
However, it was her telling the education committee that she would not necessarily punish a student who calls for a genocide of Jews which tolled the death knell of her presidency.
“It is a context-dependent decision,” she said, responding to a question posed by US Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY). “If the speech becomes conduct, it can be harassment, yes.”
“Conduct meaning committing the act of genocide?” Stefanik asked, visibly disturbed by Magill’s answer. “The speech is not harassment? This is unacceptable, Ms. Magill.”
The following day, Magill apologized. Three days later, she resigned.
“It has been my privilege to serve as president of this remarkable institution,” she said in her final statement to the Penn community. “It has been an honor to work with our faculty, students, staff, alumni, and community members to advance Penn’s vital missions.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Disgraced Former University of Pennsylvania President Lands Gig at Harvard After Campus Antisemitism Uproar first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Iran’s Top Diplomat Meets With Russian Officials, Supreme Leader Sends Letter to Putin Ahead of Talks With US
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei speaks during a meeting in Tehran, Iran, March 21, 2025. Photo: Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS
Iran’s so-called “supreme leader,” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, sent a letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday, briefing Moscow on the ongoing nuclear negotiations between Tehran and the United States.
Khamenei also sent his top diplomat, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, to Moscow, where on Thursday he met with Putin and his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, to deliver Khamenei’s letter. During their meetings, they discussed Iran’s nuclear program, last week’s US-Iran negotiations in Oman, and efforts to expand bilateral cooperation and address regional developments.
Thursday’s high-level meeting came just days before a second round of talks between Tehran and Washington, scheduled to take place in Rome this weekend.
Since taking office in January, US President Donald Trump has reinstated his “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran aimed at cutting the country’s crude exports to zero and preventing it from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
However, Tehran has refused to halt its uranium enrichment program, insisting that the country’s right to enrich uranium is non-negotiable.
Last month, Trump threatened to bomb Iran and impose secondary tariffs if the country does not reach an agreement with Washington to curb its nuclear program.
Russia has said that any military strike against Iran would be “illegal and unacceptable.” As an increasingly close ally of Tehran, Moscow plays a crucial role in Iran’s nuclear negotiations with the West, leveraging its position as a veto-wielding member of the UN Security Council and a signatory to a now-defunct 2015 nuclear deal that imposed limits on the Iranian nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Russia will continue to assist in resolving the conflict between the two adversaries.
“The Russian Federation remains ready to do everything within our capabilities to contribute to the settlement of the situation by political and diplomatic means,” Peskov said in a statement.
During his first term, Trump withdrew the US from the 2015 nuclear deal — known formally as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) — between Iran and several world powers, which had imposed temporary limits on Tehran’s nuclear activities in exchange for lifting harsh, long-standing economic penalties on the Islamist regime in Tehran.
“Regarding the nuclear issue, we always had close consultations with our friends China and Russia. Now it is a good opportunity to do so with Russian officials,” Araghchi told Iranian state media before his meeting in Moscow.
On Tuesday, US special envoy Steve Witkoff said that any deal with Iran must require the complete dismantling of its “nuclear enrichment and weaponization program — reversing his earlier comments, in which he indicated that the White House would allow Iran to enrich uranium to a 3.67 percent threshold for a “civil nuclear program.”
Although Iran has denied wanting to develop a nuclear weapon, the UN’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), has raised concerns over Tehran’s rapid acceleration of uranium enrichment.
The IAEA warned that Iran is enriching uranium up to 60 percent purity, close to the roughly 90 percent weapons-grade level and enough to build six nuclear bombs.
Despite Tehran’s claims that its nuclear program is solely for civilian purposes rather than weapon development, Western states have said there is no “credible civilian justification” for the country’s recent nuclear activity, arguing it “gives Iran the capability to rapidly produce sufficient fissile material for multiple nuclear weapons.”
Russia’s diplomatic role in the US-Iran nuclear talks could be crucial, as Moscow has recently solidified its growing partnership with the Iranian regime.
On Wednesday, Russia’s upper house of parliament ratified a 20-year strategic partnership agreement with Iran, strengthening military ties between the two countries.
Signed by Putin and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian in January, the Strategic Cooperation Treaty will boost collaboration between the two countries in areas such as security services, military drills, warship port visits, and joint officer training.
Iran’s Ambassador to Russia, Kazem Jalali, said this agreement “stands as one of the most significant achievements in Tehran-Moscow relations.”
“One of the most important commonalities between the two countries is the deep wounds inflicted by the West’s unrestrained unilateralism, which underscores the necessity for broader cooperation in the future,” Jalali told Iranian state media this week.
Under the agreement, neither country will permit its territory to be used for actions that pose a threat to the other, nor will they provide assistance to any aggressor targeting either nation. However, this pact does not include a mutual defense clause of the kind included in a treaty between Russia and North Korea.
