Hedge fund billionaire Bill Ackman has continued to criticize his alma-mater Harvard University, accusing the school and its president of turning a blind eye to anti-Semitism on campus in the wake of Hamas' barbaric attack on Israel in October.
On Sunday, Ackman, 57, posted a video of a pro-Palestinian student disrupting a class with a megaphone as he railed about Harvard's apparent role in supporting Israel and chanted, “Liberate free Palestine.”
“This is what you get for $73,600/year at @Harvard,” Ackman wrote in the caption. The founder of Pershing Square Capital Management, who has a net worth of $3.8 billion, graduated from Harvard with a degree in social studies in 1988 and later earned an MBA in 1992.
The schools official rule book prohibits disrupting classes and is “considered an unacceptable interference with the essential processes of the university.”
This weekend saw a crowd of University of Pennsylvania students chanting “intifada,” meaning “insurrection,” in the streets. Ackman also posted that video with the caption: “Stop telling American Jews not to worry.”
The invading protester accused Harvard of being complicit in the “genocide” taking place in Gaza
The school's official regulations prohibit disrupting classes and are “considered an unacceptable interference with the essential processes of the university.”
“This is what you get for $73,600/year at @Harvard,” alumnus Bill Ackman joked while posting the video this weekend
Ackman, who has a net worth of $3.8 billion, graduated from Harvard in 1988 with a degree in social studies
Meanwhile, the Jewish student organization on campus, Harvard Hillel, said in an Instagram post that students were disrupted in classes by protesters calling to “globalize the intifada” and eliminate Israel “from the river to the sea.”
“These calls for genocide and anti-Jewish violence around the world represent anti-Semitic speech and are not protected by the university's community standards,” Hillel's statement said.
Last week, Ackman took aim at Harvard President Claudine Gray for her “failed leadership” and called the decision not to attend an “insult.” Ackman, 57, offered to fly Gay to Washington, D.C., immediately after the documentary screens at Harvard, where she will testify before Congress about the explosion of anti-Semitism at the university.
After posting the video, Ackman posted an open letter to Gray on X. “Years ago, Harvard stopped being a place where all perspectives were welcome. “Harvard is a place where loud, hateful protests seem to be encouraged, but where faculty and students cannot share views that are inconsistent with the accepted narrative on campus,” he wrote in part.
Ackman went on to describe the curriculum as having “the same playbook ideology.” Ideology masquerades as courses.'
Ackman wrote of the current conflict: “It is presented that indigenous peoples need justice and reparations. Jews are presented as white people. It is therefore okay to hate Israel and the Jews because they are considered oppressors.”
Why are the protests only about Israel versus other conflicts in the Middle East and around the world where Palestinians and other civilians were killed? “Israel is the rare case where we have intense conflict between people considered 'white' and people of color,” he added.
Claudine Gay will testify in Congress about anti-Semitic incidents at her university
Ackman is married to the American-Israeli designer Neri Oxman, the couple has one child together
Ackman, who is married to American-Israeli designer Neri Oxman, posted a tweet at the top of his X page describing himself as both “pro-Israel” and “pro-Palestine” but “anti-terrorist.”
The billionaire, son of real estate mogul Lawrence Ackman, has four children, one with Oxman, whom he has been married to since 2019, and three with his first wife, Karen Herskovitz.
Online records show that Ackman has donated primarily to Democratic candidates, including Sen. Richard Blumenthal and Sen. Chuck Schumer.
He was an early supporter of former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg's ill-fated 2020 presidential campaign.
On Thursday, Ackman frowned upon X owner Elon Musk's interview in which he told advertisers leaving his platform to “fuck off.”
“Musk is an absolutist of freedom of speech who I respect. I think he is absolutely right that he and @X are being treated unfairly and inconsistently by advertisers,” he wrote.
Musk has faced a barrage of criticism since agreeing with a user who falsely claimed that Jewish people were stirring up hatred against white people.
Musk said in his post that the user, who referred to the “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory, was speaking “the actual truth.”
On Wednesday, Musk said he had handed “a loaded gun” to opponents and anti-Semitic people alike, describing his post as possibly the worst he had made in a history of posts that included many “silly” messages.
While the New England chapter of the Anti-Defamation League called on Harvard to hold protesters accountable.
“Yesterday's disruption of @Harvarduniv classes with megaphone amplified #antisemitic chants is inconsistent with Harvard President Claudine Gay's description as 'a place of civil behavior and civil discourse,'” the ADL said in a post on X.
“We join @HarvardHillel in demanding accountability through Harvard's Free Speech Guidelines and Codes of Conduct. Harvard has pledged that it will not ignore “anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, acts of intimidation or intimidation, or threats of violence.” Those words call for action.'
Ackman previously threatened to withdraw his funding from the institution in response to Gay's handling of anti-Semitic incidents on campus, which have skyrocketed in the wake of the Hamas attack and subsequent Israeli bombing of Gaza.
On November 4, he wrote to Gay expressing his concerns and revealing that he had met Jewish students who told him they had been spat on, subjected to anti-Semitic taunts and memes and in one case physically abused, which he said was on video recorded.
The clashes between pro-Palestine and pro-Israel supporters led the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights to open an investigation into allegations of anti-Semitism at the school.