"I first became concerned about Harvard...early on the morning of October 8".
With all due respect, Mr. Ackman, that was your first mistake. For years, Bari Weiss and others have been screaming from the rooftops about how DEI has been a parasite infecting elite universities. You would have heard them if you had been listening.
Claudine Gay was hired following the same process that led to Kamala Harris. The only surprise here is that so many people were surprised how her tenure ended.
The actual plagiarism, though troubling, is relatively minimal and under different circumstances might be forgivable, but that is not the real story. The real story is an institution as well as any individual is vulnerable personally and publicly when there is a DEI hire. DEI hurts everyone. DEI must end. This Gay debacle demonstrates the flagrant absurdity of the DEI model of higher education. It must be soul crushing for Dr. Gay to suddenly realize she was a token all along. Harvard will not recover unless they replace the entire board.
"In order to be deemed anti-racist, one must personally take action to reverse any unequal outcomes in society."
It seems to me that it's more accurate to say that being "anti-racist" requires only that one say (post on social media) the correct things. My oldest daughter is very concerned about racism, structural racism, yadda yadda Black, yadda white men, yadda.
One of the obvious disadvantages for black children is their very low school achievement in math. I asked my daughter, a math graduate student, if she had thought of volunteering as a math tutor in a school in a low-income area, and she looked at me as if I were from Mars.
I read this on your X post and was actually thinking "I wish The Free Press would publish this - this deserves the widest possible audience." Bravo. This needs to be clearly stated over and over again by as many people as possible.
Please don’t forget the role of the US Department of Education Office of Civil Rights, Department of Justice Office of Violence Against Women, the White House “Not Alone” task force, Civic Nation and others in all of this. Without the unregulated “Dear Colleague” Title IX letter of 2011 being used to bring activism onto campus, to create bloated administrations for the Title IX directives and to recruit students for the “survivor” movement, none of this would have happened. Russlynn Ali who signed the 2011 “Dear Colleague Letter” went to work for Laurene Powell Jobs at XQ Institute “DEI” “Reimagining Education”. Stanford Law Professor Michele Dauber who called a Harvard professor a “Shitty White Male” was a co-drafter of the “Dear Colleague” letter while her husband, Ken Dauber, consulted for the DoE OCR. He was an early hire at Google. Dauber orchestrated the recall of Judge Aaron Persky after she’d colluded behind the scenes of the high profile trial of Brock Turner. Plagiarism? Stanford put up a bench with a quote from the Emily Doe letter which was read by Chanel Miller but not written by her even though it is credited to her. Liz MaGill was Dean of Stanford Law at the time. She said nothing and went on to UPenn. The goal in 2011 was to change America forever - that’s apparent in the emails from Russlynn Ali. The goal was to get rid of due process. That’s also apparent. The goal was to racketeer and profiteer off private campuses under the guise of social justice entrepreneurship enterprises. The White House hired interns from Harvard and elsewhere for “Community Outreach” to do this. Wagatwe Wanjuki, Tina Nguyen, Laura L Dunn to name a few. The WH and UN and SKDK worked with social media networks and influencers as proven in ReWire Magazine in 2014. They wanted to reach certain demographics so they hired Emma Watson to reach the Harry Potter Generation for the #HeForShe campaign. They celebrated their victories with the number of clicks they got on social media links, failing to admit that SKDK and other PR companies were buying fake engagement as admitted by Hillary Rosen. SKDK represented “Its On Us” which is part of Civic Nation which is headed by Valerie Jarrett and has Tina Tchen on the board. This is not social justice, it is not charity, it is opportunism - they figured out how to suck money out of schools across the nation to feed their self-serving profiteering warped causes. Many of us have believed in passing on to the next generation the generosity and charity that made our educations possible. But what this crowd have done is shown that our gifts are not going towards those who deserve an education but towards dishonest enterprises using non-profits to make millions under a social justice banner. It’s beyond wrong. It’s criminal.
He is so right. Though I must say, it took him so long to realize this was happening? I guess the elite truly live in a bubble. Hopefully he can convince more of his cohorts and they help push the reversal of this rot not just in our education system but in our businesses and institutions.
Can't think of many HBS alums that I've been truly inspired by recently - Bill is one of them, truly a profile in courage imho. We need 10x more folks like him.