The agreement also includes cooperation in arms control, counterterrorism, peaceful nuclear energy, and security coordination at both regional and global levels.
Iran’s growing ties with Moscow come at a time when Tehran is facing increasing sanctions by the US, particularly on its oil industry.
Last year, Iran obtained observer membership in the Eurasian Economic Union. The free trade agreement between Tehran and the union’s member states, set to take effect next month, will eliminate customs tariffs on over 80 percent of traded goods between Iran and Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan.
The post Iran’s Top Diplomat Meets With Russian Officials, Supreme Leader Sends Letter to Putin Ahead of Talks With US first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Hamas Rejects Israeli Interim Truce Offer, Says Will Only Release Remaining Hostages for End to Gaza War
Protesters, mainly Houthi supporters, stand near a screen displaying senior Hamas official Khalil al-Hayya during a rally to show support to Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, in Sanaa, Yemen, Oct. 18, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah
Hamas wants a comprehensive deal to end the war in Gaza and swap all Israeli hostages for Palestinians jailed in Israel, a senior official from the Palestinian terrorist group said, rejecting Israel‘s offer of an interim truce.
In a televised speech, Khalil Al-Hayya, the group’s Gaza chief who leads its negotiating team, said the Iran-backed Islamist group would no longer agree to interim deals, adopting a position that Israel is unlikely to accept and potentially further delaying an end to the conflict.
Instead, Hayya said Hamas was ready to immediately engage in “comprehensive package negotiations” to release all remaining hostages in its custody in return for an end to the Gaza war, the release of Palestinians jailed by Israel, and the reconstruction of Gaza.
“Netanyahu and his government use partial agreements as a cover for their political agenda, which is based on continuing the war of extermination and starvation, even if the price is sacrificing all his prisoners [hostages],” said Hayya, referring to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“We will not be part of passing this policy.”
Egyptian mediators have been working to revive the January ceasefire agreement that halted fighting in Gaza before it broke down last month, but there has been little sign of progress with both Israel and Hamas blaming each other.
“Hamas’s comments demonstrate they are not interested in peace but perpetual violence. The terms made by the Trump administration have not changed: release the hostages or face hell,” said US National Security Council spokesperson James Hewitt.
The latest round of talks on Monday in Cairo to restore the ceasefire and free Israeli hostages ended with no apparent breakthrough, Palestinian and Egyptian sources said.
Israel had proposed a 45-day truce in Gaza to allow hostage releases and potentially begin indirect talks to end the war. Hamas has already rejected one of its conditions – that it lay down its arms. In his speech, Hayya accused Israel of offering a counterproposal with “impossible conditions.”
Hamas released 38 hostages under a ceasefire that began on Jan. 19. In March, Israel‘s military resumed its ground and aerial offensive in Gaza, after Hamas rejected proposals to extend the truce without ending the war.
Israeli officials say that the offensive will continue until the remaining 59 hostages are freed and Gaza is demilitarized. Hamas insists it will free hostages only as part of a deal to end the war and has rejected demands to lay down its arms.
The war was triggered by Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel, in which 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage to Gaza.
The post Hamas Rejects Israeli Interim Truce Offer, Says Will Only Release Remaining Hostages for End to Gaza War first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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US Says Chinese Satellite Firm Supporting Houthi Attacks on American Interests
A Houthi fighter mans a machine gun mounted on a truck during a parade for people who attended Houthi military training as part of a mobilization campaign, in Sanaa, Yemen, Dec. 18, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah
The US State Department on Thursday accused a Chinese firm, Chang Guang Satellite Technology, of directly supporting attacks on US interests by Iran-backed Houthi fighters and called this “unacceptable.”
Earlier, the Financial Times cited US officials as saying that the satellite company, linked to China’s military, was supplying Houthi rebels with imagery to target US warships and international vessels in the Red Sea.
“We can confirm the reporting that Chang Guang Satellite Technology Company Limited is directly supporting Iran-backed Houthi terrorist attacks on US interests,” State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce told a regular news briefing.
“China consistently attempts … to frame itself as a global peacemaker … however, it is clear that Beijing and China-based companies provide key economic and technical support to regimes like Russia, North Korea and Iran and its proxies,” she said.
Bruce said the assistance by the firm to the Houthis, a US-designated terrorist group, had continued even though the United States had engaged with Beijing on the issue.
“The fact that they continue to do this is unacceptable,” she said.
The spokesperson for China’s Washington embassy, Liu Pengyu, said he was not familiar with the situation, so had no comment. The firm did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
China is Washington’s main strategic rival, and the latest charge comes as the two economic and military superpowers are in a major standoff over trade in which US President Donald Trump has dramatically ramped up tariffs on Chinese goods.
The post US Says Chinese Satellite Firm Supporting Houthi Attacks on American Interests first appeared on Algemeiner.com.