Former U.S. ambassador to China Jon Huntsman Jr., 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 President Liz Magill.
"Consequently, Huntsman Foundation will close its checkbook on all future giving to Penn — something that has been a source of enormous pride for now three generations of graduates. My siblings join me in this rebuke," he added.
Huntsman, former Utah governor, graduated from UPenn in 1987 with a Bachelor of Arts in International Relations.
According to Insider, the Huntsman family has donated tens of millions of dollars to the school over the past three decades, including a $10 million gift in 1997 and a $40 million gift to its business school, Wharton, in 1998.
The family has donated at least $25,000 annually to the school's Wharton School in recent years, and the Huntsman Program in International Studies and Business carries their namesake.
Huntsman's move comes despite Magill and Provost John L. Jackson condemning the attacks last week. A follow-up by Magill also acknowledged and castigated subsequent antisemitic incidents.
However, some board members still took issue with the university's permittance of the Palestine Writes Literature Festival on Sept. 22-23, an event that Magill said the university did not officially endorse.
"The University did not, and emphatically does not, endorse these speakers or their views," Magill wrote Sunday. "While we did communicate, we should have moved faster to share our position strongly and more broadly with the Penn community."
Huntsman is not the only board member unconvinced by Magill's statements. CNN reported that trustee Vahan Gureghian resigned from the board after a three-hour meeting about the issue.
"Just as at so many other elite academic institutions, the Penn community has been failed by an embrace of antisemitism, a failure to stand for justice and complete negligence in the defense of our students' wellbeing," Gureghian wrote in his resignation letter.
The tensions among university faculty, students, and board members across the country surrounding Hamas' attacks have boiled over the last couple of weeks. Resignations and firings have shot up as a result.