Required Reading: Bill Ackman's Long Post Condemning Harvard's Lack of Standards and Support of DEI Brainwashing

[Note: In the wee hours of Wednesday morning, Pershing Square CEO Bill Ackman, who led the campaign to oust Claudine Gay from the presidency at Harvard, posted a long tweet slamming the University and its board of governors for the protection racket the formed to protect Gay in the wake of her despicable congressional testimony in December. Ackman’s tweet makes it clear that his campaign to deprive Harvard of billions of dollars in future funding will not relent until the full board resigns and the University’s DEI office is eliminated. Give it a read - it’s great stuff.]

Text:

In light of today’s news, I thought I would try to take a step back and provide perspective on what this is really all about.

I first became concerned about Harvard when 34 Harvard student organizations, early on the morning of October 8th before Israel had taken any military actions in Gaza, came out publicly in support of Hamas, a globally recognized terrorist organization, holding Israel ‘solely responsible’ for Hamas’ barbaric and heinous acts.

How could this be? I wondered.

When I saw President Gay’s initial statement about the massacre, it provided more context (!) for the student groups’ statement of support for terrorism. The protests began as pro-Palestine and then became anti-Israel. Shortly, thereafter, antisemitism exploded on campus as protesters who violated Harvard’s own codes of conduct were emboldened by the lack of enforcement of Harvard’s rules, and kept testing the limits on how aggressive, intimidating, and disruptive they could be to Jewish and Israeli students, and the student body at large. Sadly, antisemitism remains a simmering source of hate even at our best universities among a subset of students.

A few weeks later, I went up to campus to see things with my own eyes, and listen and learn from students and faculty. I met with 15 or so members of the faculty and a few hundred students in small and large settings, and a clearer picture began to emerge.

I 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” – despite how destructive it was in impacting student life and learning on campus.