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Ms. Magill, who had been in her post since last year, stepped down four days after testifying before Congress.
The president of the University of Pennsylvania, Elizabeth Magill, resigned on Saturday, four days after she came under fire for her responses at a congressional hearing on Tuesday in which she was pressed, along with the presidents of Harvard and M.I.T., on whether students calling for the genocide of Jews should be disciplined.
Ms. Magill seemed to evade the question and drew intense criticism from donors, students and others, some of whom were already angry that she had allowed a Palestinian writers conference to be held on campus in September.
Ms. Magill is the first president of a major university to step down because of the fallout from the protests that have engulfed campuses since the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks on Israel and the subsequent war in Gaza.
Here is some background on her decision.
What happened at the Dec. 5 congressional hearing?
At a hearing of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce on Tuesday, Ms. Magill testified alongside Claudine Gay, the president of Harvard, and Sally Kornbluth, the president of M.I.T. They all said they were appalled by antisemitism and were taking action against it on campus. When asked whether they supported the right of Israel to exist, they answered yes without equivocation.
The three university presidents testified that recent protests on their campuses had grown ugly, with clashes between students supporting Israel and those supporting Palestinians.
But on the question of disciplining students for statements about genocide, they gave lawyerly responses involving free speech.
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