Philly-area lawmakers walk out of meeting with Penn president over DEI cuts

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Two Philadelphia-area lawmakers walked out of a meeting with the University of Pennsylvania’s president on Tuesday after they say a university administrator referred to diversity as a “lightning rod.”

City Councilmember Jamie Gauthier was among the elected officials who tore into the university for abandoning the values of its founder, Benjamin Franklin, by refusing to affirm diversity, equity and inclusion, and failing to stand up to a “tyrannical king,” like he did during the American Revolution.

Other local leaders in attendance, including State Sen. Anthony Williams and State Rep. Rick Krajewski, said they disagreed with Penn’s interpretation of President Donald Trump’s flurry of executive orders and directives, which prompted Penn to erase dozens of DEI initiatives, programs and committees online as it reviews their compliance with federal law.

During the 90-minute meeting, lawmakers sought an explanation for Penn’s apparent backpedaling on DEI — but two elected officials walked out early as administrators provided an unsatisfactory answer.

Asked how the meeting went, state Sen. Art Haywood provided WHYY News with a one-word reply: “Bullshit.” He did not comment further.

Haywood and state Rep. Napoleon Nelson left the meeting after a Penn administrator referred to diversity as a “lightning rod,” according to multiple lawmakers present at the meeting.

“Some of us took umbrage with the fact that someone would actually say that in front of a room of people of color,” Williams said.

He indicated that the administrator conveyed that the Trump administration was the “bully” who had turned diversity into a political flash point.

Nelson, who chairs the Legislative Black Caucus in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, said the conversation “wasn’t great.”

“You can be slapped in the face a couple [of] times,” he said. “You can have values questioned, but there becomes a point where you understand that the change makers that we perhaps need aren’t in the room.”

Put another way, Gauthier said after exiting College Hall, “I’m not sure that we are leaving on the same page.” She disagreed with the university’s assessment that it had not backtracked on DEI and urged Penn to reverse course as she described the “serious consequences” to students and the wider community.

A university spokesperson said the school “is committed to non-discrimination in all of our operations and policies.”

“We appreciate the concerns expressed by local elected officials,” the spokesperson said in a statement.

Penn’s removal of DEI webpages and updates to its nondiscrimination policy come as the university warned Monday of an “existential threat” from Trump’s actions. It cited threats to DEI and a potential $250 million reduction in federal research funding that has led to restrictions on graduate student admissions by 35% at the Perelman School of Medicine and by a third at the School of Arts and Sciences.

Interim President Larry Jameson was asked by lawmakers why Penn chose to erase mentions of DEI “in a very disrespectful manner,” and failed to stand up for students of color. Williams described a conversation with a Penn student-athlete who was informed via email that the school had stripped her of a DEI committee title she had held. But he said administrators repeatedly refuted during the meeting that Penn had “scrubbed” away its commitment to DEI.

At the news conference, Williams cited an analysis presented by Rutgers law professor Stacy Hawkins, who said Trump’s executive orders directing schools to curtail DEI language did not carry the weight of the law.

“At the first signs of danger, Penn ran for the hills,” Gauthier said, speaking of her own experience as a Black woman at the institution, where she earned a master’s degree. “We needed DEI 20 years ago, and we need it now.”

Penn formed a working group early in February to evaluate how federal activities impact the university and coordinate a response across schools and programs. The group’s formation came after the National Institutes of Health capped the indirect cost rates for research to 15%, with Penn looking at a loss of hundreds of millions of dollars and hundreds of jobs before the cuts were blocked by a federal judge. But the NIH did not approve any research funding for Penn between Feb. 1 and 12, according to a public database.

Jameson portrayed Penn — and higher education more broadly — as under attack in a university-wide email Monday. He asked community members to “remain united” and “be ambassadors for Penn and higher education.”

In an email to students and faculty at the School of Arts and Sciences obtained by WHYY News, Dean Jeffrey Kallberg called the reduction in people admitted into the school’s doctorate programs this year a “necessary cost-saving measure” to mitigate the expected decline in federal support Penn would receive under Trump. He added such cuts were occurring across Penn.

“This is not a step any of us wanted to take,” Kallberg wrote, adding that he recognized the “problematic aspects of the timing of this decision.”

Lawmakers said they would continue to press for answers about Penn’s approach to not only DEI, but also its funding from the NIH. The group plans to ask for a meeting with the board of trustees, which is gathering on campus later this week, Williams said.

“It is very hurtful to see language taken down, to see programs go away that are supporting people that I care about, who are very worthy of that support,” a postdoctoral researcher in Penn’s genetics program who is impacted by the NIH funding cuts said.

Williams indicated that he and other Democrats in the state Senate were prepared to resist funding Penn’s research and expansion efforts in the budget, saying he could not ask others to support a university taking steps against DEI that were not “based upon the law.”

“This is not a moral plea: ‘Do us a favor,’” Williams said. “This is a requirement that you follow the law.”

Nelson, who serves in the Pennsylvania state House, said he would wait to see how Jameson responds and did not want to “just hold funding over everybody.”

“Penn has made a cowardly move, rushing to heed dog-whistle demands from a feckless federal leadership and dismantle their programs that welcome students and workers from an expansive range of backgrounds,” state Sen. Nikil Saval said.