MIT BACKS under-fire president Sally Kornbluth and praises her ‘judgment, integrity and moral compass’ after disastrous congressional testimony where she refused to answer whether ‘calling for the genocide of Jews’ is harassment

MIT is standing by President Sally Kornbluth after her disastrous testimony in Congress prompted her to refuse to answer whether calling for the genocide of Jews constitutes intimidation.

The prestigious school's governing body declared its unwavering support for the academic on Thursday – days after Kornbluth, Harvard's Claudine Gay and uPenn's Liz Magill said calling for the genocide of Jews was anti-Semitic hate speech but did not necessarily violate their school rules.

“The MIT Corporation selected Sally as our president because of her outstanding academic leadership, her judgment, her integrity, her moral compass and her ability to unite our community around MIT's core values,” the school said in a statement.

“She has done an outstanding job leading our community, including addressing anti-Semitism, Islamophobia and other forms of hate, which we at MIT completely reject. She has our full and unconditional support.”

Kornbluth, Gay and Magill are all facing calls to resign following their ambiguous answers during the hearing into rising anti-Semitism at the country's top universities amid the war between Hamas and Israel.

When asked whether calling for genocide amounts to bullying or intimidation by the Republican representative. Elise Stefanik, the president of MIT, said: “If it's aimed at individuals, don't make public statements.”

Kornbluth added that she has “not heard any calls for genocide of Jews on our campus.” However, she admitted to using chants during campus protests that “could be anti-Semitic, depending on the context calling for the elimination of the Jewish people.”

Harvard's Gay responded that whether calls for genocide on campus violate the rules “would depend on the context.”

Gay said: “Anti-Semitic rhetoric, when it turns into behavior that amounts to bullying, intimidation, that is actionable behavior. We will take action.'

For her part, UPenn's Magill said, “If the speech turns into behavior, it could be harassment, yes.”

On Wednesday, Magill released a groveling video statement in which she attempted to explain her failure to condemn calls for genocide against Jewish people on campuses.

She said she was not “focused” on the issue, and said she wanted to “be clear” that calls for genocide were “evil, plain and simple” — though she said the blame was more likely to lie with her university's policies and the constitution was then with her.

'At that moment I was focused on our university's long-standing policy – ​​in line with the American Constitution – which states that speech alone is not punishable.

The university presidents' weak responses caused widespread uproar, with one UPenn donor threatening to withdraw his $100 million gift to the university unless Magill resigned.

On Thursday, Second Gen. Doug Emhoff denounced rising anti-Semitism amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas and the “presidents of some of our most elite universities.”

Speaking at the lighting ceremony of a massive menorah in front of the White House to mark the first night of Hanukkah, Emhoff criticized university presidents who testified on Capitol Hill this week, saying they were “incapable of answering the call for genocide against the Jews to be denounced as anti-Semitic'. -Semitic.'

“The lack of moral clarity is unacceptable,” he said.

Also on Thursday, the board of Wharton – the world's first business school, founded in 1881 at the University of Pennsylvania – said Magill should resign.

In a letter to her, they said the university's leadership needed to change “with immediate effect.”

“As a result of the expressed beliefs of the university's leadership and its collective inability to act, our administration respectfully suggests to you and the board of trustees that the university is in need of new leadership, effective immediately.”

The administration, in a letter first obtained by The Daily Pennsylvanian, detailed their concerns about the “dangerous and toxic culture” at Penn that they said the university's leadership has allowed to exist.

The letter adds that the university's leadership 'does not share the values ​​of our board'.

The three universities have been rocked by a series of pro-Palestinian marches on their campuses in the wake of the Oct. 7 attack, with students blaming Israel for Hamas' terrorist outrage and saying the country deserved it.

Some academics have expressed fiercely anti-Israel views, and threats have been made against Jewish students on campus.

All three presidents have admitted that they were slow to distance themselves from student groups that justified the Oct. 7 massacres.

But they insisted they wanted to maintain a climate of free speech — and, to Stefanik's anger, refused to give a “yes or no” answer to questions about condemning certain rhetoric.

Jewish billionaire Bill Ackman is among the academics' fiercest critics and has called on Magill to resign.

Harvard has also tried to limit the damage from comments made by their president Gay.

On Wednesday, the university published a statement from Gay on X.

“There are some who have confused the right to free speech with the idea that Harvard will condone calls for violence against Jewish students,” she said.

“Let me be clear: Calls for violence or genocide against the Jewish community, or any religious or ethnic group, are despicable, they have no place at Harvard, and those who threaten our Jewish students will be held accountable.”