Bill Ackman is now calling on Harvard to issue suspensions and disciplinary actions for both antisemitic and pro-Palestinian actions on campus
Bill Ackman called on Harvard to issue suspensions and ramp up disciplinary action in a letter to the university’s president on Saturday.
Brian Snyder/Reuters
Billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman is calling for suspensions and stronger disciplinary action at Harvard in the latest escalation of his campaign against what he describes as ‘”antisemitism” at his alma mater.
Ackman said that after meeting with students at the university last week, he believes the climate at Harvard is “dire and getting worse” with several Jewish students “being bullied, physically intimidated, spat on” and in some cases, “physically assaulted,” in a more than 3,000-word letter he sent to Harvard president Claudine Gay on Saturday, and reposted to X on Saturday night.
He also pointed to student Slack message boards being “replete with antisemitic statements, memes, and images.”
He also cited as a problem pro-Palestinian protesters on campus who chanted, “Intifada! Intifada! Intifada! From the River to the Sea, Palestine Shall Be Free!” “Intifada” is a reference to previous Palestinian uprisings in Gaza, which is surrounded by Israeli and Egyptian military forces that have for decades controlled who —and what — can come and go from the tiny sliver of land.
Ackman earlier called on the university to publicly release the names of the students who had signed a letter critical of Israel in the days following Hamas’ terrorist attacks on October 7 to ensure that CEO’s wouldn’t “inadvertently hire” them.
In his latest missive, Ackman urged Gay to take immediate action to address the outburst of activities critical of Israel on campus, noting that her initial “failure to condemn” Hamas’ October 7 terrorist attacks on Israel had “opened the door for a wave of anti-Israel attacks on campus that have led to a growing number of antisemitic protests and actions.”
Until recently, Harvard was “an extremely comfortable place to be Jewish and/or Israeli,” Ackman wrote, noting that his daughter, who graduated from the university in 2020, said that antisemitism was “nonexistent” during her time on campus.
Ackman outlined seven steps for Gay’s administration in his letter that included immediately suspending the students who had verbally and physically assaulted an Israeli student in his first year at Harvard Business School. He called for the protesters chanting “Intifada” to be subject to disciplinary action and for the university to review its Slack message boards and refer students who made anti-Israel or pro-Palestinian remarks for disciplinary action.
He urged the university to “publicly reach out” to students to gather and investigate any examples of antisemitic acts — and take disciplinary action if necessary.
Ackman also asked for a task force to be created to review the actions of Harvard’s Office of Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging and to publicize the results to better understand “the source” of antisemitism at the university.
Finally, he called on Gay to make clear that Harvard’s commitment to free speech does not extend to “certain kinds of hate speech” or “fighting words” that incite violence, adding that she should form a task force to understand free speech at Harvard and why it consistently ranks in the bottom of The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) Annual College Free Speech Rankings.
While Gay has rejected Ackman’s request to publish the names of the students who signed the letter, she has issued multiple statements condemning the attacks in the past several weeks, calling them “barbaric atrocities perpetrated by Hamas” in a video address on October 12.
“I want to make one thing absolutely clear: Antisemitism has no place at Harvard,” Gay said in her latest comments, made at Harvard Hillel, a community for Jewish life at Harvard, on October 27.
“As President, I am committed to tackling this pernicious hatred with the urgency it demands. Antisemitism has a very long and shameful history at Harvard. For years, this University has done too little to confront its continuing presence. No longer,” she added, noting that she had assembled a group of advisors, including faculty, staff, alumni, and religious leaders from the Jewish community, to serve as a guide moving forward.
Gay, who assumed her role as Harvard’s president at the end of September — a little over a week before Hamas’s terrorist attacks — is the first person of color and second woman to serve as Harvard’s president, according to the Harvard Crimson.
Ackman and Gay did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for a comment, made outside normal working hours.