Ronald Lauder, heir to Estee Lauder, may cancel his financial support for the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School for hosting a controversial Palestine event and its weak response to antisemitism, according to a letter obtained by the New York Post.
Lauder personally met with UPenn President Liz Magill ahead of the Palestine Writes Literature Festival on Sept. 23 and 24 to urge her to cancel it.
“I told you that those invited to the event had a history of not just strong anti-Israel bias—but outright antisemitism,” Lauder writes in an Oct. 16, 2023 letter. “You were already aware of much of this. I now know that the conference has put a deep stain on Penn’s reputation that will take a long time to repair.”
Referring to Hamas’ deadly attacks on Israel, Lauder, president of the World Jewish Congress, adds, “The timing of the event could not possibly have been worse.
“Today, Israel is fighting for its life, and, in many ways, Jewish people throughout the diaspora are worried for their safety.”
The Lauder family created and funded the Lauder Center at Wharton.
Lauder, a Wharton graduate, served as the ambassador to Austria in the Reagan administration. In 1989, he ran as a Republican for mayor of New York, losing to Rudy Giuliani in the primary.
Lauder said UPenn’s decision to hold the festival and its indifferent response to the war in Israel have caused him the “greatest sorrow” and that he does not want any students at the Lauder Institute to be taught by those who ran the pro-Palestinian event.
Those included author Aya Ghanameh, who has called for “Death to Israel” and writer Randa Abdel-Fatteh, who has demeaned Israel as a “demonic, sick project” of which she “can’t wait for the day we commemorate its end.”
In his letter to Magill, Lauder goes on to say: “Let me be as clear as I can: I do not want any of the students at The Lauder Institute, the best and brightest at your university, to be taught by any of the instructors who were involved or supported this event. In my mind, they put their bias against Israel ahead of any academic honesty. We know who they are and what they said.
“The organizers of this event came almost exclusively from the Department of Arts and Science, run by Steve Fluharty,” Lauder continues. “I called Steve and asked if I could meet with students and faculty involved in this event, so I could better understand where this hatred came from. I did not hear back from him. When I did see him, he acted as if it never happened.”
While Lauder has not decided whether or not he will continue to donate to the University of Pennsylvania, he states in the letter that he is “re-examining” ongoing financial support.
Lauder’s letter comes a day after former U.S. ambassador to China Jon Huntsman Jr., announced he is leaving the University of Pennsylvania's board of trustees and pulling his family's donations.
In an email obtained by The Daily Pennsylvanian, Huntsman said the university's inability to condemn "antisemitism" on campus stemming from Hamas' attacks against Israel led to his decision.
"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," Huntsman told Magill.
The pushback by Lauder and Huntsman comes on the heels of similar antipathy by billionaire Marc Rowan, CEO of private equity firm Apollo Global Management. Rowan is demanding the resignation of Magill for her unwillingness to condemn the Hamas attacks.
Rowan is unequivocally pressing alumni to “close their checkbooks” until UPenn changes its leadership.
Rowan said there are “sickening parallels” between Penn’s actions and the 35 Harvard student groups that banded together in a public letter to blame Israel for Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 massacre of 1,300 people in Israel, most of them civilians and many of them women, children and the elderly. A further 3,300 were injured, and 200 have been kidnapped. It was the bloodiest attack in Israel’s history.
Likewise, billionaire hedge fund CEO Bill Ackman has doubled down on his call to release the names of the anti-Israel Harvard students—not just the list of Harvard organizations that signed the contentious letter.
Ackman, head of Pershing Square Capital Management, and a growing number of other Wall Street CEOs want the names released so that they can blackball them.
In response to a request for comment by the New York Post, a spokesperson for UPenn pointed to a statement Magill made Sunday: “As a University, we support and encourage the free exchange of ideas….Penn has a moral responsibility to combat antisemitism and to educate our community to recognize and reject hate in all its forms. I’ve said we should have communicated faster and more broadly about where we stand, but let there be no doubt that we are steadfast in our beliefs.”