Harvard hast lost $1 billion in donations as the members of the Harvard Corporation Board “unanimously reaffirm” embattled president Claudine Gayon Tuesday after her refusal to condemn calls for “the genocide of Jews” on campus. .Billionaire alum Bill Ackman, CEO of Pershing Square Capital Management, wrote a letter to the school’s governing board on Sunday warning Gay’s “failures have led to billions of dollars of withdrawn donations to the university.” “I am personally aware of more than a billion dollars of terminated donations from a small group of Harvard's most generous Jewish and non-Jewish alumni,” Ackman said, per the D. .Amid the mammoth loss in donations and her antisemitic approach to leadership, Gay faces accusations of plagiarism, which the Harvard Crimson said the board find more “perilous” than her stance on violent threats against Israel. At a hearing on ‘Antisemitisim on college campuses’ in Congress last week, Gay would not acknowledge calls for the “genocide of Jews and elimination of Israel” was violence unless it manifested into “conduct.” .The Harvard board reportedly had meetings on Sunday, per the Daily Mail, and Monday evening, per Harvard Crimson, to review her anti-Israel views.They unanimously decided Gay would retain her position as president — and had a second meeting early Tuesday morning to address allegations regarding plagiarism in Gay’s academic work. “As members of the Harvard Corporation, we today reaffirm our support for President Gay’s continued leadership of Harvard University,” the board wrote in a statement after the meeting. “In this tumultuous and difficult time, we unanimously stand in support of President Gay.”.The board found the allegations against Gay, which were first brought to its attention in October, do not breach the school’s “standards for research misconduct,” but Gay still has to “proactively” make corrections in her published work. “On December 9, the Fellows reviewed the results, which revealed a few instances of inadequate citation,” the board said. “While the analysis found no violation of Harvard’s standards for research misconduct, President Gay is proactively requesting four corrections in two articles to insert citations and quotation marks that were omitted from the original publications.”.Harvard alum Christopher F. Rufo and Christopher Brunet published an article examining Gay's academic work against the original source.
