'2 to Go:' Ivy League Scrutiny Isn't Over

"One down. Two to go." Those were the celebratory words of GOP Rep. Elise Stefanik over the weekend after University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill resigned. Stefanik separately told the New York Sun in an interview that she expects Harvard President Claudine Gay and MIT President Sally Kornbluth to eventually resign as well, particularly after a new House investigation into how universities handle antisemitism gets rolling. Related coverage:

• On the rise: Stefanik is the fourth-ranking House Republican and an ally of Donald Trump, and her "stock is soaring in Republican circles" after her congressional questioning of the three university leaders, writes Justin Green at Axios. All three gave noncommittal answers when pressed by Stefanik about whether students who call for the genocide of Jews would be punished under their existing codes of conduct. (Watch video of the exchanges here.)

• Democrats, too: For the GOP, "the rise of antisemitic speech and the timid responses of some academic leaders presented a long-sought opportunity to flip the political script and cast liberals or their institutions as hateful and intolerant," writes Nicholas Confessore in the New York Times. Stefanik, for example, predicted to the Sun that this will be "an earthquake in higher education." But what Confessore finds striking is how many Democrats have joined the criticism, including a spokesman for President Biden, as well as big donors who lean left. "For a long time i said that antisemitism, particularly on the american left, was not as bad as people claimed," tweeted OpenAI chief Sam Altman. "i'd like to just state that i was totally wrong."
• About time? Typically left-leaning publications are also on board. "Do I believe Magill is an antisemite? Of course not," writes Michael Tomasky in the New Republic. "But she obviously permitted a culture to arise around her where a certain kind of left-wing antisemitism has flourished and gone unpunished." He writes that it's "long past time for university administrators to take antisemitism seriously."
• The fallout: While there may be bipartisan support for Magill's resignation, the Washington Post notes that critics are worried about the ramifications for free speech, "predicting that it will imperil the rights of students and professors to speak their minds as donors and politicians step in to shape campus codes of conduct and discussion." Private institutions have "wide latitude" to write their own guidelines on what is and isn't acceptable, and many will be under pressure from alums on the matter. (Stefanik is a Harvard grad, though she was dropped from the school's advisory board over her claims of 2020 election fraud, notes Axios.)