In today’s big story, we’re looking at a Wall Street exec’s decision to pull a $100 million donation from the University of Pennsylvania after a bungled congressional hearing.

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That was the message from a Wall Street executive to the University of Pennsylvania president regarding his $100 million donation to the school.

Ross Stevens’ ultimatum comes after Penn President Elizabeth Magill fumbled through a congressional hearing on antisemitism.

Magill, along with Harvard President Claudine Gay and MIT President Sally Kornbluth, skirted questions from Rep. Elise Stefanik over whether calling for the genocide of Jews violated their universities’ rules on bullying and harassment.

“If the speech turns into conduct, it can be harassment,” Magill said.

The backlash was swift and fierce. Billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman, a vocal critic of Harvard’s response to the Israel-Hamas war, called for all three presidents to “resign in disgrace.”

And while each president issued a statement after the criticism, there was no going back for Stevens.

In a letter to his firm’s employees, Stevens, who is a Penn alum, said he planned to pull $100 million of Stone Ridge shares he had previously gifted the school “due to the conduct of President Magill” unless there was “a change in leadership and values at Penn in the very near future.”

Plenty of alums have threatened to pause donations over concerns of antisemitism on campus and schools’ responses, or lack thereof. Taking money back is a whole other ball game.

To be sure, Penn isn’t exactly hurting for cash. The school’s endowment totals some $21 billion. Losing $100 million, while an incredible sum, won’t necessarily make a dent.

But the optics of a Penn-grad-turned-finance-exec — the exact type of person Penn presumably pitches incoming students as an ally of the school — forcibly taking money away from it cuts deeper than losing $100 million.

The ties between Penn and Wall Street run deep. In the same way the University of Alabama is a breeding ground for NFL players, Penn is for Wall Streeters.

And it’s not just any Wall Streeters, but pretty successful ones. An analysis by Forbes in 2022 found that UPenn had the most undergraduate alumni on its ranking of the wealthiest Americans with 17 grads, including D1 Capital Partners Daniel Sundheim and Blackstone’s Jon Gray.

But there will be those who don’t like the idea of the uber-wealthy holding so much power over universities, even if they disagree with how the presidents handled the congressional hearing. The reality, though, is that billionaire donors and money managers have long held considerable sway via their relationship with elite universities’ endowments.

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Dan DeFrancesco, senior editor and anchor, in New York City. Diamond Naga Siu, senior reporter, in San Diego. Hallam Bullock, editor, in London. Lisa Ryan, executive editor, in New York City.

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