Liz Magill, the former dean of Stanford Law School, provost at the University of Virginia, and president of the University of Pennsylvania, has been appointed as the new executive vice president and dean of Georgetown Law. Magill will begin her role as the 17th dean of Georgetown Law on August 1, 2026, succeeding Interim Executive Vice President and Dean Joshua Teitelbaum.
Magill's appointment comes after her resignation as president of the University of Pennsylvania in December 2023.
The resignation followed Magill’s appearance at a congressional hearing on campus antisemitism, during which she was asked by Rep. Elise Stefanik whether "calling for the genocide of Jews" is against the universities' respective codes of conduct.
Responding to this, Magill said that "it is a context-dependent decision," leading Stefanik to reply, "Calling for the genocide of Jews is dependent on the context? That is not bullying or harassment? This is the easiest question to answer 'yes,' Ms. Magill."
Magill later sought to clarify her statements, saying in a video posted to social media, "I was focused on our University's long standing policies aligned with the US Constitution, which say that speech alone is not punishable. I was not focused on, but I should have been, the irrefutable fact that a call for genocide of Jewish people is a call for some of the most terrible violence human beings can perpetrate. It's evil, plain and simple."
"I want to be clear. A call for genocide of Jewish people is threatening - deeply so. It is intentionally meant to terrify a people who have been subjected to pogroms and hatred for centuries and were the victims of mass genocide in the Holocaust. In my view, it would be harassment or intimidation."
In a February 13 interview with Politico, Magill expressed regret for her congressional testimony, acknowledging that her words left Jewish students at Penn feeling distressed.
“I regret that I conveyed a lack of compassion and care and good sense to those people," Magill said. "I want every Jewish student, a student of every faith, every view, every single student to feel they are in a secure environment and they’re in a place where they can flourish."
Georgetown University, like many elite academic institutions in the US, has faced scrutiny over incidents related to antisemitism since the October 7 Hamas attacks.
Georgetown also became embroiled in controversy last year when Badar Khan Suri, a postdoctoral fellow, was detained by federal immigration authorities for allegedly spreading Hamas propaganda and promoting antisemitism online. A court later ruled that Suri was eligible for deportation, though he is appealing the decision.
Georgetown professor Jonathan Brown, known for his anti-Israel views, was placed on leave and removed as chair of the Department of Arabic and Islamic Studies after supporting a symbolic strike by Iran on a US military base.
Recently, the university cut ties with Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur for “Palestinian rights", whom the US sanctioned earlier this year for antisemitism.