Harvard alum Bill Ackman calls for resignation of board members who supported Claudine Gay

Influential Harvard alum Bill Ackman is calling for the resignation of the university's board members who supported keeping the school’s embattled former President Claudine Gay in her position, arguing their departure is necessary 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 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."

Ackman, the CEO of Pershing Square Capital Management, received both his bachelor’s degree and MBA from Harvard and has been a major donor to the institution.

BILLIONAIRE HARVARD ALUM BILL ACKMAN IS NOT DONE PUSHING FOR CHANGES AFTER PRESIDENT'S RESIGNATION

In his lengthy post, Ackman said he "first became concerned" about Harvard after 34 student organizations signed a statement issued by the Harvard Palestine Solidarity Groups that began by blaming the "Israeli regime" for "all the unfolding violence" in the hours after the Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel on Oct. 7.

He said that after conducting his own research into what was happening at Harvard, he "ultimately concluded that antisemitism was not the core of the problem, it was simply a troubling warning sign – it was the 'canary in the coal mine.'" 

Ackman argued Harvard's diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies are at the root of the school's problems.

"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."

BILLIONAIRE AND HARVARD GRAD BILL ACKMAN SUGGESTS HARVARD PRESIDENT WAS A DEI PICK

He went on to provide his take on what DEI policies have come to mean and the impact they have had in the U.S., before arguing "the DEI movement is an important contributor to our growing divisiveness."

"In summary, there is a lot more work to be done to fix Harvard than just replacing its president," Ackman wrote. "That said, the selection of Harvard’s next president is a critically important task, and the individuals principally responsible for that decision do not have a good track record for doing so based on their recent history, nor have they done a good job managing the other problems which I have identified above."

Ackman led calls for Gay, University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill and MIT President Sally Kornbluth to "resign in disgrace" following their disastrous appearances at a House committee hearing on the rise of antisemitism on college campuses last month, when all three refused to say that calling for the genocide of Jews on their respective campuses breached their rules and amounted to harassment.

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Magill resigned days after her testimony. After Gay tendered her resignation Tuesday, Ackman suggested it is time for Kornbluth to step down, too.