Former Penn board chair’s new book offers inside look at the battle that led to his and Liz Magill’s resignation
The last two chapters of "Surviving Wall Street, a Tale of Tragedy, Triumph and Timing" talk about the tumultuous fall of 2023 and the aftermath of antisemitism complaints on campus.
The former chairman of the University of Pennsylvania’s board of trustees has included two chapters in his new book that will offer an inside look at “the battle for control” in the wake of the school’s 2023 handling of antisemitism complaints that ultimately led to Penn president Liz Magill’s resignation, as well as his own.
In Surviving Wall Street: A Tale of Triumph, Tragedy and Timing, Scott L. Bok, an investment banker, tells the story of the “dramatic transformation of the investment banking business” through various challenges, including the dot-com crash, the global financial crisis, and the pandemic. In his longtime leadership position at Greenhill & Co., which specializes in mergers and acquisitions, Bok had a front-row seat.
But the final two chapters of the 23-chapter book are devoted to his leadership of the trustee board at Penn through the tumultuous fall 2023 semester, in the aftermath of Hamas’ attack on Israel and amid scrutiny of the university for its handling of antisemitism complaints. Marc Rowan, a Wharton graduate and the CEO of Apollo Global Management in New York who gave Wharton its largest single gift, $50 million, in 2018, led a public campaign to oust both Bok and Magill from their jobs; both resigned in December of that year.
» READ MORE: Penn president Liz Magill has resigned following backlash over her testimony about antisemitism
“I wanted it to read almost like a novel reads, where you just hear what happened,” Bok said in an interview Tuesday. “What happened in the boardroom? What happened between the board chair and the CEO? What did we know? How did we react to that? What happened the next day? How did we react to that? The decision-making, the strategy, the tactics.
“The readers can make their own judgment [on] did the right things happen, should something have been done differently, where do we go from here. It doesn’t answer every single question that readers will have, but I think it’s really the only sort of … detailed narrative of just what happened in those months.”
The book will be available in stores in early May and can be preordered now.
Bok, 65, chairman of Greenhill & Co. Inc., got his first Penn degrees in 1981, a bachelor’s in political science and a bachelor’s in economics from Wharton. He got a Penn law degree in 1984. He had served on Penn’s board since 2005 and became its chair in July 2021, following the departure of David L. Cohen.
Controversy erupted at Penn in September 2023 after the Palestine Writes Literature Festival was held on campus and criticized by some for including speakers with a history of making antisemitic remarks. Tensions escalated following the Oct. 7 attack and subsequent war, with nearly weekly protests and powerful donors withdrawing financial support, calling for a change in leadership.
In December of that year, there was a bipartisan backlash against Magill’s testimony before a congressional committee on Penn’s handling of antisemitism complaints. Magill and Bok resigned Dec. 9, as the university faced perhaps its greatest leadership crisis in decades.
In an op-ed for The Inquirer published three days later, Bok lamented undue influence from donors.
“Donors should not be able to decide campus policies or determine what is taught, and for sure there should not be a hidden quota system that ensures privileged children a coveted place at elite schools,” Bok wrote.
» READ MORE: Scott L. Bok: Donors should not decide campus policies or determine what is taught
In the piece, he also shared that he “had received violent threats” and “had a mobile billboard of Israeli hostage pictures posted by my workplace,” as well as “withstood an attempt to thwart an important business deal.”
In the interview Tuesday, Bok said the book, his first, has been in the works for about five years, though his decision to add the Penn chapters was obviously more recent.
Readers will learn about “the author’s role in a battle for control of the University of Pennsylvania that featured activist shareholder and corporate takeover tactics,” the book’s description on Amazon says.
Bok said at first he thought of writing about the Penn case as an epilogue but realized it fit in with the theme of the book.
“The book is about the growth of Wall Street, the growth of Wall Street influence and impact,” he said. “And what happened at Penn and elsewhere, there was a lot of focus on alumni donations and a lot of the commentary came from Wall Street-related people. Many of the people on Penn’s board are Wall Street-related people like I was. It was kind of the same groups of people playing the same kind of struggle for control that you see in the corporate realm.”
While he said he does not “preach” in the book, he hopes that the story could help leaders dealing with university challenges today.
“There are a lot of moving parts to what’s going on … new rules, new focus on various things, new government leadership,” he said. “So I think understanding what happened some time ago can be instructive as to maybe the way forward. But I certainly wouldn’t claim to have all the answers.”