Billionaire and Harvard graduate Bill Ackman suggested in a social media post that the university’s president landed her job due to the institution’s diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEl) policies.
In addition, he criticized the university’s practice of refusing to consider some applicants based on criteria like race and gender.
Ackman, the CEO of Pershing Square Capital Management, made the allegations on X. He revealed that “someone with first-person knowledge” of Harvard’s hiring process informed him “the committee would not consider a candidate who did not meet the DEI office’s criteria.”
He also said that other top schools have likely done the same thing in recent years. Consequently, Ackman said Harvard hired Claudine Gay because of the DEI initiative instead of the best leaders.
“Shrinking the pool of candidates based on required race, gender, and/or sexual orientation criteria is not the right approach to identifying the best leaders for our most prestigious universities,” Ackman wrote.
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“And it is also not good for those awarded the office of president who find themselves in a role that they would likely not have obtained were it not for a fat finger on the scale.” Ackman’s comments came a day after he publicly called Ivy League presidents to “resign in disgrace.”
The business mogul called out Harvard President Claudine Gay, UPenn President Liz Magill, and MIT President Dr. Sally Kornbluth following their appearances at a House committee hearing on the rise of antisemitism on college campuses.
Ackman called them out for refusing to acknowledge that on-campus antisemitism breached their rules and amounted to harassment. “In short, they said: ‘It depends on the context’ and ‘whether the speech turns into conduct,’ that is, actually killing Jews,” he said in a post on X.
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“This could be the most extraordinary testimony ever elicited in the Congress, certainly on the topic of genocide.” In addition, Ackman said Gay’s answers reflect the “educational, moral, and ethical failures” of educational institutions due to failed leadership.
Aside from Ackman, others criticized the president’s statements. X CEO Elon Musk also called out the Ivy League presidents. “Let me help them out here: ‘Calling for the genocide [death] of anyone obviously constitutes harassment,” Musk said.
Also, Albert Bourla, the CEO of Pfizer, said he was “ashamed” by what he heard the university presidents say. “In my personal opinion, it was one of the most despicable moments in the history of US academia,” Bourla wrote. He also noted that it made him think of his family, who died in the Holocaust.
Even the White House spoke out against the university presidents’ testimony. “It’s unbelievable that this needs to be said,” senior communications adviser and deputy press secretary Andrew Bates said. “Calls for genocide are monstrous and antithetical to everything we represent as a country.”
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Consequently, Gay backtracked on her testimony amid the backlash. She said the university will start to punish calls for genocide. “There are some who have confused a right to free expression with the idea that Harvard will condone calls for violence against Jewish students,” Gay said in a statement on Harvard’s official X account.
Similarly, UPenn president Liz Magill also offered a groveling apology. She blamed UPenn’s policies and even the US Constitution for her words. However, she admitted that calls for the germicide of Jewish people are “evil.”
Despite retracting their statements, Ackman maintains his stance. “We are all shortly going to realize that the DEl era is the McCarthy era Part II,” he warned.
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