In a major blow to the University of Harvard, its major donor and billionaire philanthropist Leonard V Blavatnik aka Len Blavatnik has paused donations to the varsity amidst the controversy around its handling of anti-semitism on campus.
Citing a source privy to the matter, Bloomberg reported, “His family foundation has given at least $270 million to Harvard, but it’s pausing donations in the wake of university President Claudine Gay’s widely derided congressional testimony on antisemitism.”
Reports say that Blavatnik is the most high-profile donor to date to sever philanthropic ties with Harvard, following severe condemnation of University President Claudine Gay’s response to the Israel-Hamas war and testimony earlier this month at a congressional committee.
Earlier, Blavatnik had donated around $270 million to the University, including a $200 million gift to Harvard Medical School in 2018 – the largest single gift in the history of the institution.
Born to a Jewish family, Blavatnik’s move to halt funding to Harvard is yet another huge setback for the university’s fundraising initiatives, with several major donors already announcing to break their ties with the university following its widely criticised initial response to the violence in Israel and Gaza. The mounting donor backlash threatens to strain Harvard’s finances, which rely heavily on philanthropy. As per a Harvard Crimson report, “philanthropy accounts for 45 per cent of the University’s annual revenue.”
This comes after a massive controversy erupted on 5th December, during the first hearing on “Holding Campus Leaders Accountable and Confronting Antisemitism” in Washington, DC. As reported earlier, Congresswoman Elise Stefanik confronted the Presidents of Harvard, MIT, and UPenn during the hearing over the issue of rising cases of antisemitism on their campuses.
During the hearing, Harvard University President Claudine Gay, MIT University President Sally Kornbluth, and UPenn President Elizabeth Magill refused to condemn the calls for the genocide of Jews on their respective campuses as bullying and harassment. When asked to offer a simple “yes” or “no” answer on whether advocating for the murder of Jews would violate the University’s bullying and harassment policies, Harvard president Claudine Gay was seen giving bizarre excuses of ‘context’.
The refusal to condemn as well as attempts to ‘contextualise’ calls for violence against Jews on campus by the presidents of UPenn, Harvard, and MIT University triggered outrage compelling them to ‘clarify‘ their stand.
As reported earlier Harvard’s Claudine Gay said, “There are some who have confused a right to free expression with the idea that Harvard will condone calls for violence against Jewish students. Let me be clear: Calls for violence or genocide against the Jewish community, or any religious or ethnic group are vile, they have no place at Harvard, and those who threaten our Jewish students will be held to account.”
Later, in an interview with Harvard Crimson, Gay ‘apologised‘ and said that she failed to convey her ‘truth’ that calls for genocide of Jews have no place in the varsity. “I am sorry. Words matter. When words amplify distress and pain, I don’t know how you could feel anything but regret,” Gay said.
Notably, in November this year, more than 1700 Harvard alumni wrote a letter to the University President Claudine Gay and the Dean of Harvard College Rakesh Khurana raising concerns over the rise in antisemitism on campus.
In their letter, open to signature by more alumni, the group has demanded that the management works on stopping antisemitism on campus or they will stop donations to the university. Over 1,700 members of the Harvard College Jewish Alumni Association (HCJAA) signed the open letter that condemned anti-Israel protests at the university campus amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.
Other billionaires who have severed ties with Harvard
It is worth recalling in October this year, Israeli billionaire Idan Ofer and the Wexner Foundation severed ties with Harvard over the varsity’s tepid response to the controversial student union coalition letter blaming Israel for the Hamas terrorist attack. Idan Ofer and his wife Batia resigned from a Harvard executive board saying that their “faith in the University’s leadership has been broken” and that they “cannot in good faith continue to support Harvard and its committees.”
As reported earlier, Claudine Gay eventually tried to distance the university from the outrageous statement signed by the student groups, the Ofers asserted that the University administration did not make its support for the people of Israel amidst Hamas terrorist attacks evident.
Other than the Ofers, the Wexner Foundation also ended its 34-year-old partnership with Harvard and the Harvard Kennedy School over Harvard’s “dismal failure” to take a clear and unequivocal stand against Hamas’s barbaric terrorist attacks on 7th October.
Before this, corporate leaders including Bill Ackman, CEO of Pershing Square, announced that their companies would not hire those students who signed the pro-Hamas statement. As many prominent firms announced their decision not to consider hiring the signatories of the said joint statement, several of the signatories withdrew their signatures from the statement.
This was triggered after a student union coalition at Harvard University issued a statement on 7th October blaming Israel for the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. The letter issued by the Harvard Palestine Solidarity Groups was co-signed by 33 student groups.
It is interesting to note that Harvard has been backing Claudine Gay even when she has been at the epicentre of the outrage over the calls for genocide of Jewish people on campus even when the White House directly condemned Gay and the UPenn president for their controversial testimonies. White House spokesperson Andrew Bates rebuked the presidents of both the universities. In a statement on December 6, Bates said that any statements calling for systematic killings of Jews are revolting adding that such calls are antithetical to American values. Notably, Dr Claudine Gay has been accused of plagiarising her 1997 Ph.D. thesis.
