#Scott Magill

[ivan-fyodorovich-k]

Maresuke Nogi was always his own toughest critic. Emperor Meiji trusted him and appointed him to high military posts in Japan: general in the imperial army, governor-general of Taiwan. But we all make mistakes, and Nogi’s lapses gnawed at him. Twice he requested the emperor’s leave to commit ritual suicide. Each time, the emperor refused. In Nogi’s home, now a quiet shrine in a Tokyo meadow, you can see pictures of Nogi reading the newspaper on September 13, 1912, the morning of his boss’s funeral. No one was left to stop him. Near the photo you can see the sword he used later that day to disembowel himself.

I raise the example of General Nogi to encourage present-day leaders (military, political, educational) to take a much more modest step. They should offer to resign—often, and both in times of trouble and in times of calm. This weekend, the president of the University of Pennsylvania, Liz Magill, did the honorable thing, and the chair of Penn’s board, Scott Bok, followed his kōhai’s example shortly after. Magill resigned because she, along with Harvard President Claudine Gay and MIT President Sally Kornbluth, performed abysmally under questioning in Congress. Their inquisitor, upstate New York’s Elise Stefanik, a Republican, asked them whether chanting genocidal slogans violated their universities’ policies. It depends on the context, they all said, on the advice of counsel and the worst PR teams money can buy. Within days, Magill and Gay conceded that their answers had not been ideal. Gay is facing calls for her resignation, too.

Resign. Resign. Everyone: resign. Resignation has come to mean failure, something one does when cornered, caught dead to rights, incapable of continuing for even another day. It should be an act of honor—a high point in a career of service. It isn’t shameful. It is noble. It is the first and sometimes only step in the expiation of shame, and (ironically) the ultimate sign of one’s fitness for office.

No one demonstrates the value of these traits better than those who lack them entirely. I thought of Nogi’s katana, flashing from its scabbard, last week when the House voted to expel George Santos, Stefanik’s colleague in New York’s Republican delegation. The House almost never kicks anyone out, mainly because those facing expulsion have in the past tended to resign rather than weather the indignity of an expulsion vote. Santos is taking his ouster well and posting prolifically on TikTok. A psychologically normal person would have resigned the instant his tower of lies showed signs of wobbling. To let it crash down, then dance around the rubble of that tower until the orderlies arrive and pull you away, is truly mad behavior, and a demonstration of unfitness for the job, or indeed any job other than TikTok star.

I cannot prove this, but I believe the tendency to stick it out rather than resign started roughly when Representative Anthony Weiner (New York again, this time a Democrat) called a press conference to discuss whether he had, in fact, tweeted a picture of his penis, tumescent in his underwear. He could have just quit, and eventually he did (but lived to humiliate himself another day). But that pause to hold a press conference broke the seal on something dangerous, the idea that one can talk one’s way through a mortification. To take the podium and subject oneself to hostile questioning under those circumstances bespoke a delusionary chutzpah.

It soon became clear that anyone socially defective enough to persist through a scandal has a good chance of surviving it. By the time then-candidate Donald Trump (Republican, guess where) appeared on the Access Hollywood tape, describing his hobby of sexually assaulting women, it ceased to be obvious that at some point one should tap out and go home. If you have no shame, and you refuse to go, there might not be anyone out there who can make you. Mechanisms exist, as the Santos case shows. But the mechanisms were devised to govern people from another time, sensitive to ridicule and guffaws.

One should be ready for criticism, both earned and unearned. But resignation—more precisely, the offer of resignation—is an expression of confidence, both in oneself and in one’s employers or constituents. A board can reject a resignation. Voters can turn out in the streets to beg you to reconsider, or can turn out at the ballot to vote you back in. In fact, the more defensible one’s position, the greater esteem we should show for the one who offers to leave it. Call this the Nogi rule.

