Billionaire Harvard alum Bill Ackman, who was a driving force behind the push for the ousting of former Harvard President Claudine Gay, is pushing even harder.
This time he's suggesting that the university board members who supported Gay should resign their positions as well in order to "restore the institution's reputation."
"The Corporation Board should not remain in their seats protected by the unusual governance structure which enabled them to obtain their seats," Ackman wrote Tuesday in a 4,000-word post on X, following Claudine Gay's resignation.
"The Board Chair, Penny Pritzker, should resign along with the other members of the board who led the campaign to keep Claudine Gay, orchestrated the strategy to threaten the media, bypassed the process for evaluating plagiarism, and otherwise greatly contributed to the damage that has been done," the hedge fund billionaire continued. "Then new Corporation board members should be identified who bring true diversity, viewpoint and otherwise, to the board."
The CEO of Pershing Square Capital Management received his bachelor's and MBA from Harvard. He has also donated to the institution handsomely over the years.
The Harvard leadership upheaval began when 34 student organizations signed a statement issued by the Harvard Palestine Solidarity Groups that blamed Israel's ongoing practice of apartheid in Gaza and the West Bank as the reason for the violence that unfolded on October 7.
Ackman, whose only true influence over Harvard is financial, said he would do his "own research" into the situation and later admitted that antisemitism was not at the root of the problem, but an indicator of something greater. He then alluded that Harvard's current diversity, equity and inclusion policies are the real issue.
"The more I learned, the more concerned I became, and the more ignorant I realized I had been about DEI, a powerful movement that has not only pervaded Harvard, but the educational system at large," he wrote. "I came to understand that Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion was not what I had naively thought these words meant."
What Is Ackman's Background?
Ackman was a leading voice for calls to remove the former Harvard president, as well as University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill and MIT President Sally Kornbluth to resign following appearances at a House committee hearing on the rise of antisemitism at college campuses. Magill resigned her position not long after her appearance before the committee.
MSNBC host and founder of the National Action Network Rev. Al Sharpton recently announced his organization would picket the office of Bill Ackman due to his actions in pressuring Claudine Gay to resign.
Sharpton asserted in a statement that Gay stepped down as a "result of Bill Ackman's relentless campaign against" her, "not because of her leadership or credentials but because he felt she was a DEI hire."