I appreciate Mr. Ackman taking the time to focus on these issues for several months. He is correct that a mere change at the top of these universities is insufficient. Other university presidents (two I get communications from) have avoided much of the harsh scrutiny., but they continue to support DEI and fail to see how that doctrine is contrary to Western values and political thought and can easily become anti-White, anti-Mainland Asian, and antisemitic. It started with a critique of so-called ethnocentrism, the fact-value distinction, moved on to multiculturalism, then affirmative action, diversity obsession and finally the full-fledged DEI catechism. Enough.
SO many people don’t realize they have used words to hoodwink and manipulate people. What Bill said is correct “ DEI was not about diversity in its purest form. Rather, DEI was a political advocacy movement on behalf of certain groups that are deemed oppressed under DEI’s own methodology.”
"While slavery remains a permanent stain on our country’s history—a fact that is used by DEI to label white people as oppressors—it doesn’t therefore hold that all white people, generations after the abolishment of slavery, should be held responsible for its evils."
No, Mr. Ackman, slavery is no more a stain on America's history than it is on the history of virtually every other nation of the world that once practiced slavery and many that practice it today. Furthermore, no white person in America today can be held responsible for slavery. Slavery has been illegal in America since 1865, with the ratification of the 13th Amendment and I doubt anyone living has come close to achieving the age of 160. So this is all nonsense. The only thing that the DEI movement will do is succeed in dividing Americans by skin color; devolving us to tribalism and creating actual racial supremacists. DEI must DIE.
Is past liberal and general support for Black Lives Matter, including from the Jewish leadership/community, a similar mistake? And if so, what should be done now/by whom -- and why did that transpire? Is there a fair comparison between BLM founders living in opulance then with Hamas leaders living in opulance in ways that are useful? Should this entire matter be prominent in the upcoming Presidential election?
"I first became concerned about Harvard...early on the morning of October 8".
With all due respect, Mr. Ackman, that was your first mistake. For years, Bari Weiss and others have been screaming from the rooftops about how DEI has been a parasite infecting elite universities. You would have heard them if you had been listening.
Still - better late than never.
Totally agree. DEI needs to DIE.
Claudine Gay was hired following the same process that led to Kamala Harris. The only surprise here is that so many people were surprised how her tenure ended.
The end of fearing cancellation and the return of courage. This is the best start to 2024!
The actual plagiarism, though troubling, is relatively minimal and under different circumstances might be forgivable, but that is not the real story. The real story is an institution as well as any individual is vulnerable personally and publicly when there is a DEI hire. DEI hurts everyone. DEI must end. This Gay debacle demonstrates the flagrant absurdity of the DEI model of higher education. It must be soul crushing for Dr. Gay to suddenly realize she was a token all along. Harvard will not recover unless they replace the entire board.
"In order to be deemed anti-racist, one must personally take action to reverse any unequal outcomes in society."
It seems to me that it's more accurate to say that being "anti-racist" requires only that one say (post on social media) the correct things. My oldest daughter is very concerned about racism, structural racism, yadda yadda Black, yadda white men, yadda.
One of the obvious disadvantages for black children is their very low school achievement in math. I asked my daughter, a math graduate student, if she had thought of volunteering as a math tutor in a school in a low-income area, and she looked at me as if I were from Mars.
I read this on your X post and was actually thinking "I wish The Free Press would publish this - this deserves the widest possible audience." Bravo. This needs to be clearly stated over and over again by as many people as possible.
Slam Dunk, Bill! Thanks for leading the way.