Harvard’s Claudine Gay evidently believed that she’d erred, because she reverted immediately to damage-control mode after leaving Washington. The next day, she told the Crimson that her testimony did not represent “my truth”—that is, that she disapproves of genocidal anti-Semitism. (This is an extreme example of the political axiom “If you’re explaining, you’re losing.”) Her original answer before Congress lacked any visceral disapproval of anti-Semitism, certainly none to match Harvard’s recent record of condemning speech deemed offensive to historically disadvantaged groups. Her affect was robotic, neutral. She showed no signs of concern at all.

But her neutrality was born of an honorable principle, well worth defending. It reflected the values of free expression in a modern interpretation of the First Amendment, under which anyone can say just about any foolish thing, as long as saying it isn’t about to cause someone else to break the law. If the “context” of a genocidal chant is a nonviolent rally, the university shouldn’t stop anyone from chanting. (It should examine its soul. But that is another matter.) If the context is a crowd of protesters with bricks in hand, running at a group of Jews, the university should expel or fire every demonstrator there, whether armed with a brick or a bullhorn. All three presidents should have said this, then added a note of contrition over their universities’ failure to uphold these principles of free expression in the past.

But I’ll say it again: Gay should resign. To offer her neck to Harvard’s Board of Overseers would show her confidence that its members, like Emperor Meiji, would see past her error and ask her to endure in her position. It would also demonstrate her willingness to own that error, to acknowledge it publicly and unselfishly. Maybe the board would accept her resignation, and maybe it would not. Either of these fates is better than the one she is courting. At the moment she is trying to wriggle out of her error, and clinging to her job as if her dignity depended on keeping it. Better to teach by example that the reverse is often true, that dignity depends on leaving a job—and that staying suggests that one has nothing else, once it is gone.

The greatest legacy a resignation leaves is the creation of a culture of resignation. One institution that, up until now, has had such a culture is the Israeli defense establishment. A few weeks ago, I spoke with a former Mossad official who assured me that the entire leadership of the Mossad and the Israel Defense Forces would, as soon as the Gaza war reached a satisfactory pause, resign from their positions. They would do so, he said, because resignation was the only honorable response to their failure to foresee and prevent Hamas’s attack on October 7. Their predecessors did so in 2006, after the very messy war with Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, and after several other episodes of modest failure in Israeli history. That they might stick around, slinking back to their offices as if hoping everyone forgot about their mistakes, would be inconceivable. In this context, one understands better the popular rage against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in whom the spirit of General Nogi is extinct: To this day, he is making the case to the Israeli right for his remaining their leader indefinitely.

One can’t get far in politics without a dogged willingness to destroy one’s critics and step on their corpses to reach the next height. But this is a minimal qualification for success, and everyone who attains high office, having climbed up from decades in the Senate or in departmental meetings, has it to an unusual degree. To persist is just to do what comes naturally for these people. To give up at the right moment—that is a quality against type, and a virtue possessed by the greatest of leaders. It is nevertheless available even to those who have hitherto shown no signs of greatness at all. Let it be said of them what is said in Macbeth of the Thane of Cawdor: that nothing became them in public service like the leaving it.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

And because Tumblr doesn't allow more than 10 embedded links:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/13/us/usc-president-speech-plagiarism.html

==

The idea that Claudine Gay was treated differently than other university presidents because of her skin color is not entirely untrue. Just not the way activists are trying to pretend.

If Claudine lived in "an anti-black world," she would have been ousted before Liz Magill. For that matter, she never would have been gently elevated the university presidency in spite of a weak - and as it turns out, fraudulent - academic history.

Have you noticed that the tactics and behaviors of activists mirror those of coercive controlling abusers?

Either Harvard's board hired someone for their top-most position without actually checking their academic credentials, or worse, did check, but hid it and proceeded anyway. Both roads lead to diversity hire.

[beardedmrbean]

The Huntsman family has halted donations to the University of Pennsylvania due to its response to Hamas' terrorist attacks on Israel and the resulting war. It's the latest indication of the growing friction between elite colleges and their rich alumni over the conflict.

