User:Skakkle/Ivy League university presidents in the 2020s

A few presidents of Ivy League universities (of which there are 8) have come under increasing public scrutiny in the 2020s for various reasons. The main precipitating event causing the new scrutiny is the outbreak of the 2023 Israel–Hamas war.

Anti-semitism hearing
On December 5 2023, a few presidents of Ivy League universities were called in front of a Republican-led meeting of the United States House Committee on Education & the Workforce. (See 2023 United States Congress hearing on antisemitism.) They were grilled about hate speech policy, and at least two resigned in the wake of that questioning. Their answers were widely seen as tepid. They were seen as not going far enough to protect Jewish students or staff members in particular from hate speech. (Hate speech against any other groups was not considered in this hearing.)

Liz Magill, then-president of the University of Pennsylvania, resigned as University president 7 days later. She remains a tenured professor at Penn Law School.

About 1 month later, Claudine Gay, the president of Harvard University, resigned as president. She remains at Harvard as a distinguished professor.

This new focus on Anti-semitism occurred in the context of increasing pro-Palestine activism across the United States, particularly on university campuses. That activism is a response to actions taken by Israel in its war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. In that war, Israel has conducted heavy bombing, resulting in about 30,000 civilians deaths. Israel's bombing and invasion of Gaza was precipitated by a terrorist attack led by Hamas on October 7 2023 in which over 1,000 Israeli civilians were killed.

Gaza Solidarity encampment
In April & May 2024 pro-Palestine protests began coalesced under a banner called Gaza Solidarity Encampment at numerous universities across the US. The most notable is at Columbia University.

Minouche Shafik
Minouche Shafik, the current president of Columbia University is a member of the House of Lords of the United Kingdom. She was granted the title of "peer" of the United Kingdom in 2020. She has served as a high-rankng official of Bank of England, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, and as a foreign aid official of the UK government.