Bill Ackman, a major Harvard donor, called on Wednesday to resign from Harvard's board of trustees following the resignation of Claudine Gay as president, calling for the university's “diversity, equity, and inclusion.” (DEI) policies and denounced politically connected leaders.
in 4,000 word rant In X, hedge fund managers specifically named board chair Penny Pritzker. He is the billionaire heir to the Hyatt Hotels fortune, the sister of Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D), and an official in the Obama and Biden administrations.
In light of today's news, I thought I'd take a step back and offer some perspective on what this is really all about.
The first thing that caught my attention was @Harvard University In the early morning hours of October 8, before Israel sent in its troops, 34 student organizations at Harvard University gathered…
— Bill Ackman (@BillAckman) January 3, 2024
“The Board of Governors, led by Penny Pritzker, chose the wrong dean and did not adequately review Gaye’s academic performance despite her leadership role at the university since 2015, when she became dean of sociology. No investigation was conducted,” Ackman wrote, detailing the reasons for this. Gay said she believed she was a “good candidate for DEI.”
Ackman calls diversity “in its broadest forms,” including “diversity of perspectives,” and “political advocacy on behalf of specific groups deemed oppressed by DEI’s own methodologies.” distinguished false diversity.
Related Video — Dershowitz: Gay got what she deserved under the standards she used against another black professor:
The mega-donor has become one of the most vocal critics of gays following the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel and the school's subsequent failure to adequately respond to anti-Semitism. . align with terrorists From the students.
Ackman graduated from Harvard University in 1992. Before said Gay, a Black woman, was hired because of the board's DEI initiative rather than “identifying the best leader for a prestigious university,” she said. His remarks came after he called on the presidents of Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and the University of Pennsylvania to “resign in shame” following the president's resignation. Rejected At a Congressional hearing in early December, he denounced calls for the extermination of Jews.
Former UPenn President Liz McGill resigned Just days after the intense backlash sparked by the hearing, Gay dragged his feet until his academic record was publicly dissected in the media and several accusations came to light. plagiarism And it has fueled criticism of Harvard's diversity-focused hiring process.
With Gay's long-awaited resignation on Tuesday, she President with the shortest term in office in the history of Harvard University.
Despite controversy over her anti-Semitism and plagiarism, the board publicly defended Gay and expressed condolences when she resigned.
Pritzker, along with other Harvard students, argued that gay people face “virulent racist language directed at them.” accepted She resigned “with sadness.”
The board leader is Net worth $3.5 billion according to forbeswas nominated by the Biden administration in September 2023. management Ukraine's economic recovery from the ongoing war.
Pritzker, a key figure in fundraising for Democratic candidates, is also a close aide to former President Barack Obama, who served as Obama's secretary of commerce from 2013 to 2017.
Her wealth and political connections have kept her in management positions despite her involvement in the 2001 collapse of Superior Bank, which her family co-owned. At the time of the bank's bankruptcy, Pruthikar was a director of the bank's holding company and was responsible for about 1 billion yen in severance. 1,400 depositors lost approximately $15 million According to US News.
Bill Ackman, CEO and founder of Pershing Square Capital, visits the floor of the New York Stock Exchange on November 10, 2015. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
Since then, Mr. Pritzker has continued to enjoy unwarranted leadership opportunities in the public and private sectors, including serving on the board of Microsoft.
Ackman's comments continue to tear apart Harvard's Board of Trustees, which promotes DEI policies that allow gay people to be shunned while damaging the school's academic environment and reputation, prompting calls for his resignation.
Board Chair Penny Pritzker, along with other board members who contributed significantly to the damage, including leading the campaign to keep Claudine Gay, organizing strategies to blackmail the media, and circumventing the plagiarism assessment process. He should resign. Being done. Next, you need to identify new board members who bring true diversity, perspective, and more to your board.
Boards should not be primarily comprised of individuals who share the same politics or views on DEI. New board members must be selected in a transparent process with the support of a 30-member supervisory board. There is no reason why the Harvard University Board of Trustees, consisting of 12 independent trustees, cannot be comprised of some of the most impressive, high-integrity, intellectually and politically diverse members of our nation and the world. We have a lot of talented people, which makes the director's job even more interesting and important. It is no longer an honorable, highly political sin, nor should it have been.
Odive [Office for Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging] should be closed and the staff fired. ODEIB responded to the ideological and We have already removed many of our strategies. Removing portions of the website would not address the bureau’s fundamentally flawed and racist ideology and would further cast doubt on ODEIB’s legitimacy.
Unless ODEIB is doing something fundamentally wrong or indefensible, why would it take down parts of its website when its legitimacy is questioned? Or?
Harvard University strives to be a merit-based university where students can learn in an environment that maximizes diversity and accepts the diverse perspectives of faculty and students, without discriminating against faculty or students based on skin color. Must be again. Truly diverse backgrounds and experiences.
Harvard must create an academic environment of true academic freedom and free speech, where self-censorship, speech control, and cancel culture are forever banished from our campus.
Gay's resignation celebrated Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) questioned the three college presidents during a December 5th Congressional hearing. infamous He declined to say whether it would be permissible to advocate for the genocide of Jews on campus.
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Two down. @Harvard University We know that this long-awaited forced resignation of the anti-Semitic plagiarist president is only the beginning of what will be the biggest scandal in university history.https://t.co/ZJLxrHw1Zd
— Elise Stefanik (@EliseStefanik) January 2, 2024
According to Ackman, “the root cause of anti-Semitism at Harvard is the ideology propagated on campus, the oppressor/oppressed framework, which serves as an intellectual bulwark behind protests and “I came to know that it helped create anti-Israel and anti-Semitism.” -Hate speech and harassment of Jews. ”
He was not satisfied with just Gay's resignation, calling for a complete overhaul of the school's leadership structure.
“Corporate boards should not remain in seats protected by the unusual governance structures that allowed them to gain those seats,” Ackman wrote, noting that board members publicly denied before investigating plagiarism claims.
He also complained that “racism against white people has come to be considered by many to be either not racism or even acceptable racism.”
“This is ridiculous, of course, but this idea has become mainstream in many universities across the country…What can be said about white people today in universities, business, etc. is that the word 'white' is replaced by 'If you are black, you are The consequences will be costly and severe,” Ackman posted.
Harvard University has appointed President Alan Garber, who sat behind Gaye during his controversial congressional testimony, nodding in agreement, as interim president for the time being.
