A billionaire has joined the list of Harvard alumni and donors who are pausing their gifts to the school, which is standing by president Claudine Gay despite accusations of allowing anti-Semitism no campus and plagiarism.
Len Blavatnikm, whose family foundation has given the Ivy League at least $270 million, is halting donations to his alma mater until it addresses what they see as ‘rampant anti-Semitism on campus,’ as first reported by Bloomberg.
Gay, who has apologized for her testimony, is also facing accusations that she plagiarized about half of the 11 journal articles on her resume.
Blavatnikm and his wife Emily, who are Jewish, are the just the latest donors to remove financial support from the university following Gay’s congressional testimony, where she declined to say calling for a genocide of Jews on campus breaks the school’s rules.
Leslie Wexner, the former CEO of L Brands – the parent company of Victoria’s Secret, said his foundation was pausing donations to Harvard after pro-Palestine protests broke out in the school following Hamas’ attacks against Israel on October 7.
Len Blavatnikm and his wife Emily are the just the latest donors to remove financial support from Harvard following president Claudine Gay’s congressional testimony
Gay, who has apologized for her testimony, is also facing accusations that she plagiarized about half of the 11 journal articles on her resume
Leslie & Abigail Wexner said their foundation was pausing donations to Harvard after pro-Palestine protests broke out in the school following Hamas’ attacks against Israel on October 7
The Wexner Foundation issued a letter to the Harvard Board of Overseers on October 16 and informed that their ‘financial and programmatic relationship’ has ended with the university.
The foundation’s donations supported up to ten public and government professionals from Israel each year to purse a one-year degree from the Harvard Kennedy School. Leslie Wexner, who has previously ranked on Harvard’s Business Review Top 100 Best Performing CEOs is of Russian-Jewish decent.
Israeli billionaire Idan Ofer and his wife Batia also removed support from Harvard in October after 31 school organizations signed a letter blaming Israel for Hamas’ attacks.
The couple said they would cease donations ‘in protest of the shocking and insensitive response by the president of the university, who did not condemn the letter by student organizations who blamed Israel for the massacres.’
Billionaire investor Bill Ackman, who has donated hundreds of millions to his alma matter, also paused donations following the breakout of the war, and has since led a campaign to replace Gay.
The school, the country’s richest, heavily relies on its endowment – it’s largest revenue source by far.
But Harvard has been fierce in its commitment to stand by Gay, even after fresh accusations of plagiarism moved from conservative media to more liberal outlets like CNN and The New York Times.
Israeli billionaire Idan Ofer also removed support from Harvard in October after 31 school organizations signed a letter blaming Israel for Hamas’ attacks
Billionaire Bill Ackman, who has donated hundreds of millions to his alma matter, also paused donations following the breakout of the war, and has since led a campaign to replace Gay
The school, the country’s richest, heavily relies on its endowment – it’s largest revenue source
It comes as the House Committee on Education and the Workforce announced that it’s widening the scope of it’ probe into Gay’s work, and demanded the school hand over all documentation related to the plagiarism allegations. The committee had already opened a probe into antisemitism at the Harvard campus following Gay’s testimony that was heavily criticized.
‘Our concern is that standards are not being applied consistently, resulting in different rules for different members of the academic community,’ said Republican rep. Virginia Foxx, the committee’s chair.
Meanwhile top Republicans in congress have called for withholding billions in federal funding to universities supportive of anti-Semitism in order to root out the ‘rot’ in American higher education.
Foxx warned Harvard could lose funding if it’s found to have not taken the plagiarism allegations seriously.
The academic initially submitted two corrections to papers from 2001 and 2017 after she was accused of plagiarism, adding ‘quotation marks and citations,’ a Harvard spokesman said. However, after additional claims of plagiarism, the Ivy League then said on Wednesday that Gay would also update three spots in her Ph.D. dissertation to add attributions.
Harvard told the Boston Globe they found ‘examples of duplicative language without appropriate attribution’ in Gay’s 1997 PhD dissertation, titled ‘Taking Charge: Black Electoral Success and the Redefinition of American Politics.’
The House Committee on Education and the Workforce announced in a letter that it’s widening the scope of it’s probe into Gay, according to a letter written by Rep. Virginia Foxx
Gay was first publicly accused of plagiarism by right-wing media, particularly blogger Christopher Rufo, who earlier this month outlined issues in her dissertation and a series of articles.
Just hours after the allegation were published, the university said it was standing by Gay after having quietly investigated the claims back in October and finding her conduct fell short of academic misconduct.
While the Harvard board said they found no violation of the school’s policies in Gay’s work, The Harvard Crimson, which reviewed the examples of alleged plagiarism, landed at a different conclusion.
The school’s paper wrote that some of Gay’s writings ‘appear to violate Harvard’s current policies around plagiarism and academic integrity.’
While some of the claims by the Free Beacon include minor citation issues, the Crimson said others are ‘are more substantial, including some paragraphs and sentences nearly identical to other work and lacking citations.’
The student publication notes Harvard’s rule on what constitutes plagiarism says when copying language ‘word for word,’ scholars ‘must give credit to the author of the source material, either by placing the source material in quotation marks and providing a clear citation, or by paraphrasing the source material and providing a clear citation.’
Gay was accused of copying two paragraphs from work by then-Harvard scholars D. Stephen Voss and Bradley Palmquist. One paragraph is nearly identical except for a few words.
Gay defended her work telling The Boston Globe: ‘I stand by the integrity of my scholarship. Throughout my career, I have worked to ensure my scholarship adheres to the highest academic standards.’