Once it became official, the Harvard graduate turned his attention to the other two university presidents who struggled to condemn calling for the genocide of Jews when testifying before Congress last week.
He wrote a letter to his alma mater’s governing board Sunday, reiterating his calls to remove Claudine Gay as president and fired off a tweet warning the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s boards that if they didn’t take action, he could send them a missive next. Harvard decided against removing Gay, it said Tuesday.
Within days of Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel, Ackman became one of the most vociferous wealthy donors criticizing their alma maters’ handling of antisemitism, using tactics he honed as a shareholder activist—an investing strategy he no longer practices.
He has remade himself as a social crusader and landed a starring role in a roiling debate over free speech and diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives on college campuses through a torrent of tweets and open letters to Harvard that have become increasingly hostile.
“When I started out, this was all about antisemitism,” he told The Wall Street Journal on Monday evening. “The much bigger issue is this ideology on campuses…that has led to free speech being squelched.”