- The University of Pennsylvania has involved the FBI after some staff received threatening antisemitic emails.
- The messages included "hateful language" and targeted " the personal identities of the recipients."
The University of Pennsylvania has notified the FBI about "vile" antisemitic emails sent to its university staff, amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas war and as donors threaten to pull funding.
Penn's president Elizabeth Magill published a letter to the university on Monday about how it is addressing antisemitic threats on campus.
"Today I learned that a small number of Penn staff members received vile, disturbing antisemitic emails that threatened violence against members of our Jewish community, specifically naming Penn Hillel and Lauder College House," Magill wrote. "These messages also included hateful language, targeting the personal identities of the recipients."
Penn Police notified the FBI of the potential hate crime and began a joint investigation, Magill said. Penn Police also did a sweep of Penn Hillel and Lauder College House, but didn't find a credible threat at that point.
Penn Hillel is the building where the activities of international Jewish campus organization Hillel are hosted at UPenn, while Lauder College House is a housing block.
Penn's public safety team is working with the FBI to identify the individuals behind the emails, who will be "punished to the fullest extent of the law."
The Ivy League institution has come under fire recently as wealthy benefactors threaten to pull funding over what they see as the university's unsatisfactory response to antisemitism on campus in light of Hamas' attacks on Israel on October 7.
The billionaire CEO of Apollo Global Management Marc Rowan, an alumnus, wrote an op-ed for the newspaper of the university demanding that Magill and the chairman of the university's board of trustees Scott Bok, both step down.
Rowan also urged fellow alumni to "close their checkbooks" until university leaders resign and send only $1 in place of their normal contribution.
Rowan pointed to the Palestine Writes Literary Festival held at Penn as a major source of contention and signed an open letter saying the "platforming of outright antisemitism without denunciation from the university is unacceptable."
Other major donors to the university joined Rowan in pulling funding including former US diplomat Jon Huntsman, and billionaire businessmen Clifford Asness and Ronald Lauder, for whom Lauder College House is named.
Asness said he withdrew funding in response to the literary festival which he described as an "antisemitic Burning Man festival."
Magill responded in a statement in October saying the university "should have moved faster" to condemn antisemitism adding that it does not "endorse" the views of the speakers who were present at the literary festival.
Penn isn't the only Ivy League university to face backlash related to the Israel-Hamas war. Billionaire Bill Ackman called for the names of Harvard students, who signed a letter blaming the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel, to be released so that companies don't hire them.
Over the weekend, Ackman shared a 3,000-word letter he sent to Harvard president Claudine Gay, outlining his concerns about the university's handling of the situation.