When University of Pennsylvania alumnus Stephen Levin told the Ivy League school that he was halting his $15 million pledge, citing Jew-hatred at the school, the businessman asked Penn to remove his name from the Stephen A. Levin Neural and Behavioral Sciences Building.
Penn “quietly” did so, The Daily Pennsylvanian, a student paper, reported.
A 1967 graduate of the school, Levin has founded and run multiple companies, including a beer distributor that he reportedly sold for $1 billion to Reyes Beverage Group in January 2015. He is also a trustee of the Simon Wiesenthal Center.
The Penn building that previously bore his name—and which still shows up in Google searches with his name—is now the Neural and Behavioral Sciences Building, the university’s arts and sciences school told JNS, per its agreement with Levin.
“As part of this change, and in recognition of his generous support of the building, the second floor will carry his name through interior signage,” it told JNS.
In November 2023, the month after the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, Levin wrote to Liz Magill, then Penn’s president, that “today Penn is far from the university I attended, along with my father and two of my sons,” according to the student paper. “Furthermore, I want my name removed from the building and no longer want to be associated with Penn. Penn is an embarrassment not only to the Jewish community but also has lost its luster as a superb Ivy League school.”
“After what I saw happen after the Oct. 7 massacre and how the university did not respond in any way favorable to Jewish people or Israel,” Levin told The Daily Pennsylvanian, “I recognized that I have to put my charitable dollars where I believe they will promote equality and fairness to all people.”
Levin also cited the Palestine Writes Literature Festival, which the university hosted and which featured antisemitic speakers, as well as the vandalism of Penn Hillel, both in September 2023, as part of his decision to halt donations to the school.
