The University of Pennsylvania (UPenn) has lost a potential gift worth nearly $100 million after the donor behind it voiced his disapproval of the college’s response to a rise in anti-Semitic protests and incidents on campus.
As reported by Axios, alumnus Ross Stevens, the founder and CEO of Stone Ridge Asset Management, said that his primary reason for withdrawing the donation was the poor testimony by UPenn president Liz Magill before Congress on Tuesday. He had first announced the gift in December of 2017, which was intended to establish a center for innovation in finance at the university.
The gift would come in the form of limited partnership units with Stone Ridge, which is estimated to have a current value of roughly $100 million. But in a letter from Stevens’ lawyers to UPenn, Stevens said that the school had violated the terms of the partnership agreement by failing to respond to discrimination and harassment against Jewish students in the wake of the October 7th attacks against Israel.
“Its permissive approach to hate speech calling for violence against Jews and laissez faire attitude toward harassment and discrimination against Jewish students would violate any policies or rules that prohibit harassment and discrimination based on religion,” the letter read, “including those of Stone Ridge.”
Earlier this year, Stevens had similarly withdrawn a different $100 million gift from UPenn by redirecting it from the university’s business school to the University of Chicago. In that case, Stevens “changed his mind because he thought the school was prioritizing D.E.I. over enhancing the business school’s academic excellence,” according to a report from the New York Times.
Stevens is one of many major donors who has used their wallet to express frustration with prominent universities across America that have largely ignored anti-Semitic incidents, with protests and targeted attacks against Jewish students being carried out by Muslim students, far-left student groups, and other agitator elements.