Bill Ackman shifts aim to MIT head Sally Kornbluth—and DEI

The activist investor behind hedge fund Pershing Square has waged a campaign against leadership at his alma mater, Harvard, in the wake of the Oct. 7th terrorist attack by Hamas. Ackman has also pushed for the removal of leading figures at two other elite universities which have been accused of tolerating hate speech against Jews—an allegation the universities vehemently deny.

Upon learning that that Gay stepped down only six months into the job, Ackman took to social media to name his next target: Sally Kornbluth, the president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Harvard’s cross-town rival.

“Et tu Sally?” he wrote just a half hour after Harvard University newspaper The Crimson broke the news of Gay resigning on Jan. 2.

Gay, Kornbluth and the University of Pennsylvania’s Liz Magill all made national headlines following their testimony to Congress on Dec. 5, during which they fumbled answers on the policing of antisemitic hate speech on campus. 

The trio were criticized for being overly bureaucratic, after Gay said calls for the genocide of Jews would only violate university guidelines depending on their context. Critics argued this was a clear double standard that would not have been tolerated in the case of other ethnic or religious minorities.

I am not right wing. I operate only in good faith, and am I am not a bully. I just pay attention to the facts and see where they take me. And Harvard didn’t roll over if you have been paying attention. She had the board’s publicly stated unanimous support only two or so weeks…

— Bill Ackman (@BillAckman) January 3, 2024

Liz Magill, head of the University of Pennsylvania, was the first to fall once their testimony went viral on social media, thanks in part to a…