HARRISBURG, Pa. (WHTM) – Pennsylvania’s budget is two days late, and counting, but there is one school still waiting for last year’s funding. It’s being held up by the political fight over the war in Gaza.
The University of Pennsylvania’s Veterinary School was supposed to receive $33 million last fiscal year but lawmakers told them to ‘hold your horses.’
“Higher education in general is a real problem,” said Senate Majority Leader Joe Pittman (R), “and it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out why.”
Lawmakers watched as mostly anti-Israel protests played out on college campuses this spring. Pittman says those protests put higher education “in a bad light and the University of Pennsylvania is right at the top of that list.”
State lawmakers also heard Penn’s President Liz Magill seemingly struggle to condemn anti-Semitism before Congress.
“Probably in all the examples, UPenn and what was going on there probably struck more of a chord across both sides of the aisle,” said State Senator Scott Martin (R-Lancaster).