Xinhua News Agency, Beijing, January 10 (Xinhua) -- Bill Aikman, an alumnus of Harvard University in the United States and founder of Pershing Square Capital Management, disclosed on the 9th that he intends to promote four outsiders to join the board of supervisors of Harvard University, in order to reshape the management of Harvard University.
This is the campus of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S., on July 14, 2020. Xinhua News Agency It is widely believed that the downfall campaign launched by Aikman and other Harvard University alumni against former Harvard University President Claudina Gay was one of the main reasons for Gay's resignation on the 2nd of this month.
Last December, Gay and the presidents of the University of Pennsylvania and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) testified before Congress and drew criticism for their stance on "anti-Semitism" on campus. University of Pennsylvania Chancellor Liz Magill resigned last month.
In an exclusive interview with Reuters on the 9th, Aikman disclosed that he supported four outsiders to participate in the re-election of the Harvard University Board of Supervisors this spring, "Harvard needs to change, and it is ...... to introduce fresh blood to the Board of Supervisors."Their campaign will serve as a wake-up call to Harvard." According to the Financial Times, the four have legal, economic and investment and M&A backgrounds.
Harvard's Board of Supervisors, with 30 members, is second only to the Harvard Board of Trustees, and five members are re-elected each year for six-year terms. The four members are generally nominated by the Harvard Alumni Association, and the four who were not nominated by the alumni association will have to gather about 3,300 signatures from Harvard alumni by the end of the month.
Last year, more than 320,000 Harvard alumni voted for the re-election of the Board of Reintroductory, and the total number of alumni at the university exceeded 400,000.
Reuters said that after a new round of Palestinian-Israeli conflict broke out in October last year, Aikman continued to criticize Harvard University, saying that his alma mater failed to protect students from "anti-Semitic" incidents, and the university's diversified admissions program was also "stifling elites". Aikman has donated about $50 million to Harvard.
According to the Financial Times, Aikman pushed for Gay's successful resignation and is now using a "shareholder rights strategy" to try to influence Harvard management. As the United States enters its first election year this year, many institutions of higher learning in the United States are under increasing scrutiny on issues such as freedom of speech, governance capabilities, and diversity policies, including the issue of "anti-Semitism" on campuses triggered by a new round of Palestinian-Israeli conflicts.
However, hundreds of Harvard academics oppose external political interference, arguing that it threatens freedom of speech on campus. (Ocean).