Saturday Night Live’s cold open took aim at last week’s congressional hearing in which the presidents of three Ivy League universities testified about antisemitism on campus.
The presidents of Harvard, MIT and UPenn came under fire last week after they were invited to testify in front of House Committee on Education and the Workforce.
The three women were accused of failing to explicitly say that calling for the genocide of Jews would violate their colleges’ bullying and harrassment codes.
In a series of heated questions, Republican Rep Elise Stefanik of New York asked whether student protesters who said the phrases “intifada” or “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” would qualify as violating the universities’ codes of conduct on bullying and harassment.
UPenn president Elizabeth Magill told the hearing that it was “context-dependent”.
Ms Magill later resigned from her role, and apologised for her remarks after UPenn alum and Wall Street CEO Ross Stevens threatened to strip the university of a $100m donation if she did not step down.
Chloe Troast played Republican Rep Elise Stefanik— (SNL/NBC)
Harvard resident Claudine Gay was played by Ego Nwodim, while Heidi Gardner played UPenn president Elizabeth Magill— (SNL/NBC)
“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,” she said in a video statement after the hearing.
Following the hearing, an SNL sketch mocked the three college presidents’ evasive answers, with Chloe Troast playing Donald Trump loyalist and “MAGA superstar” Ms Stefanik, who grilled the three women over the rise in antisemitism on campuses since the 7 October attacks on Israel.
“Antisemitism: Yay or nay?” screeched Troast’s Stefanik. “Yes or no: Is calling for the genocide of Jews against the code of conduct for Harvard?” she added.
Playing Harvard President Claudine Gay, Ego Nwodim replied saying it “depends on the context,” while Heidi Gardner, impersonating Ms Magill, told the hearing, “We are serious about stopping all forms of hatred,” before Troast’s Stefanik posed the same question to MIT President Dr Sally Kornbluth, played by Chloe Fineman.
“If you don’t say yes, you’re going to make me look good, which is really, really hard to do,” Troast’s Stefanik said. “So I will ask you straight up. Do you think genocide is bad?”
Fineman’s Kornbluth then responded: “Could I submit an answer in writing at a later date?”
Harvard President Claudine Gay, left, and University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill— (Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)
Unimpressed, Troast’s Stefanik reminded the three women: “Hate speech has no place on college campuses. Hate speech belongs in Congress, on Elon Musk’s Twitter, in private dinners with my donors, and in public speeches by my work husband, Donald Trump.”
SNL’s Bowen Yang, who played California Democratic Rep Mark Takano, then proceeded to ask the university presidents what they would do if a student on campus shouted that they had “poisoned the water supply,” to which Nwodim’s Gay responded that “if they poisoned it with diversity, that would be wonderful.”
The president of the online institution University of Phoenix, played by Kenan Thompson, was also featured in the sketch.
“Can you take a moral stance on anything? Can anyone here say yes to a single question?” Troast’s Stefanik shouted at Thompson.
“Well, my campus is the internet, so antisemitism is kind of our most popular major,” Mr Thompson said. “And our mascot is porn.”
The sketch prompted strong backlash from the public, university donors and politicians, with some questioning why SNL would make a mockery of a serious situation.
Conservative media personality Meghan McCain was among the critics, writing: “There is a 400% increase in antisemitic hate crimes since October 7th and SNL thinks it’s hilarious…. This is vile. Vile.”
Professor of Israel Studies Sara Yael Hirschhorn went further and wrote: “This is really appalling -- NBC do you think antisemitism is acceptable as the punchline of a joke about American society? This needs to be investigated by the FCC.”
The editor of the Jewish Chronicle, Jake Wallis Simons, also chimed in, writing: “Can’t believe SNL decided to mock those demanding tougher action on Jew-hatred on campus rather than those making excuses for calls for genocide.”
Meanwhile, the sketch also received some positive reviews, with one Harvard student saying the skit captured “how unable all the presidents were to give honestly pretty simple answers.”
“I think they nailed what the absurdity was, the indirectness of the questions, the crazy insistence of the questioning, and how intense that whole thing was,” they wrote. “I’d say it was pretty fair.”