Jon Huntsman Jr. — the former governor of Utah and US ambassador to China, Russia, and Singapore — penned a letter to Penn's president Elizabeth Magill, alerting her of the Huntsman Foundation's decision.

"The University's silence in the face of reprehensible and historic Hamas evil against the people of Israel (when the only response should be outright condemnation) is a new low. Silence is antisemitism, and antisemitism is hate, the very thing higher ed was built to obviate," he wrote in the letter, which was published by the student newspaper. "Consequently, Huntsman Foundation will close its checkbook on all future giving to Penn."

The Huntsman family, which includes three generations of Penn graduates, has donated tens of millions of dollars to the school over the past three decades, including a $10 million gift in 1997 and a $40 million gift to its business school, Wharton, in 1998. The family has donated at least $25,000 annually to Wharton in recent years.

The late Jon Huntsman Sr. attended Wharton on scholarship and went on to become the billionaire CEO of chemical giant Huntsman Corp. Huntsman Jr. has had two stints on Penn's board of trustees.

Huntsman's letter was reportedly written before an email from Penn's president Magill went out to the Penn community on Sunday.

"I want to leave no doubt about where I stand," she wrote in the email, which was viewed by Insider. "I, and this University, are horrified by and condemn Hamas's terrorist assault on Israel and their violent atrocities against civilians."

The Huntsmans are the latest megadonors to pull back from from donations to the school: Last week, Apollo Global Management CEO Marc Rowan announced he would donate $1 — rather than his typical annual contribution — unless Magill and the chairman of its board of trustees, Scott Bok, stepped down. Rowan and his wife donated $50 million to Wharton in 2018. 

The campus has been mired in tensions over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since September, when the Palestine Writes Literary Festival, which some said gave antisemitism a platform, was hosted at the university.

"The University did not, and emphatically does not, endorse these speakers or their views," Magill wrote in her email on Sunday. "While we did communicate, we should have moved faster to share our position strongly and more broadly with the Penn community."

Penn did respond to a request for comment regarding Huntsman's letter. The Huntsman family did not respond to requests for comment ahead of publication.

Across the country, campus conversations have boiled over into the real world, as alumni donors and prospective employers follow student and school leadership responses to the war between Israel and Hamas.

For the past week, Harvard has been grappling with the ramifications of a joint statement signed by more than 30 student groups, together dubbed the Harvard Palestine Solidarity Groups, that said the Israeli government was "entirely responsible for all unfolding violence." 

The statement launched a series of hostilities: Billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman, a Harvard alum and donor, called on the university to release the names of students in the groups that signed the letter so he could avoid hiring them. A Harvard alum, who seemingly had nothing to do with the letter, said they were doxxed. Ackman's call for the list of names was likened to McCarthyism.

The joint statement was eventually deleted, but the fallout continues.

Idan and Batia Ofer, Israel's richest man and his wife, stepped down from the board of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.

"Unfortunately, our faith in the University's leadership has been broken and we cannot in good faith continue to support Harvard and its committees," the Ofers said in a statement.

Yale, NYU, and Stanford have also been caught up in the escalating tensions, which have no signs of slowing down or staying on campus behind ivy-covered gates. 

[mariacallous]

(JTA) — To steer the university through an unexpected leadership change induced by debate over antisemitism, the board of the University of Pennsylvania turned to their vice chair — who is also one of the most prominent Jewish communal leaders in the country.

Julie Beren Platt, a 1979 Penn graduate, has been on the Penn board of trustees since 2006 and recently started her second stint as vice chair, making her a natural fit to step up when chair Scott Bok resigned from the management body on Saturday, following the resignation of the university’s president, Liz Magill.