Please don’t forget the role of the US Department of Education Office of Civil Rights, Department of Justice Office of Violence Against Women, the White House “Not Alone” task force, Civic Nation and others in all of this. Without the unregulated “Dear Colleague” Title IX letter of 2011 being used to bring activism onto campus, to create bloated administrations for the Title IX directives and to recruit students for the “survivor” movement, none of this would have happened. Russlynn Ali who signed the 2011 “Dear Colleague Letter” went to work for Laurene Powell Jobs at XQ Institute “DEI” “Reimagining Education”. Stanford Law Professor Michele Dauber who called a Harvard professor a “Shitty White Male” was a co-drafter of the “Dear Colleague” letter while her husband, Ken Dauber, consulted for the DoE OCR. He was an early hire at Google. Dauber orchestrated the recall of Judge Aaron Persky after she’d colluded behind the scenes of the high profile trial of Brock Turner. Plagiarism? Stanford put up a bench with a quote from the Emily Doe letter which was read by Chanel Miller but not written by her even though it is credited to her. Liz MaGill was Dean of Stanford Law at the time. She said nothing and went on to UPenn. The goal in 2011 was to change America forever - that’s apparent in the emails from Russlynn Ali. The goal was to get rid of due process. That’s also apparent. The goal was to racketeer and profiteer off private campuses under the guise of social justice entrepreneurship enterprises. The White House hired interns from Harvard and elsewhere for “Community Outreach” to do this. Wagatwe Wanjuki, Tina Nguyen, Laura L Dunn to name a few. The WH and UN and SKDK worked with social media networks and influencers as proven in ReWire Magazine in 2014. They wanted to reach certain demographics so they hired Emma Watson to reach the Harry Potter Generation for the #HeForShe campaign. They celebrated their victories with the number of clicks they got on social media links, failing to admit that SKDK and other PR companies were buying fake engagement as admitted by Hillary Rosen. SKDK represented “Its On Us” which is part of Civic Nation which is headed by Valerie Jarrett and has Tina Tchen on the board. This is not social justice, it is not charity, it is opportunism - they figured out how to suck money out of schools across the nation to feed their self-serving profiteering warped causes. Many of us have believed in passing on to the next generation the generosity and charity that made our educations possible. But what this crowd have done is shown that our gifts are not going towards those who deserve an education but towards dishonest enterprises using non-profits to make millions under a social justice banner. It’s beyond wrong. It’s criminal.
He is so right. Though I must say, it took him so long to realize this was happening? I guess the elite truly live in a bubble. Hopefully he can convince more of his cohorts and they help push the reversal of this rot not just in our education system but in our businesses and institutions.
Can't think of many HBS alums that I've been truly inspired by recently - Bill is one of them, truly a profile in courage imho. We need 10x more folks like him.
I appreciate Mr. Ackman taking the time to focus on these issues for several months. He is correct that a mere change at the top of these universities is insufficient. Other university presidents (two I get communications from) have avoided much of the harsh scrutiny., but they continue to support DEI and fail to see how that doctrine is contrary to Western values and political thought and can easily become anti-White, anti-Mainland Asian, and antisemitic. It started with a critique of so-called ethnocentrism, the fact-value distinction, moved on to multiculturalism, then affirmative action, diversity obsession and finally the full-fledged DEI catechism. Enough.
Thank you Bill for leading the charge. The rot of DIE/ESG ideological capture runs deep throughout all of our institutions. Many of the Harvard Corporation board members are Obamassars (Obama Commissars): https://yuribezmenov.substack.com/p/how-to-get-into-harvard-gay-bobo-corporation
PS: Nice How To format ;)
SO many people don’t realize they have used words to hoodwink and manipulate people. What Bill said is correct “ DEI was not about diversity in its purest form. Rather, DEI was a political advocacy movement on behalf of certain groups that are deemed oppressed under DEI’s own methodology.”
"While slavery remains a permanent stain on our country’s history—a fact that is used by DEI to label white people as oppressors—it doesn’t therefore hold that all white people, generations after the abolishment of slavery, should be held responsible for its evils."
No, Mr. Ackman, slavery is no more a stain on America's history than it is on the history of virtually every other nation of the world that once practiced slavery and many that practice it today. Furthermore, no white person in America today can be held responsible for slavery. Slavery has been illegal in America since 1865, with the ratification of the 13th Amendment and I doubt anyone living has come close to achieving the age of 160. So this is all nonsense. The only thing that the DEI movement will do is succeed in dividing Americans by skin color; devolving us to tribalism and creating actual racial supremacists. DEI must DIE.
Is past liberal and general support for Black Lives Matter, including from the Jewish leadership/community, a similar mistake? And if so, what should be done now/by whom -- and why did that transpire? Is there a fair comparison between BLM founders living in opulance then with Hamas leaders living in opulance in ways that are useful? Should this entire matter be prominent in the upcoming Presidential election?