'SNL' brought University of Phoenix into antisemitism hearings in a bizarre plot twist

Well that was surprising.

The latest episode of “Saturday Night Live” began with a cold open skewering the recent congressional hearing on antisemitism on campuses, in which three presidents of elite universities were widely criticized for their runaround answers about whether calls for genocide against Jews violated the schools’ codes of conduct.

OK, that isn’t the surprising part. It would have been surprising if the show didn't go after the presidents, who made themselves easy marks. What was surprising is that the University of Phoenix found its way into the skit.

That was out of nowhere. It was also one of the funnier bits in an open that didn’t have many of them.

Who hosted 'SNL' last night?

The show was hosted by Adam Driver; Olivia Rodrigo was the musical guest.

In the sketch, “MAGA superstar” Rep. Elise Stefanik (Chloe Troast), says, “I’m going to start screaming questions at these women like I’m Billy Eichner.” And so she does.

Heidi Gardner plays University of Pennsylvania president Elizabeth Magill (who resigned in real life hours before the show aired), Chloe Fineman plays Massachusetts Institute of Technology president Sally Kornblurth and Ego Nwodim plays Harvard president Claudine Gay.

“On this subject, I’d like to speak not from the heart, but from the thesaurus,” Nwodim’s Gay gives as one answer. That pretty much sums up most of the answers in the skit, which did take a shot at Stefanik managing to stake out the high ground on the issue.

“I am here today because hate speech has no place on college campuses,” Troast’s Stefanik says. “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.”

How did the University of Phoenix wind up on 'SNL?'

Eventually she grows more and more frustrated before saying, “Oh my god, can you take a moral stance on anything? Can anyone here say yes to a single question?”

“Uh, yes, hello,” Kenan Thompson, who in the meantime has appeared without explanation beside the other presidents, says. “I am the president of the University of Phoenix online, and I’m willing to say yes to anything.” (He never identifies himself.)

Where on earth did that come from? Who knows? For the record, no one from the University of Phoenix testified at the hearing. This was completely out of left field. But Thompson did at least provide some laughs. His answer was the first of a few shots at the online school based in Phoenix.

“See? See?” Troast’s Stefanik says. “A real president of a real university.”

“That’s actually our school motto — U of P, we are a real university,” Thompson says.

Asked if he will “promise to eliminate all antisemitism from your campus,” Thompson gets the best line of the sketch.

“Well … my campus is the internet, so antisemitism is kind of our most popular major,” Thompson says. “And our mascot is porn.”

Finally, when asked if the University of Phoenix will offer a course on how antisemitism is wrong, Thompson takes one last shot at the school: “Lady, we’ll offer a course on anything. The only mandatory courses we have are how to log into the University of Phoenix online and how to set up autopay.”

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Reach Goodykoontz at bill.goodykoontz@arizonarepublic.com. Facebook: facebook.com/GoodyOnFilm. X, formerly known as Twitter: @goodyk.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: 'SNL' cold open adds University of Phoenix to antisemitism hearings