Platt is also the chair of Jewish Federations of North America, the umbrella of 146 local Jewish communal bodies that has collected more than $700 million — and allocated more than $240 million — to drive the American Jewish philanthropic response to the Oct. 7 attack on Israel. Platt cited that commitment in emphasizing that her leadership of Penn’s board would last for a short period: She said she will step down in January when a permanent chair is selected.

Platt’s dual roles mean that she has been on the front lines in two of the most prominent organizations reshaped by the Oct. 7 attack and its aftermath. It also suggests, as she acknowledged in a statement, that even the presence of a seasoned Jewish leader in a senior university board position is not sufficient to address antisemitism on college campuses right now.

“I have worked hard from the inside to address the rising issues of antisemitism on campus. Unfortunately, we have not made all the progress that we should have and intend to accomplish,” Platt said in a statement issued by JFNA, adding, “I will continue as a board member of the university to use my knowledge and experience of Jewish life in North America and at Penn to accelerate this critical work.”

A JFNA spokesperson declined to elaborate on how she will balance the two roles.

Platt, 66, is the daughter of Joan Schiff Beren, a philanthropist who died in 2016, and Robert Beren, the Wichita, Kansas, oil magnate and Jewish philanthropist who died in August at 97. She is also the mother of five children — four of them Penn graduates — including the Broadway actor Ben Platt and Jonah Platt, a musician who also sits on the board of 70 Faces Media, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency’s parent company.

Previously the chair of the Los Angeles federation and the Foundation for Jewish Camp, Platt also chairs a foundation named for her and her husband, Hollywood producer Marc Platt, and has been involved in an array of Jewish educational initiatives.

She became the second woman to helm JFNA’s board last year, assuming leadership of the fundraising organization at a crucial time. The organization has distributed hundreds of millions to groups providing emergency aid in Israel since Oct. 7. The group has also supported local Jewish communities in the United States in strengthening their own response to antisemitism through an initiative, LiveSecure, created in 2021, that Platt was instrumental in launching.

“We are leading the largest mobilization in our history in support of Israel’s right to protect its citizens and against the rise of antisemitism in North America, including staging the largest Jewish rally in American history on the National Mall,” Platt said in her statement. “We will continue this fight with all our energy.”

Penn was already grappling with a crisis related to antisemitism in the weeks prior to Oct. 7, as a festival featuring Palestinian writers drew criticism. Platt and Bok had issued a statement of confidence in Liz Magill, Penn’s president, in the wake of that crisis and in the immediate aftermath of Oct. 7, even as some criticized the school’s initially response as tepid.

But last week, Magill was one of three college presidents who declined during a congressional hearing to say that calling for the genocide of Jews would violate their schools’ codes of conduct. Her testimony drew criticism from Pennsylvania’s Jewish governor, Josh Shapiro, and even the White House.

Platt said in a statement that she believed Magill had fallen short in the hearing. “In my view, given the opportunity to choose between right and wrong, the three university presidents testifying in the United States House of Representatives failed,” she said. “The leadership change at the university was therefore necessary and appropriate.”

[ulkaralakbarova]

