Here Are University Donors Pulling Their Support After Schools Initially Failed To Condemn Hamas

Many billionaires, business moguls and university alumni are withdrawing their support from Ivy League universities after school administrators and students failed to strongly condemn the Hamas terrorist attacks against Israel.

Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn) were heavily criticized for their response to the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attacks that killed over 1,300 Israelis, after which students and faculty blamed Israel for the conflict. Several high-profile donors from across the country have pulled their funding from schools and blacklisted students from jobs in protest of the universities’ handling of the conflict. 

Jon Huntsman Jr., former U.S. ambassador to China and governor of Utah, said in a letter that the Huntsman Foundation would no longer be donating to UPenn after its “silence in the face of reprehensible and historic Hamas evil against the people of Israel” and called the situation “a new low” for the university. The foundation had donated roughly $50 million to the university, of which Huntsman is an alum, over the past three decades and the family’s name is on the main building of the Wharton School of Business.

David Magerman, who helped launch the trading hedge fund Renaissance Technologies and a “Torah-observant Jew,” said on Oct. 17 that he would also be revoking his funding after UPenn President Liz Magill did not immediately label Hamas as a terrorist organization in her Oct. 10 statement. He said that he was “deeply embarrassed” by his “association” with the school and also called out UPenn for hosting the Palestinian Writes Literature Festival, which featured speakers who openly glorified and even associated with terrorists, only weeks before.

Jonathon Jacobson, a UPenn alum and the founding member of the venture capital firm HighSage Ventures, wrote a letter on Oct. 16 to Magill informing her that he would only donate $1 a year instead of his typical “multi-seven figure” donations unless she resigns. He further criticized Magill’s “inept handling” of the Palestinian festival and accused her of “hiding behind free speech … as an excuse for your fecklessness.”