Harvard

Liz Wolfe | 1.8.2024 9:30 AM

Hell hath no fury like a Bill Ackman scorned: For those just tuning in, let me catch you up on the Harvard/antisemitism/plagiarism scandal that just won't end.

Back in December, three elite university presidents—including Harvard President Claudine Gay, University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill, and MIT President Sally Kornbluth—were trotted before Congress to give testimonies related to their handling of antisemitic speech and pro-Palestine activism on campus. Rep. Elise Stefanik (R–N.Y.) raked them all over the coals, declaring their answers unsatisfactory and insensitive and full of legalese, and Magill soon resigned.

Harvard initially stood by Gay, but then a mostly conservative collection of journalists and activists—as well as some big donors, like hedge fund manager Bill Ackman—publicized her extensive track record of plagiarism. Gay resigned, but not before calling everyone racist. (She is a black woman, and she claims that that's the real reason people tried to take her down.)

Now Business Insider has accused Ackman's wife—Neri Oxman, an entrepreneur and former MIT professor—of plagiarism herself. Oxman, they say, "stole sentences and whole paragraphs from Wikipedia, other scholars and technical documents in her academic writing." (As an aside: Oxman's work is interesting.........

© Reason.com