Billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman accused Harvard of hiring President Claudine Gay solely for its Diversity, Equity and Inclusion initiative, rather than “identifying the best leaders for our prestigious universities.”
The 57-year-old, who has made a name for himself by publicly announcing that he would refuse to hire students who express anti-Israel views, made the claim while criticizing Gay, as well as the presidents of the University of Pennsylvania and the Institute of Technology. Massachusetts, for refusing to condemn calls for genocide on its campuses in a congressional hearing.
“I learned from someone with first-hand knowledge of the Harvard president search that the committee would not consider a candidate who did not meet the DEI office’s criteria.” Ackman wrote in a post on Thursday X. of the university president, who is black.
“The same likely occurred with other elite universities that conducted searches at the same time, creating an even more limited universe of DEI-eligible presidential candidates.
“Narrowing the pool of candidates based on the required criteria of race, gender, and/or sexual orientation is not the right approach to identifying the best leaders for our most prestigious universities,” Ackman argued.
“And it’s also not good for those who get the job of president and find themselves in a position they probably wouldn’t have gotten if it weren’t for a big toe on the scale.”
Billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman accused Harvard of hiring President Claudine Gay because of its DEI initiative. REUTERS
Ackman went on to say that he “has been called brave for my tweets in recent weeks” denouncing anti-Semitism on campuses.
“The same could be said of those [who] shout [former Sen.] Joseph McCarthy during the Red Scare,” he said.
“I don’t think it will be long before we look back on the last few years of suppression of free speech and the repeated, career-ending accusations of racism against those who questioned the DEI movement.
“We will soon realize that the DEI era is the second part of the McCarthy era,” Ackman warned.
“History rhymes, but it does not repeat itself.”
The Post has contacted Harvard University and Gay for comment.
Ackman made this claim while criticizing Gay – as well as the presidents of the University of Pennsylvania and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology – for refusing to condemn calls for genocide on their campuses in a congressional hearing. REUTERS
Ackman had previously called on Gay, as well as Penn President Liz Magill and MIT President Sally Kornbluth, to “resign in disgrace” from their positions after they refused to denounce anti-Semitic protests that took place in their campuses during a congressional hearing.
“In short, they said, ‘it depends on the context’ and ‘whether speech turns into behavior,’ meaning actually killing Jews,” he said. said in a post on X.
“This might be the most extraordinary testimony ever obtained in Congress, certainly on the topic of genocide, which to remind us all is: ‘the deliberate killing of a large number of people of a particular nation or ethnic group for the purpose of destroy that nation or group,’” Ackman wrote.
“The presidents’ responses reflect the profound educational, moral, and ethical failures prevalent at some of our elite educational institutions, due in large part to their failed leadership,” he continued.
The Post contacted Harvard University and Claudine Gay for comment on Ackman’s allegations. @RepStefanik /X
“Everyone must resign in disgrace,” he said, adding: “If a CEO of one of our companies gave a similar response, he would be finished within the hour.
“To think that these are the leaders of Ivy League institutions who have the responsibility of educating the best and the brightest,” he said.
Ackman later reposted Elon Musk’s responsewhich said: “Let me help you here: ‘Calling for genocide [death] of someone obviously constitutes harassment.’”
In another post Ackman shared, Albert Bourla, CEO of Pfizer, said he was “embarrassed” by what he heard university presidents say.
“In my personal opinion, it was one of the most despicable moments in the history of American academia.” Bourla wrotenoting that it made him think of his family who died in the Holocaust.
Ackman had previously called on Gay, as well as Penn President Liz Magill and MIT President Sally Kornbluth, to “resign in disgrace.” @BillAckman /X
“Memories of my father’s parents, Abraham and Rachel Bourla, his brother David and his little sister Graciela, who died in Auschwitz, come to mind.
“I wondered if their deaths would have provided enough ‘context’ for these presidents to condemn the Nazis’ anti-Semitic propaganda.”
Even the White House spoke out against the testimony of the university presidents.
“It is incredible that this needs to be said: calls for genocide are monstrous and antithetical to everything we stand for as a country,” senior communications adviser and deputy press secretary Andrew Bates said in a statement.
Amid the backlash, Gay walked back his own testimony and said the university will begin punishing calls for genocide.
“There are those who have confused the right to free speech with the idea that Harvard will tolerate calls for violence against Jewish students,” Gay said. said in a statement on Harvard’s official X account on Wednesday.
Amid the backlash, Gay walked back his own congressional testimony, saying Harvard will begin punishing calls for genocide. AP
“Let me be clear: calls for violence or genocide against the Jewish community, or any religious or ethnic group, are vile, have no place at Harvard, and those who threaten our Jewish students will be held accountable.”
Magill also offered a humiliating apology in which he appeared to blame Penn’s policies and even the US Constitution.
“There was a moment during yesterday’s congressional hearing on anti-Semitism when I was asked if a call for the genocide of the Jewish people on our campus would violate our policies,” Magill began in Wednesday’s two-minute video.
“At that time, I focused on the university’s long-standing policies, aligned with the United States Constitution, which say that speech alone is not punishable.
“I did not focus, but should have, on the irrefutable fact that a call for the genocide of the Jewish people is a call for some of the most terrible violence that human beings can perpetrate.
“It’s evil, plain and simple,” he said.
Categories: Trending
Source: vtt.edu.vn