Billionaire Ronald Lauder threatens to stop Penn donations unless the school takes a stronger stance against antisemitism

• Billionaire Ronald Lauder wrote a letter threatening to stop donations to the University of Pennsylvania.
• Lauder is the latest alum and megadonor to criticize the school’s handling of the Israel-Hamas conflict.
• At colleges across the country, tensions over the war have reached a boiling point.

Ronald Lauder, the billionaire Estée Lauder heir, wrote a searing letter to the University of Pennsylvania’s president threatening to stop donations to the school if it doesn’t take a stronger stance against antisemitism.

“I have spent the past 40 years of my life fighting antisemitism all over the world and I never, in my wildest imagination, thought I would have to fight it at my university, my alma mater and my family’s alma mater,” Lauder wrote in the letter to Penn president Elizabeth Magill that was obtained by Insider.

Lauder’s letter is the latest blow to Penn, which has been slammed by alumni over its response to the Israel-Hamas war.

Last week, Apollo Global Management CEO Marc Rowan, who gave $50 million to Penn in 2018, called on his fellow alums to “close their checkbooks.” Dick Wolf, the “Law & Order” producer who funded Penn’s Wolf Humanities Center, endorsed Rowan’s message in a statement to Penn’s student newspaper. On Sunday, the Huntsman family announced it would halt its donations to the school, as did hedge fund manager David Magerman.

The Ivy League school has been a hotbed of hostility over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since before Hamas’ terrorist attacks on Israel. In September, the Palestine Writes Literary Festival, which some said gave a platform to speakers with histories of antisemitism, was hosted at the university. Organizers of the festival have been quoted by The Daily Pennsylvanian as denying it embraced antisemitism.

More than 4,000 people, including Lauder and Rowan, signed an open letter to Magill at the time of the festival, saying that “platforming of outright antisemitism without denunciation from the university is unacceptable.”

Penn’s leadership released a statement in response, saying “we unequivocally — and emphatically — condemn antisemitism as antithetical to our institutional values.”

“As a university, we also fiercely support the free exchange of ideas as central to our educational mission,” the statement continued. “This includes the expression of views that are controversial and even those that are incompatible with our institutional values.” 

The festival, and the school’s response, has been brought under further scrutiny since Hamas’ terrorist attacks on Israel. Lauder is the lastest to condemn Penn’s response.

In his letter, Lauder wrote that he visited Penn two weeks prior to the festival to meet with Magill and request that it be cancelled; he said he followed up two more times over the phone.

“Those invited to the event had a history of not just strong anti-Israel bias, but outright antisemitism,” he wrote. “In retrospect, I don’t believe you grasped the impact this would have on Penn’s reputation.”

“Perhaps the worst part was not just that the event wasn’t cancelled, but rather that you did not understand what this event meant to me, to Jewish students and alumni,” he continued. 

Lauder also said that he asked Steve Fluharty, the leader of Penn’s Department of Arts and Science, to meet with the students and faculty who organized the event, but did not hear back. 

Magill has sent out further communications in recent days addressing the festival and condemning antisemitism.

“The University did not, and emphatically does not, endorse these speakers or their views,” Magill wrote in an email to the Penn community on Sunday. “While we did communicate, we should have moved faster to share our position strongly and more broadly with the Penn community.”

In a statement on Tuesday, Magill addressed the controversy again.

“Alumni are important members of the Penn community,” she wrote. “I hear their anger, pain, and frustration and am taking action to make clear that I stand, and Penn stands, emphatically against the terrorist attacks by Hamas in Israel and against antisemitism. As a University, we support and encourage the free exchange of ideas, along with a commitment to the safety and security of our community and the values we share and work to advance.”

Fluharty did respond to requests for comment regarding Lauder’s letter.

Lauder, who is worth $4.5 billion, per Forbes, has donated millions of dollars to Penn, as has his brother, Leonard. The school’s Lauder Institute is named after the family; students enrolled earn a Master’s in international studies, as well as an MBA from the Wharton School or a JD from Penn Law.

“Let me be as clear as I can: I do not want any of the students at The Lauder Institute, the best and brightest at your university, to be taught by any of the instructors who were involved or supported this event,” he wrote.

He’s also a donor to the Republican party, as well as Jewish causes, including the World Jewish Congress, of which he is currently president.

Across the country, tensions are boiling over on college campuses. Harvard has been grappling with the fallout of a joint statement signed by more than 30 student groups that said the Israeli government was “entirely responsible for all unfolding violence.” 

Though the letter has been taken down, the ramifications are still unfolding in Cambridge: Idan and Batia Ofer, Israel’s richest man and his wife, stepped down from the board of Harvard’s Kennedy School, and Les Wexner’s foundation said it would cut ties with Harvard.

Update: October 17, 2023 — This story has been updated with a comment from the University of Pennsylvania’s president Elizabeth Magill.