UPenn president torched for allowing antisemitic speakers on campus but not Trump ICE director

Liz Magill, president of the University of Pennsylvania, during a House Education and the Workforce Committee hearing in Washington, DC, US, on Tuesday, Dec. 5, 2023. (Haiyun Jiang/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill was under pressure during a House antisemitism hearing on Tuesday, as Rep. Jim Banks, R-Ind., noted that a Penn professor who called for "intifada" against Israel kept his job at the prestigious institution and other antisemitic speakers have been allowed to have events on campus. 

Banks, in turn, noted how former President Trump's director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Thomas Homan, was prevented from speaking on campus amid anti-Trump student protests, as was India's now-Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Amy Wax, a tenured law professor who opposes the diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, agenda. 

"Just weeks before the Oct. 7 terror attacks against Israel, Penn hosted a Palestine Writes Literature Festival," Banks said. "The event featured Marc Lamont Hill, who was fired by CNN for calling for the destruction of Israel. It also hosted and included a member of the Palestinian Youth Movement, which has collaborated with the terrorists and maybe most notably, Roger Waters, the really wacky former Pink Floyd vocalist. The same Roger Waters, by the way, who's publicly used anti-Jewish slurs, desecrated the memory of Anne Frank and has dressed up as a Nazi and floated a pig balloon with a star of David – at many of his concerts. Why in the world would you host someone like that on your college campus to speak at the so-called Palestinian Rights Literature Festival?"