Billionaire Bill Ackman has blasted Harvard’s policy on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in a new online essay, which argues that it is “the root cause of antisemitism” at the prestigious institution.
The Pershing Square CEO and Havard alumnus posted a 4,000 missive on X on Tuesday, in which he called for an overhaul of the university’s board.
It comes shortly after Harvard president Claudine Gay resigned in the wake of a string of plagiarism accusations and the high-profile antisemitism row on the Ivy League campus.
Mr Ackman had previously been a vocal critic of Dr Gay’s leadership, having recently called for her and two other university presidents to “resign in disgrace”.
In his lengthy post on X on Tuesday – hours after Ms Gay’s resignation – the 57-year-old hedge fund manager claimed that Havard’s “DEI is racist”.
“The E for ‘equity’ in DEI is about equality of outcome, not equality of opportunity,” he said.
“DEI is racist because reverse racism is racism, even if it is against white people (and it is remarkable that I even need to point this out).
“Under DEI, one’s degree of oppression is determined based upon where one resides on a so-called intersectional pyramid of oppression where whites, Jews and Asians are deemed oppressors, and a subset of people of color, LGBTQ people and/or women are deemed to be oppressed.”
Mr Ackman also claimed that under “DEI ideology... there is no such thing as being ‘non racist.’”
“Any policy, program, educational system, economic system, grading system, admission policy, (and even climate change due its disparate impact on geographies and the people that live there), etc. that leads to unequal outcomes among people of different skin colors is deemed racist,” he said.
“As a result, according to DEI, capitalism is racist, Advanced Placement exams are racist, IQ tests are racist, corporations are racist, or in other words, any merit-based program, system or organization which has or generates outcomes for different races that are at variance with the proportion these different races represent in the population at large is by definition racist under DEI’s ideology.”
He continued: “All of the above said, it is one thing to give disadvantaged people the opportunities and resources so that they can help themselves. It is another to select a candidate for admission or for a leadership role when they are not qualified to serve in that role.
The Pershing Square CEO posted a 4,000 missive on X on Tuesday, in which he called for an overhaul of the university’s board— (Photo by Bryan Bedder/Getty Images for The New York Times )
“This appears to have been the case with former President Gay’s selection.”
Dr Gay, Harvard’s first Black president, quit just six months and two days into the job. Her period in charge of the university, which was founded in September 1636, is the shortest in its illustrious history.
The announcement came following her disastrous appearance before Congress on 5 December to defend the university’s response to antisemitism following the 7 October Hamas attack on Israel and the country’s military response in Gaza.
Dr Gay has also been hit by around 40 accusations of plagiarism accusations, the latest of which was reported by The Washington Free Beacon on Monday.
Despite this, she was given a vote of confidence from Harvard’s Corporation, the university’s governing body, on 12 December. Following her resignation it was announced she would resume her faculty position at the university.
Mr Ackman concluded his X post on Tuesday by criticising the board members who had backed Dr Gay and also calling for their resignations.
“These are the minimum changes necessary to begin to repair the damage that has been done,” he said.
