As you probably remember, UPenn President Liz Magill resigned from her job on Dec. 9, just days after her disastrous congressional testimony. Magill was one of three university presidents who struggled to answer some loaded but fairly simple questions about the treatment of Jewish students on campus. This came after the school had a number of anti-Semitic incidents and threats which wound up resulting in the FBI being called in to investigate.

The pressure that helped push Magill out the door came in part from a series of big-money donors who had contributed hundreds of millions of dollars in donations to the school. They had first been activated when Magill held a writing festival on campus which featured some notable anti-Semites including Roger Waters.

So here we are nearly three months later and I’m not sure the state of the campus has improved much. From today’s Washington Free Beacon:

A newly-formed faculty group at the University of Pennsylvania blocked access to a campus building Monday as part of an anti-Israel “die-in” protest that may have violated school policies.

Penn Faculty for Justice in Palestine, which announced its formation in a Jan. 18 Daily Pennsylvanian op-ed, organized the demonstration, according to social media posts reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon. Protesters were photographed Monday afternoon laying on the steps of College Hall, a famous campus building that hosts the School of Arts and Sciences and Department of History. They also held signs accusing Israel of “genocide” and displayed a long banner featuring the names of “Gazans murdered by Israel.”

Here’s some of what that looked like:

#UPenn faculty hold die-in 1/29, featuring 140-ft-long scroll of 6,700 names of Palestinians killed by Israel.
Participants later walked the rolled-up scroll to Simone Leigh's sculpture “Brick House” where the protest ended without incident. More photos: https://t.co/ml6yDGLSHC pic.twitter.com/n715TUICDL

— joe piette (@pastpostal65) January 30, 2024

Here’s the actual die-in with people lying about the entrance.

Remembering those murdered in Gaza by Israel at UPenn pic.twitter.com/b3tNA9mvgd

— W.E.B. Du Bois Movement School (@AbolitionSchool) January 29, 2024

Again, these aren’t fellow students these are all faculty members. Welcome to class, Jewish students!

The faculty at UPenn hasn’t stopped at die-ins. There is also now an organized group pushing back on efforts to focus the school on academic merit, labeling it part of a broader right-wing plot.

[After Magill’s ouster] Mr. [Marc] Rowan sent a four-page email to university trustees titled “Moving Forward,” which many professors interpreted as a blueprint for a more conservative campus.

Amy C. Offner, a history professor who led the protest, called the document a proposed “hostile takeover of the core academic functions of the university.”…

“This is an anti-democratic attack unfolding, not just at Penn, but all across the country, including at public universities in Florida, in Texas, Ohio and beyond,” said Dr. Offner…

Mr. Rowan’s proposal, which was published in its entirety by The Philadelphia Inquirer, was framed as a series of questions about the university’s direction. It asked whether some academic programs should be eliminated and whether merit and academic excellence should be the paramount consideration in hiring and admissions, which many interpreted as a call to eliminate diversity considerations.

If you look at what Rowan actually wrote, it’s not exactly Ron DeSantis material.

In his email Tuesday, Rowan said to trustees that Penn has a “culture” problem that must be addressed.

“While antisemitism has received the most attention, I believe this is just a symptom of a larger problem…,” he wrote. “A culture that allowed antisemitism to take root and be accepted inside UPenn, that has allowed for preferred versus free speech, and one that has distracted from UPenn’s core mission of scholarship, research, and academic excellence.”…

“What are the criteria for deciding when and how the University speaks out on national or international issues?” Rowan asked.

He also asked about the university’s policies on free speech and code of conduct violations and the importance of “viewpoint diversity” in the hiring of faculty and administrators.

“What is the University’s policy on faculty and administrators promoting a particular viewpoint in their official capacity?” he asked. “Is academic discipline appropriate in the event if a professor or faculty member abuses their official position?”

Free speech, academic excellence, viewpoint diversity in hiring. These are the sort of things that have outraged Professor Amy C. Offner and which she compares to an anti-democratic attack.

So has anything really changed at UPenn since Liz Magill left? It doesn’t look like it to me. Magill was never really the problem, just a symptom of the culture that dominates universities now. Getting rid of Magill may have opened the door but only for a broader fight with those who see any discussion of free speech, academic merit, etc. as part of a hostile takeover.