Harvard alumnus and hedge fund manager Bill Ackman wrote an open letter urging university president Claudine Gay to take strict measures to reduce antisemitism on campus.
Taking to his official X handle, Ackman said that after spending several hours with the students and faculty, he felt that the situation at his alma mater was ” dire and getting worse”.
“For the past four weeks since the horrors of October 7th, I have been in dialogue with members of the corporation board, other alumni, as well as students and faculty sharing and comparing our concerns about the growing number of antisemitic incidents on campus, as we wait for you and the University to act. Four weeks after the barbaric terrorist acts of October 7th, I have lost confidence that you and the University will do what is required,” he wrote.
Please see my below letter to the President of Harvard University sent today:
November 4, 2023
Dear President Gay,
I am writing this letter to you regretfully. Never did I think I would have to write a letter to the president of my alma mater about the impact of her actions…
— Bill Ackman (@BillAckman) November 5, 2023
He further said that the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas had converted the Cambridge campus into a place unsafe for Jewish students where they expressed concerns about the threat of physical violence.
“Jewish students are being bullied, physically intimidated, spat on, and in several widely disseminated videos of one such incident, physically assaulted,” he said.
He stated in the letter that the student Slack message boards were filled with anti-Semitic statements, memes, and images.
“Student Slack message boards are replete with antisemitic statements, memes, and images. On-campus protesters on the Widener Library steps and elsewhere shout “Intifada! Intifada! Intifada! From the River to the Sea, Palestine Shall Be Free!” as they knowingly call for violent insurrection and use eliminationist language seeking the destruction of the State of Israel and the Jewish people,” the letter stated.
The American billionaire further hit out at the campus’ “commitment to free expression” claiming that such a move was encouraging antisemitic statements from the protesters as the university did not list any limitations to it.
A spate of incidents related to antisemitism have been reported in several US campuses after the Palestinian militant group Hamas launched unprecedented attacks against Israel from the Gaza Strip on Oct 7 further provoking a counter-offensive from the Israeli military.
UMass student allegedly punches Jewish student
A University of Massachusetts Amherst student was arrested after he allegedly punched a Jewish student and spit on an Israeli flag following a demonstration in the campus on Friday (Nov 3).
The incident took place after UMass Amherst Hillel held an event calling for the release of Israeli hostages taken captive by Hamas.
“After the event had concluded and event security had left, the same student returned to the site of the event and punched a Jewish student holding an Israeli flag, then took the flag and spit on it,” UMass Hillel said in a statement.
(With inputs from agencies)
