Jon Huntsman pulls donations from UPenn in latest college row over Israel-Hamas war

The Huntsman family includes three generations of UPenn graduates and has donated at least $25,000 annually to Wharton in recent years

The influential Huntsman family has pulled its donations to the University of Pennsylvania in the latest college campus row over the Israel-Hamas war.

Jon Huntsman Jr – former governor of Utah and former US ambassador to China, Russia, and Singapore – sent a letter to the UPenn’s President Elizabeth Magill announcing that the Huntsman Foundation is halting donations to the university over what he described as “antisemitism”.

“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,” Mr Huntsman Jr wrote in the letter, which was published in the student newspaper.

“Consequently, Huntsman Foundation will close its checkbook on all future giving to Penn.”

After the letter was sent, Ms Magill sent an email to the UPenn community condemning the attacks by Hamas on Israel, according to Insider,

“I want to leave no doubt about where I stand,” she wrote. “I, and this University, are horrified by and condemn Hamas’s terrorist assault on Israel and their violent atrocities against civilians.”

The Huntsman family, which includes three generations of UPenn graduates and has donated tens of millions of dollars to over the years, has become the latest to “close their checkbooks” in protest over the college’s response to the Hamas attacks.

Last week, Apollo Global Management CEO Marc Rowan announced he would donate $1 – rather than his typical annual contribution – unless Ms Magill and the chairman of its board of trustees, Scott Bok, stepped down from their roles.

Mr Rowan called for the ousters after his alma mater hosted the Palestine Writes Literary Festival last month.

The event, which was not sponsored by the university, featured over 100 speakers and artists from Palestine and its diaspora dedicated, according to its organisers, to “the belief that art challenges repression and creates bonds between Palestine and the rest of the world”.

Jon Huntsman Jr has been donating to the university for years (AP)

The festival sparked controversy after polarising figures such as Professor Marc Lamont Hill were invited to the event. Mr Hill was ousted from CNN in 2018 after calling for an end to what he said was Israel’s “ethnic cleansing” of Palestinians and supporting a “free Palestine from the river to the sea”.

Others took issue with presenters using the academic frame of settler-colonialism to discuss Zionism and Israeli policy.

Organisers of the festival have denied that it embraced antisemitism, The Daily Pennsylvanian reported.

Following the event, more than 4,000 people, including Mr Rowan, signed an open letter to Ms Magill, saying that “platforming of outright antisemitism without denunciation from the university is unacceptable”.

At the time, the university disavowed the event, but supported its right for it to be held on campus, saying in a statement that “we unequivocally – and emphatically – condemn antisemitism as antithetical to our institutional values”.

The statement continued: “As a university, we also fiercely support the free exchange of ideas as central to our educational mission. This includes the expression of views that are controversial and even those that are incompatible with our institutional values.”

But in the wake of Hamas’ attack on Israel, which saw more than 1,400 Israelis killed and 2,800 Palestinians killed in retaliatory air strikes, Mr Rowan argued that the university’s response was not enough and urged fellow UPenn alumni to “close their checkbooks” until the institution’s leadership resigned.

“Join me and many others who love UPenn by sending UPenn $1 in place of your normal, discretionary contribution so that no one misses the point,” he wrote.

The dispute follows similar issues at Harvard University after a group of 33 student organisations, led by the Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee, released a now-deleted statement on social media arguing that Israel’s “apartheid regime” had created the impetus for the war.

The letter prompted furious backlash, with Harvard professors and alumni calling on the university’s leadership to condemn the letter as well as Hamas.

Harvard’s President Claudine Gay issued a statement three days after the letter was published condemning the attacks and distancing the university’s leadership from the letter.

Apollo CEO Mark Rowan (Reuters)

“As the events of recent days continue to reverberate, let there be no doubt that I condemn the terrorist atrocities perpetrated by Hamas,” she wrote. “Such inhumanity is abhorrent, whatever one’s individual views of the origins of longstanding conflicts in the region.

“Let me also state, on this matter as on others, that while our students have the right to speak for themselves, no student group – not even 30 student groups – speaks for Harvard University or its leadership.”

Billionaire Bill Ackman then called for the names of all Harvard students who signed the letter to be made public. Mr Ackman, CEO of Pershing Square Capital Management, said he did not want to “inadvertently hire” students who were part of the organisations.

Other executives, such as the CEOs of Sweetgreen and MeUndies, voiced their support for the effort, with Jonathan Shokrian of MeUndies comparing the ideas in the original letter to a “cancer”.

But by Wednesday, Mr Ackman’s call came under fire after a truck appeared near the Harvard campus, circling the university and displaying photos of Harvard students and organisations allegedly linked to the original statement.

Meanwhile, the university’s Hillel — a centre for Jewish students — said it “strongly condemns any attempts to threaten and intimidate co-signatories of the Palestine Solidarity Committee’s statement”.

Yale, NYU, and Stanford have also been caught up in the escalating tensions.

More than 1,400 Israelis and 2,800 Palestinians have been killed since fighting broke out on 7 October when Hamas terrorists stormed across the Gaza border into Israel, killing hundreds of people and taking dozens captive.

At least 30 American citizens are among the dead, the White House confirmed.