Penny Pritzker, a senior fellow at Harvard University, will remain in her post for the time being amid calls for her removal following Claudine Gay's immediate resignation as Harvard president on Tuesday.
Pritzker, who has led the Ivy League school corporation since February 2022, will remain in his role as Harvard's communications director. He told the student-run Crimson Wednesday.Despite the backlash to the controversy that has surrounded the elite school and its leaders since the October 7 attack on Israel.
The corporation, which is similar to other university boards, has been in the midst of weeks of controversy, including heavy criticism of her statements in Congress last month addressing anti-Semitism and questions about the integrity of her academic record. , supported gay people.
After Mr. Gay's resignation, anger quickly turned to Harvard University and Mr. Pritzker, who also served as Commerce Secretary under President Obama.
Mr. Pritzker's brother is Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, who chaired the search committee that selected Mr. Gay to replace Lawrence Bacow when he resigned last June. According to The Crimson, she is expected to join the search for a new permanent president.
Harvard University did not immediately return an email Wednesday night.
Bill Ackman, the billionaire Harvard graduate who led the charge against gay firings, posted a 4,000-word essay to X early Wednesday morning that also touched on the university's DEI mission, prompting Pritzker and the rest of the board to resign. asked to do so.
“Penny Pritzker, chair of the board, contributed significantly to societal harm, including by leading the campaign to keep Claudine Gay, orchestrating strategies to intimidate the media, and bypassing the process to assess plagiarism.” He should resign along with the rest of the board. It's done,” Ackman said.
“These are the minimum changes necessary to begin repairing the damage that has been done,” he added.
Peter Malkin, a Harvard University donor and namesake of the Malkin Athletic Center, wants corporate members involved in hiring gays to resign.
“I think the Corporation's relatively hasty actions in the search process demonstrate that a thorough consideration has not been made of the qualified candidates that are out there,” Malkin said. Ta. I told Crimson.
Kenneth Lipper, another major donor, urged the university to reflect on what went wrong during Gay's tenure as president.
“When we suffer great loss, we must analyze its causes, repair what can be repaired, and accelerate to a new stage of performance that reflects 300 years of academic achievement and national leadership history. “It has to be,” Ripper said.
Frank Laukin, a visiting chemist at Harvard University, cited Pritzker as the problem. told the New York Times She should “take accountability and resign immediately.”
In an email to the paper, Raukine added: “We need new, independent members of Harvard who are untainted by recent events and failures and who are not tied to long-standing cronyism at the top of Harvard.”
Mr. Pritzker is a 1981 Harvard graduate. Appointed to the Board of Directors in 2018 before she was promoted to senior fellow. Months before her appointment, she donated $100 million to the university toward the construction of a new economics department. The Boston Globe reported.
Pritzker's net worth is estimated to be more than $3 billion, with much of his family's wealth coming from the Hyatt hotel chain. According to Forbes magazine.
The same business media named her one of the world's most powerful women in 2009.
