Ousted University of Pennsylvania president Scott Bok argued that donors should not have a say in school councils after several wealthy businessmen withdrew their donations to the college over its handling of antisemitic incidents on campus.
“I think donors are completely free to give to whatever organization they want or not, and to withhold for whatever cause they choose,” he told Bloomberg TV.
“But they’re not shareholders so I don’t think they should have a say in how the university is run.”
Bok, CEO of investment bank Greenhill & Co., previously expressed similar sentiments in an op-ed he wrote for the Philadelphia Inquirer.
“Donors should not be able to decide campus policy or dictate what is taught…,” he wrote, saying “universities need to be wary of the influence of money, especially like Penn, which has a business school with a bigger brand than the university itself.”
He claimed in the piece that for nearly all of his 19 years on the board of trustees, there was “a very broad, largely unspoken consensus about the roles of the university’s various constituencies: the board, donors, alumni, faculty and administration.
Ousted University of Pennsylvania president Scott Bok argued that donors should not have a voice in university councils. Reuters
“When I came to the conclusion that this old consensus had disappeared, I decided that I should leave the board and leave it to others to find a new way forward,” wrote Bok, who announced his resignation as chairman of the University of Pennsylvania’s board of trustees. trustee earlier this month.
The decision comes after several big-name donors withdrew hundreds of millions of dollars in their contributions to the elite university in an effort spearheaded by Wall Street tycoon Apollo Management CEO Marc Rowan’s partner — a Wharton graduate who with his wife donated $50 million to the business school in 2018.
Rowan demanded in a letter to the board in October that Bok and now former president Liz Magill resign in disgrace, and called on other business leaders to follow suit.
Apollo Global Management CEO Marc Rowan started a push for donors to withdraw their funds from the school. AFP via Getty Images
The effort grew after Magill failed to definitively say that calling for the genocide of Jews on campus violated the university’s Code of Conduct, and former Utah Gov. John Huntsman even said the school should cut ties with its leadership.
Speaking to Bloomberg TV on Thursday, Bok said the board was struggling to determine its best option because “we haven’t had any crisis or controversy in a very long time.”
He warned that trustees – who are usually only focused on the financial health of institutions – “must not overreact” in such situations.
“It’s a fraction of the 1% of people at this elite school who are actively involved in a way that would trouble anyone,” he claimed of those involved in antisemitism.
“We should not tear up a governance model that has worked for a very long time and make our university the envy of the world because of a short-term crisis.”
A growing number of donors pulled their funds after former president Liz Magill failed to definitively say that calls for the genocide of Jews violated the university’s Code of Conduct. Michael Brochstein/SOPA Images/Shutterstock
Others at the Ivy League school have also claimed that donors are overstepping their bounds, particularly after Rowan sent an email to trustees asking them to examine “the criteria for eligibility to be a member of the faculty,” according to the Inquirer.
Rowan claimed in the letter that Penn has a “cultural” problem that the board must address.
“While antisemitism has received the most attention, I believe this is only a symptom of a larger problem … a culture that has allowed antisemitism to take root and be accepted within UPenn, that has allowed free speech to be prioritized and that has distracted from UPenn’s core mission of scholarship, research and academic excellence,” he wrote, according to the Inquirer.
He went on to say that Magill’s failure was representative of the entire board, as it failed to answer questions that he said were important “based on the roles and responsibilities of the trustees as set forth in the UPenn charter” and “the result of many conversations with trustees, faculty academic leaders and other institutions and elsewhere.”
Rowan claimed in an October letter that Penn has a “cultural” problem that the board must address. Penn Free Police
After reading the letter, the UPenn chapter of the American Association of University Professors issued a statement saying: “Today, an unelected trustee with no clear academic experience is trying to take over the core academic functions of the University of Pennsylvania – functions related to curriculum, research and recruitment and evaluation. faculty.
“The questions considered by the trustees represent an attack on the principle of academic freedom, which was first articulated a century ago to protect the educational mission of the university,” the statement said.
But even Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro slammed the board for its failure to “take concrete action” amid antisemitism on campus.
He said he first met Magill and Bok following the controversial “Palestine Writes” literary festival held at the school in September.
Shapiro will then have more meetings with university officials following the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel, wanting to know what universities are doing to hold professors accountable if they make students feel unsafe, he told the Wall Street Journal.
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro said the school needed an immediate “change in policy and approach.” StopAntiemites/ X
Bok said he remembers the conversation, “but anything that involves limiting what tenured professors can say on campus is obviously going to take a lot of consultation with the faculty and is not going to be something the president can do unilaterally.”
Shapiro said he also spoke with Magill and Bok about creating a more robust response to people tearing up Israeli flags or putting antisemitic stickers on private property.
“Penn has a lot of work to do now, as they elect a new seat and as they elect a new president,” the Democratic governor said. “But we can’t wait for all that. We need a change in the policies and approaches happening at Penn right now.”
When asked how universities should try to strike a balance between free speech and calls for genocide, Shapiro said only: “That’s their challenge.”
Categories: Trending
Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
