Billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman has accused Harvard of hiring president Claudine Gay solely because of her Diversity, Equity and Inclusion initiative — instead of “identifying the best leaders for our prestigious university.”
The 57-year-old, who has made a name for himself by publicly announcing that he would refuse to hire students who express anti-Israel views, made the claim while criticizing Gay — as well as the presidents of the University of Pennsylvania and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology — for refusing to denounce the call massacre on their campus at a congressional hearing.
“I learned from someone with first-hand knowledge of Harvard’s presidential search that the committee will not consider candidates who do not meet the criteria for the DEI office,” Ackman wrote in a post on X Thursday the university president, who is black.
“The same may be true for other elite universities conducting searches at the same time, creating a more limited universe of presidential candidates eligible for DEI.
“Narrowing the pool of candidates based on the requisite criteria of race, gender and/or sexual orientation is not the right approach to identifying the best leaders for our most prestigious university,” Ackman said.
“And it’s also not good for those who are awarded the presidency who find themselves in roles they might not have gotten if it weren’t for a fat finger on the scale.”
Billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman accused Harvard of hiring president Claudine Gay because of her DEI initiative. Reuters
Ackman went on to say he had “been called out for my tweets over the past few weeks” calling out antisemitism at the college.
“The same can be said for them [who] calling [former Sen.] Joseph McCarthy during the Red Scare,” he claimed.
“I don’t think it will be long before we look back on the last few years of suppression of free speech and repeated career-ending accusations of racism against those who question the DEI movement.
“We will soon realize that the DEI era is the McCarthy Part II era,” Ackman warned.
“History rhymes, but it doesn’t repeat itself.”
The Post has reached out to Harvard and Gay University for comment.
Ackman made the claim as he blasted Gay — as well as the presidents of the University of Pennsylvania and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology — for refusing to denounce calls for genocide on their campuses at congressional hearings. Reuters
Ackman previously called on Gay, as well as Penn president Liz Magill and MIT president Sally Kornbluth, to “resign in disgrace” from their positions after they refused to call out antisemitic protests that have taken place on their campuses during congressional hearings.
“In short, they say: It ‘depends on the context’ and ‘whether the speech turns into behavior,’ that is, actually killing Jews,” he said in a post on X.
“This may be the most extraordinary testimony ever elicited in Congress, certainly on the topic of genocide, which reminds us all of this: ‘the deliberate killing of a large number of people of a particular nation or ethnic group with the intent to destroy that nation or group. ,’” Ackman wrote.
“The president’s response reflects the profound educational, moral and ethical failure that has plagued some of our elite educational institutions largely due to their failed leadership,” he continued.
The Post has reached out to Harvard University and Claudine Gay for comment on Ackman’s allegations. @RepStefanik / X
“They must all resign in disgrace,” he said, adding: “If a CEO of one of our companies gave the same answer, he would be toast in an hour.
“To think that they are the leaders of an Ivy League institution charged with the responsibility of educating our best and brightest,” he said.
Ackman later reposting Elon Musk’s answerwhich read: “Let me help them out here: ‘Calling for genocide [death] anyone is clearly a nuisance.’”
In another post shared by Ackman, Albert Bourla, CEO of Pfizer, said he was “embarrassed” by what he heard from the university’s president.
“In my personal opinion, it was one of the most heinous moments in US academic history,” Bourla wrotenoting that it made him think of his family who died in the Holocaust.
Ackman previously called on Gay, as well as Penn president Liz Magill and MIT president Sally Kornbluth, to “resign in disgrace.” @BillAckman / X
“Memories of my father’s parents, Abraham and Rachel Bourla, his brother David and his sister Graciela, who all died in Auschwitz, come to mind.
“I wonder if their deaths will provide sufficient ‘context’ for this president to condemn Nazi antisemitic propaganda.”
Even the White House spoke out against the university president’s testimony.
“It’s unbelievable that this needs to be said: calls for genocide are terrible and against everything we stand for as a country,” senior communications adviser and deputy press secretary Andrew Bates said in a statement.
Amid the backlash, Gay retracted his own testimony saying the university would begin punishing calls for genocide.
“There are some people who confuse the right to free speech with the idea that Harvard would condone calls for violence against Jewish students,” Gay said said in a statement on Harvard’s official X account on Wednesday.
Amid the backlash, Gay retracted his own testimony to Congress saying Harvard would begin punishing calls for genocide. AP
“Let me be clear: Calls for violence or genocide against the Jewish community, or any religious or ethnic group are abhorrent, they have no place at Harvard, and those who threaten our Jewish students will be held accountable.”
Magill also offered a confusing apology in which he appeared to blame Penn’s policies as well as the US Constitution.
“There was a moment during yesterday’s Congressional hearing on antisemitism when I was asked whether calling for the genocide of Jews on our campus would violate our policy,” Magill began the two-minute video Wednesday.
“At that point, I was focused on a long-standing university policy — in line with the US Constitution — that says that speech alone should not be punished.
“I’m not focusing on – but I should be – the undeniable fact that the call for the genocide of the Jews is a call for some of the most terrible violence that humanity can do.
“It’s evil, plain and simple,” he said.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