Hilarious and outgoing, Brittany Forgler, is everybody’s best friend ― except her own. Her partying, underemployment and toxic relationships are catching up with her. She receives a startling wake-up call when a visit to the doctor reveals how unhealthy she is. Motivated to lose weight, but too broke for a gym and too proud to ask for help, Brit is at a loss, until her neighbor pushes her to run one sweaty block. Soon, she sets an almost unthinkable goal: the New York City Marathon. Credits: TheMovieDb. Film Cast: Brittany Forgler: Jillian Bell Catherine: Michaela Watkins Jern Dahn: Utkarsh Ambudkar Demetrius: Lil Rel Howery Seth: Micah Stock Gretchen: Alice Lee Doctor Falloway: Patch Darragh Ryan: Peter Vack CiCi Forgler: Kate Arrington David: Juri Henley-Cohn Glenn: Adam Sietz Dev: Mikey Day Drunk Guy: Max Pava Shannon: Jennifer Dundas Molly: Erica Hernandez Terrence: Dan Bittner Tesla: Beth Malone Dana: Nadia Quinn Snobby Artist Man: Pascal Yen-Pfister Snobby Artist Woman: Miriam A. Hyman Michael: Gene Gabriel Drunk Woman: Gina Costigan Jasmine: Sarah Bolt Matty: Ian Unterman Waiter: Robert Garcia Cabrera Overweight Woman: Maia Nkenge Wilson Marathon Worker: Frances Eve Peter: Esteban Benito Film Crew: Executive Producer: Paul Downs Colaizzo Producer: Matthew Plouffe Producer: Tobey Maguire Producer: Margot Hand Director of Photography: Seamus Tierney Editor: Casey Brooks Executive Producer: Jillian Bell Art Direction: Naomi Munro Production Design: Erin Magill Set Decoration: Kim Fischer Costume Designer: Stacey Berman Original Music Composer: Duncan Thum Unit Production Manager: Jolian Blevins Executive Producer: Richard G. Weinberg Associate Producer: Padraic ‘Paddy’ Murphy Casting: Maribeth Fox Makeup Department Head: Scott Hersh Hair Department Head: Dennis Polanco Visual Effects Supervisor: Alex Noble Set Decoration Buyer: Lindsay Stephen Supervising Sound Editor: Ric Schnupp Casting: Laura Rosenthal First Assistant Director: Thomas Fatone Second Assistant Director: Kim Thompson Movie Reviews: SWITCH.: While ‘Brittany Runs a Marathon’ is about weight loss, it never feels pandering or forced. Instead, it comes across as extremely realistic and grounded, which allows the comedy to flow. Everyone across the board brings their A-game to bring this really fresh and heartwarming comedy to life. If you’re a fan of films like ‘Trainwreck’ or ‘The Big Sick’, put on your joggers and sweatpants to run out and see this one. – Chris dos Santos Read Chris’ full article… https://www.maketheswitch.com.au/article/review-brittany-runs-a-marathon-literally-run-out-to-see-this-stellar-comedy Head to https://www.maketheswitch.com.au/sff for more Sydney Film Festival reviews. Columbusbuck: Brittany gets it right – that feeling you have in the pit of your stomach when you push away everyone who cares about you. A feeling I’ve had for a long long time. So self destructive. A 5-star movie, reflecting the reality of life, wouldn’t have a happy ending. This movie has one. But the first 60 minutes absolutely nails it.

[news-locus]

University of Pennsylvania president Liz Magill, board head Scott Bok resign amid backlash over genocide chants on campus

[roma-sera-giornale]

Una resa dei conti per l’odio nei campus universitari

DOUGLAS ANDREWS Uno in meno, ne mancano due.  Questo è lo stato della battaglia tra la società civile e l’odio verso gli ebrei dell’Ivy League. La buona notizia è che la presidentessa dell’Università della Pennsylvania, Liz Magill, ha giustamente rassegnato le dimissioni sabato sotto pressione per la sua incapacità di proteggere gli studenti ebrei della Penn. Scott Bok si è dimesso dalla sua…

[flm5]

Cai reitora antisemita da U-PENN

Pediu demissão ontem Liz Magill, reitora da Universidade da Pensilvânia, a primeira a pedir para sair das três reitoras da elite das universidades americanas (Ivy League) que se recusaram a condenar claramente o genocídio do povo judeu em audiência no Congresso na semana passada. Caiu junto com ela Scott Bok, presidente do Conselho de Trustees, que cuidam do dinheiro de doações que sustentam a…

[peterchiublack]

馬季爾（Elizabeth Magill）在9日宣布請辭校長

紐約時報報導，美國常春藤名校賓州大學校長馬季爾（Elizabeth Magill）日前在國會聽證會就反猶言論給出爭議回覆，未回答呼籲屠殺猶太人的學生是否應受到懲罰，遭贊助者和政界連日批評施壓，事件延燒四天後，馬季爾於9日宣布請辭下台，成為美國首位因反猶言論爭議辭職的大學校長，校方董事會主席波克（Scott L. Bok)也請辭。

