Former Penn board chair Scott Bok and President Liz Magill discuss the upheaval that led to their resignations

During a talk on former University of Pennsylvania board chair Scott L. Bok’s new book, former school President Liz Magill asked him to reflect on the testimony she gave at a congressional hearing on antisemitism, testimony that days later led to her resignation.

Then he asked her whether she had any thoughts she would like to share in what would become the first public exchange between the two former Penn leaders about that tumultuous week that also culminated in Bok’s resignation as board chair.

“I provided this 30-second sound bite that went viral and just swamped everything else about what I’d said and my record at Penn,” Magill told the audience during the discussion at a New York Public Library branch on Fifth Avenue . “And I really regret that. It hurt Penn. It hurt Penn’s reputation, and my job was to protect the institution that I led.”

She was referring to the moment during her December 2023 testimony when U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik (R., N.Y.) asked her about whether calling for the genocide of Jewish people would violate Penn’s code of conduct. “It is a context-dependent decision,” Magill had answered.

» READ MORE: Former Penn board chair reveals new details from inside the boardroom leading to President Liz Magill’s resignation

Bok, who for years led Greenhill & Co., which specializes in mergers and acquisitions, had discussed that moment and the rest of the crisis in his new book Surviving Wall Street: A Tale of Triumph, Tragedy and Timing. Most of the book — which had been in the works long before controversy erupted at Penn — is about Bok’s life and career as a Wall Street investment banker through the dot-com crash, the global financial crisis, and the COVID-19 pandemic. The final two chapters focus on Penn.

During the talk, Bok defended Magill, saying the questioners that day were clearly looking for that “gotcha” moment, that the situation Stefanik’s question posed to their knowledge had never occurred on the campus. He explained that Penn’s code of conduct said that students and faculty could not be disciplined for speech alone and that Magill was giving a technically correct answer.

But he told the audience that a “more emotional, moral kind of answer” may have been better.

» READ MORE: Penn president Liz Magill has resigned following backlash over her testimony about antisemitism

Magill acknowledged that her response that day “suggested that I just didn’t care about what those horrific words would mean to people if they heard them.”

But she said she is “a leader who has common sense and compassion.”

“I think I generally display that, and in those 30 seconds I didn’t, and I wish I had,” she said, drawing a round of applause from the audience.

Magill and Bok also reflected on the dynamics of university board leadership and what might need to change.

» READ MORE: Who is Marc Rowan, the billionaire Wharton grad who led the campaign to topple Penn’s leaders?

“Boards got too weighted toward donors,” Bok said, adding that he understands that money and donations are important. But “when a crisis comes, you can find that people ... in one segment can have interests that are too unified, or maybe even there’s conflicts of interest.”

In the book, Bok wrote how the crisis at Penn played out in the shadow of New York’s Wall Street, where some wealthy current and former trustees, including Bok, worked.

He said “viewpoint diversity” is needed and suggested adding, for example, an elementary or secondary schoolteacher, a charter school principal, or an engineer at Boeing.

» READ MORE: University of Virginia provost will replace Amy Gutmann as Penn’s next president

Magill, a lawyer and former University of Virginia provost who was raised in Fargo, N.D., said she wants to play a role in driving change. She is planning to bring together some college presidents and board members to discuss the future governance of universities, she said.

“I’d like to be a constructive voice and helpful voice on that,” she said.

Magill also said she worries about the existential threat to the nation’s universities, given increasing pressure from President Donald Trump’s administration. The federal government has cut research funding, attacked diversity programs, and is considering raising a tax on endowments at the most financially wealthy universities. It also is looking at eliminating the tax-exempt status of Harvard University.

“If all those things come to pass, the U.S. college and university system, which is presently the envy of the world, would be a shadow of its former self,” she said. “And even if the worst doesn’t come to pass ... my fear is five to 10 years from now ... the federal college and university partnership may never be the same, and I think that would be a really large loss.”

The U.S. Department of Education has ordered Penn to “restore to all female athletes all individual athletic records, titles, honors, awards or similar recognition for Division I swimming competitions misappropriated by male athletes” or risk the loss of federal funding.

Penn said it followed National Collegiate Athletic Association policy at the time when transgender swimmer Lia Thomas competed on its women’s team during the 2021-22 season.

Penn has 10 days to comply with the demands, issued on April 28, which also include issuing a statement to the Penn community that it will comply with Title IX and sending a letter of apology to each swimmer whose record is restored, or risk losing federal funding. The government already has paused $175 million in funding to Penn because it allowed Thomas to compete.

A Penn spokesperson declined comment.

Asked whether they had advice for young people who are future leaders, Bok said, “Choose carefully your friends and even your spouse because the people around you will be advisers and supporters to you.”

At the height of the Penn crisis, Bok said, a freshman who also lived in Warwick residence hall whom he hadn’t talked to in 35 years found his email address and reached out. It was the night Bok resigned as board chair and published an opinion piece in The Inquirer.

“The subject line was ‘Warwick strong,’” he said.