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Bill Ackman, who led a campaign to oust Claudine Gay from Harvard University amid concerns over antisemitism on campus and allegations of plagiarism, said the school's board should be removed over its support for the embattled ex-president.
"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," Ackman wrote in a more than 4,000 word post on X. "New Corporation board members should be identified who bring true diversity, viewpoint and otherwise, to the board."
The billionaire investor has delivered near-daily criticisms of Harvard and Gay since more than 30 student groups at the university signed a letter blaming Israel for Hamas's Oct. 7 attack on the nation. Gay sought to quell the controversy, but it escalated as protests proliferated and reports of antisemitic incidents were highlighted on social media. The furor reached a fever-pitch after Gay appeared before congress with other university heads and refused to say that calls for genocide against Jews were a violation of university policy.
Ackman also hammered Gay over the plagiarism allegations and suggested that she was chosen to be president because of DEI initiatives. That accusation led to criticism that he'd gone too far in questioning her credentials.
"To turn the question to the legitimacy of President Gay's selection because she is a Black woman is a dog whistle we have heard before: Black and female equal not qualified. We must call it out," David Thomas, president of Morehouse College and Ackman's former professor at Harvard Business School, said at the time.
Ackman wrote in his Jan. 3 post that what began as his own investigation into antisemitism on Harvard's campus turned into a revelation that the school's Diversity, Equity and Inclusion movement was the "root cause" of the anti-Jewish sentiment. That was due to its "oppressor/oppressed framework" that he described as a "fundamentally racist ideology that will likely lead to more racism rather than less."
He condemned the Harvard Corp., which included ex-Commerce secretary Pritzker, former American Express Co. head Ken Chenault, and investor Timothy Barakett, among others, for "inadequate due diligence" of Gay's academic record and failing "to create a discrimination-free environment on campus" that has exposed the school to potential legal and financial liabilities. Harvard is under investigation by the House Committee on Education and the Department of Education for an alleged violation of Title VI.
Harvard didn't have an immediate response to Ackman's comments, but the Harvard Crimson, citing a university spokesman, reported that Pritzker has no plans to quit.
Gay resigned on Tuesday after fresh allegations were raised over her scholarship, though she will remain a member of the faculty. The Harvard board said it had become aware in October of allegations of plagiarism regarding three articles written by Gay. After a review of her published work, it found "a few instances of inadequate citation" but no violation of Harvard's standards on research misconduct.
Ackman said a new board should be chosen in a transparent process and "comprised of the most impressive, high integrity, intellectually and politically diverse members of our country and globe."
Ackman also said that Harvard's Office of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging should be shut and its staff fired.
"Harvard must once again become a meritocratic institution which does not discriminate for or against faculty or students based on their skin color, and where diversity is understood in its broadest form so that students can learn in an environment which welcomes diverse viewpoints from faculty and students from truly diverse backgrounds and experiences."
Diversity initiatives at both the academic and corporate level have come under increasing attack as part of a broader conservative-led movement against what some Republican politicians have dubbed "woke capitalism" - policies focused on topics such as diversity, climate change and worker rights.
Since the US Supreme Court's June decision to outlaw race-conscious college admissions, some company DEI programs - many of which were launched after the 2020 murder of George Floyd - have also been scaled back as conservative activists launch legal challenges against tools used to recruit from underrepresented groups such as women of color.
Ackman, meanwhile, hasn't ended his campaign against Gay, tweeting that she shouldn't remain a member of the faculty.