本月5日，馬季爾出席眾議院一場關於校園反猶主義的聽證會，眾議員斯特凡尼克（Elise Stefanik）問及「呼籲屠殺猶太人是否構成霸凌或騷擾」，馬季爾回覆「如果有針對性、情節嚴重又普遍則屬於騷擾」。

當斯特凡尼克再問答案是否是肯定時，馬季爾並未正面回答，而是說「取決於具體情況」。另外兩位共同出席聽證會的哈佛大學校長蓋伊（Claudine Gay）與麻省理工學院校長科恩布魯斯（Sally Kornbluth）也給出相同回覆，認為言論自由應受到法律保障。

馬季爾的發言引發校內猶太學生、教職員與校友不滿，包括賓州州長夏皮羅（Josh Shapiro）與兩名民主黨眾議員也強烈批評，甚至校方贊助者要求馬季爾請辭，否則撤銷31億捐款。

對此馬季爾先是在6日晚間發聲明致歉，表示自己專注在言論本身不該受到懲處，而忽略呼籲屠殺猶太人無庸置疑是針對人類的暴行。

然而，事件並未隨致歉落幕，而是持續延燒，馬季爾終於在9日宣布請辭校長，成為賓州大學1930年至今任期最短的永久校長，她將留任到代理校長選出，未來將繼續在法學院任職，而董事會主席波克的辭職立即生效。

[raleigh-in-the-garden]

The chairman of the Ivy League school’s board of trustees, Scott Bok, also resigned immediately during a trustees meeting Saturday evening, just hours after Bok announced Liz Magill’s departure as president in just her second year.

Bok, a supporter of Magill’s, defended her through several months of criticism over the university’s handling of various perceived acts of antisemitism.

[horsesolder12th]

UPenn Board of Trustees Chair Scott Bok resigns, following departure of President Liz Magill https://www.foxnews.com/politics/upenn-board-trustees-chair-scott-bok-resigns-following-departure-president-liz-magill Explore the Fox News apps that are right for you at http://www.foxnews.com/apps-products/index.html.

MANY MORE HEADS NEED TO ROLL

[wanderervenom]

From CNN: UPenn president Liz Magill and Board Chair Scott Bok resign after disastrous hearing on antisemitism

UPenn president Liz Magill and Board Chair Scott Bok resign after disastrous hearing on antisemitism

[thenewsart]

UPenn Board of Trustees Chair Scott Bok resigns, following departure of President Liz Magill

University of Pennsylvania Board of Trustees Chair Scott Bok has resigned, following the departure of President Liz Magill. According to the Daily Pennsylvanian, Bok announced he’s stepping down from the board of trustees. The statement was made shortly after Magill resigned, the outlet reported. “Today, following the resignation of the University of Pennsylvania’s President and related Board of…

[dertaglichedan]

UPenn president Liz Magill RESIGNS after disastrous anti-Semitism hearing where she refused to condemn campus protests calling for Jewish genocide; Board of Trustees Chair Scott Bok tenders his own resignation moments later

The president of the University of Pennsylvania stepped down from her role on Saturday

Liz Magill resigned from her post following fierce backlash to her controversial congressional testimony over antisemitism on campus on Tuesday 

Scott Bok, Chair of the school's Board of Trustees, announced his own resignation just moments later 

[antonio-velardo]

Antonio Velardo shares: Penn’s Leadership Resigns Amid Controversies Over Antisemitism by Stephanie Saul and Alan Blinder

By Stephanie Saul and Alan Blinder The president, Elizabeth Magill, and the chairman of the board of trustees, Scott L. Bok, are leaving after intense pressure from donors, politicians and alumni. Published: December 9, 2023 at 04:41PM from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/ZV1aCh9 via IFTTT