According to the Wall Street Journal, Harvard University's endowment administrators are responding to President Claudine Gay's resignation and what many see as the university's weak response to anti-Semitism on campus. The company is said to be trying to save face for several venture capital firms.
Donors have begun withdrawing funds from the university and investing money in the university over its response to allegations of anti-Semitism on campus following the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack on Israel. Venture capital executives have expressed similar concerns, the Journal reported. Executives at Harvard Management Company (HMC), which oversees more than $50 billion in endowment funds, met last week with several concerned Silicon Valley venture capital investors, including Sequoia Capital, Kleiner Perkins and Andreessen Horowitz. did. according to In WSJ. (Related: Claudine Gay had a history of being part of Harvard's diversity bureaucracy before becoming president)
Paul Finnegan, the foundation's chairman and a member of Harvard's top governing board, attended part of the meeting, which is unusual, according to the Journal. In several meetings, Finnegan spoke about how some feel the school's diversity, equity and inclusion program goes too far and that some professors feel they lack academic freedom. He said he was aware of the situation, but also insisted the university was considering whether to make any changes.
People entering and exiting Harvard Yard at the gates of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, December 12, 2023 (Photo: JOSEPH PREZIOSO/AFP, Getty Images)
“HMC is fortunate to have strong, long-standing relationships with many investment managers who care deeply about higher education,” Patrick McKiernan, a spokesman for the Harvard University Endowments, told the Journal. Ta. “It is important that we engage with our partners and share all the ways Harvard is actively working to keep students safe and protect free speech.”
The university's endowment has grown an average of 8.2% annually over the past 10 fiscal years and 9.1% over the past five fiscal years, according to the Journal. These rates are his second-worst record among similar schools during that period.
Professor Gay resigned on January 2 after facing numerous plagiarism allegations and refusing to say during a December 5 Congressional hearing whether calling for the genocide of Jews violated the university's code of conduct. University of Pennsylvania President Liz McGill and Massachusetts Institute of Technology President Sally Kornbluth also evaded questions about the matter, and McGill resigned on December 9.
Harvard University did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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