Billionaire Bill Ackman said Saturday that even if Harvard University President Claudine Gay resigns over her plagiarism and antisemitism controversy, the Ivy League school’s damaged reputation will not be restored.
Ackman, an alumnus, said that Harvard can only restore its reputation as one of the world’s leading universities “when the members of the Corporation’s board admit that they made bad choices of leaders, which they did not want to do.” he wrote in a long X note.
Gay faces increasing calls to step down because of mounting evidence that he plagiarized dozens of times in his academic work — and as Harvard faces criticism over its handling of a wave of antisemitism on campus after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel.
Until now, the Harvard Corporation, the school’s highest governing body, has steadfastly defended its president with unanimous support.
“By waiting for President Gay to resign, board members can temporarily deny responsibility and avoid the inevitable accusations of racism, but they dig deeper into the whole. [sic] for themselves,” the hedge fund manager continued.
Hedge fund manager and Harvard alumnus Bill Ackman said Gay’s resignation from the school was not enough to repair his reputation. Reuters
“When your CEO has done something indefensible, you must take immediate action to replace him. If you don’t, you will be guilty of what was initially just a failure,” Ackman wrote.
“They need to act now.”
The Post has reached out to Gay’s office for comment.
Ackman, who is of Jewish descent, called for Gay’s firing earlier this month — along with former University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill and MIT President Sally Kornbluth — after they testified before Congress about antisemitic protests on their campuses.
Magill and UPenn Board of Trustees Chairman Scott Bok resigned on Dec. 9 after donors revolted over his testimony.
Harvard President Claudine Gay faces allegations of plagiarism and backlash for handling antisemitic behavior on campus after Hamas’s surprise attack on Israel on Oct. 7. Reuters
He later said Harvard refused to remove Gay as president because firing him “looked like they were bowing to me.”
This week, an internal investigation into Gay revealed more than 40 allegations that he plagiarized the work of others in his 1997 doctoral thesis and four other papers published between 1993 and 2017.
Harvard is being investigated by the House Committee on Education and the Workforce over the Department of Education’s handling of antisemitism under Title VI, the law that prohibits discrimination based on race, religion or national origin in institutions that receive federal funding.
The committee on Wednesday announced an investigation into how the school handled plagiarism allegations against Gay — and the university has stood by it.
Claudine Gay testified before Congress regarding alleged antisemitic incidents on campus. Getty Images
Harvard’s early admissions applications have plunged 17% amid controversy.
“Every hour of inaction continues to damage the institutions to which they have a fiduciary responsibility,” Ackman wrote on Saturday. “The board’s actions and inactions thus far are untenable given their fiduciary responsibilities to Harvard, the faculty, the student body, the alumni community and other community stakeholders.”
Ackman has been a leading figure in the fight against antisemitism in the US since the start of the Israel-Hamas war, calling for the release of the names of Harvard students who blamed Israel for the attack and the suspension of the Harvard student newspaper editor.
In November, he called for the editor of the Harvard Law Review to be disciplined after he was caught on video blocking the path of an alleged Israel supporter during a demonstration.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
