Billionaire hedge fund CEO and Harvard graduate Bill Ackman called for an investigation of the school's governing board after it allegedly threatened whistleblowers and media outlets if they published plagiarism accusations against President Claudine Gay.
Gay, who during a congressional hearing last month refused to say that on-campus calls for the genocide of Jews violated the school's code of conduct, also has been accused of plagiarism.
The Harvard Corporate Board has supported Gay, saying in a Dec. 12 statement she "is the right leader to help our community heal and to address the very serious societal issues we are facing," Business Insider reported.
Ackman, however, on Dec. 24 said sources told him that Gay refused to resign.
On Monday, he shared a whistleblower complaint against Gay alleging six new examples of plagiarism that pushed the total number of accusations near 50. The complaint was published by The Washington Free Beacon.
"The whistleblower raises serious issues about how the initial investigation into Gay's work was conducted," Ackman posted on X.
"The whistleblower levels credible accusations against the @Harvard governing board in its apparent attempt to quash the initial inquiry into her work and its summarial dismissal of the allegations, relying on a still undisclosed three-person panel of 'experts' who assessed Gay's work outside of the normal process for such investigations.
"The coverup is often worse than the crime."
Ackman, labeling the situation "Gaygate," added that the "media must dig deeper here."
Ackman, founder of Pershing Square Capital Management, then continued his criticism of the Harvard Corporation Board, which has been accused of threatening media outlets with lawsuits if they published whistleblower allegations.
"We now know that the @Harvard Corporation Board sought to quash a legitimate whistleblower inquiry into President Gay's work by threatening the media with litigation if they published the whistleblower's allegations, which the Board said were demonstrably false, but in fact were entirely true," Ackman posted on X.
"It also appears that the Board's 'investigation' of Gay's plagiarism was pretextual, and Harvard's mandated procedures were not followed in conducting the investigation."
Ackman added that the board "allegedly sought to out the whistleblower and pursue damages against him or her in direct violation of Harvard's own policies against retribution."
"I am sorry to say this, but in the event that any of the above is true, which looks increasingly likely, this is a scandal and a stain on the reputation of Harvard that goes far beyond President Gay," Ackman said.
"An immediate investigation must be launched of the Corporation Board by unimpeachable members of the Harvard Board of Overseers, with the assistance of independent counsel who are unaffiliated with the University and the Corporation Board members to determine if, in fact, Harvard's own whistleblower protection policies have been violated, and the other alleged governance and investigative failures are true."
Ackman concluded his post calling for the "sun to shine at Harvard."
"This is conduct unbecoming any board of directors, let alone Harvard's," he wrote on X. "Only sunlight will remove the stain on the University's reputation.
"It is time for the sun to shine."
Charlie McCarthy ✉
Charlie McCarthy, a writer/editor at Newsmax, has nearly 40 years of experience covering news, sports, and politics.
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