BREAKING NEWS: UPenn Board of Trustees hold 'emergency meeting' as president Elizabeth Magill faces calls to resign from donors and students after 'unacceptable' statements at congressional hearing

The University of Pennsylvania's Board of Trustees are holding an emergency meeting as president Elizabeth Magill faces calls to resign after her 'unacceptable' statements at a congressional hearing.

The hastily-arranged board meeting started at 9am and is being held virtually - following a percussive flood of calls, from students and donors alike, for the president of the Ivy League college to be sacked.

This is the latest sign of the mounting, intense pressure on Penn to remove their president, who told Congress that reprimanding students who call for a Jewish genocide was not paramount - instead, it's 'context' specific.

Magill, a lawyer by trade, smirked and smiled as she publicly refused to categorize calls for the genocide of Jews as harassment or a breach of the school's code of conduct. 

A petition calling for Magill's resignation had grown to more than 10,300 signatures by Thursday morning. 

Organizers said that her failure to condemn antisemitic acts, 'has effectively amplified their message, creating an environment where such bigotry feels tolerated, if not endorsed, by the university leadership.'

Students, faculty members, and donors alike have vocalized their disdain towards the president - whose words and actions have shown her lackluster desire to stop the rabid antisemitism on UPenn's campus.

In a sensational attempt to backtrack after her appalling conduct in front of Congress, Magill posted a groveling video statement on Wednesday.

But it did little to help her cause. She attempted to explain her argument that disciplining antisemitism depended on context.

In the video, she said she was not 'focused' on the issue, and said she wanted to 'be clear' that calls for genocide were 'evil, plain and simple' - although she said the blame lay with her university's policies and the constitution, rather than with her.

She said that as she sat with the presidents from MIT and Harvard, she was 'focused on our university’s longstanding policies aligned with the U.S. Constitution, which say that speech alone is not punishable.' 

MIT's Sally Kornbluth and Harvard's Claudine Gay gave equally deplorable answers when quizzed about their colleges' code of conduct.