Category Archives: Harvard University

Harvard declines to remove Sackler name from museum and campus building

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Committee rejects student denaming proposal despite role of Sackler-owned Purdue Pharma in US opioid epidemic

Harvard University has decided that it will not remove the name of the Sackler family from two of its buildings, despite years of protests from families of opioid overdose victims and anti-opioid groups.

In its recent denaming proposal update, a Harvard review committee rebuffed a 23-page proposal filed in October 2022 by Harvard College Overdose Prevention and Education Students to dename the Arthur M Sackler Museum, part of the Harvard Art Museums, and the Arthur M Sackler Building, a campus building.

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Bill Ackman ‘losing it’ over plagiarism allegations against wife, Axel Springer says

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Business Insider ran reports on Nexi Oxman, wife of billionaire investor who helped oust Harvard head over alleged plagiarism

The billionaire investor Bill Ackman, who helped oust Claudine Gay as Harvard president in a scandal over alleged plagiarism and campus antisemitism, is “completely losing it” over stories in which Business Insider said his wife, the academic Neri Oxman, “plagiarised some passages” in her own dissertation.

So said Adib Sisani, communications director for Axel Springer, the German company that owns Insider, in comments to the news website Puck.

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Media now in Bill Ackman’s sights after wife embroiled in plagiarism row

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Billionaire vows to tackle ‘problems with how our media operates’ after Neri Oxman accused of plagiarism in PhD thesis

After the resignation of Harvard president Claudine Gay, amid accusations of plagiarism, some might have expected Bill Ackman, the billionaire hedge fund manager, to step back from what became a rightwing push against academia.

Instead, Ackman, who became embroiled in university politics after students protested against Israel’s actions in Palestine, appears to have expanded his scattergun attack against other perceived liberal institutions, with news organizations and the media now in his sights.

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Wife of financier who called for Harvard head’s exit faces plagiarism allegations

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After Claudine Gay was ousted amid accusations of plagiarism, Neri Oxman was accused of copying from Wikipedia in dissertation

The wife of Bill Ackman, the hedge fund billionaire who accused Claudine Gay of being a plagiarist and led calls for her resignation as Harvard president, is now facing allegations of plagiarism herself.

Neri Oxman, a prominent former professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has apologized after Business Insider identified multiple instances in which she lifted passages from other scholars’ work without proper attribution in her 2010 dissertation. She also pledged to review the primary sources and request the necessary corrections.

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Al Sharpton says ousted Harvard chief was ‘scapegoat’ in fight against diversity

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Civil rights leader hosts protest outside office of alumnus who spearheaded campaign to remove Claudine Gay and criticized DEI

The civil rights leader the Rev Al Sharpton hosted a protest outside the office of the Harvard alumnus Bill Ackman on Thursday after Ackman criticized diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives at Harvard following the resignation of the former university president Claudine Gay.

“[Ackman] declared war on DEI. He declared war on affirmative action. He’s defining himself as a rightwinger in terms of dealing with racial equality,” Sharpton told the Guardian during the protest alongside his organization, National Action Network, outside Ackman’s office in New York City.

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‘A bully’: the billionaire who led calls for Claudine Gay’s Harvard exit

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US hedge fund manager Bill Ackman posts 4,000-word screed decrying ‘racism against white people’ after Gay’s departure

Chief among the campaigners celebrating the resignation of Claudine Gay as president of Harvard University was a man who arguably did the most to push Gay, Harvard’s first Black president, out the door: Bill Ackman, a billionaire hedge-fund manager and Harvard alumnus.

Ackman, who accused Gay of antisemitism and plagiarism, was a major player in what increasingly became a rightwing campaign against the Harvard president – who said many of the attacks against her were “fueled by racial animus”.

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Boston fertility doctor accused of impregnating patient with own sperm

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Dr Merle Berger told patient Sarah Depoian sperm had come from an anonymous donor, new lawsuit claims

A leading Boston-based fertility doctor secretly impregnated a patient with his own sperm despite telling her that it had come from an anonymous donor, new a lawsuit has claimed.

According to a civil claim filed in US district court in Boston on Wednesday, Dr Merle Berger, founder of Boston IVF and a professor of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive biology at Harvard medical school for over three decades, secretly impregnated a patient, Sarah Depoian, who had been seeking intrauterine insemination.

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Giuliani defamation trial: election worker testifies ex-Trump lawyer’s 2020 lies ruined her life – as it happened

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The Giuliani defamation trial is one of the first tests of the many prongs pro-democracy groups are using in the courts to try to hold purveyors of election lies accountable.

Several lawsuits use anti-defamation laws in civil lawsuits against big names who joined with Trump to deny the results of the 2020 election, including Giuliani, Mike Lindell and Dinesh D’Souza.

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Harvard board backs president amid calls for removal over antisemitism testimony

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Claudine Gay and presidents of UPenn and MIT faced backlash over responses on campus policy at congressional hearing

The Harvard Corporation, the highest governing body at the university, has backed the university’s president, Claudine Gay, to remain in post after calls for her removal following controversial testimony over antisemitism on campus.

Gay and the presidents of University of Pennsylvania and MIT faced backlash for their remarks at a congressional hearing into antisemitism on college campuses. Congresswoman Elise Stefanik demanded a “yes” or “no” response to her question of whether calling for the genocide of Jews would violate their university’s code of conduct. The presidents’ various responses were criticized for not being unequivocal enough in their condemnation of calls for genocide.

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Billionaires and free speech advocates wade into US college antisemitism fray

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Leaders of three universities continue navigating calls to resign following ‘evasive’ answers in House hearing

Leaders of three prestigious US universities remained under pressure on Friday as a controversy about antisemitism on campus, inflamed by their appearance at a congressional hearing earlier in the week, showed little sign of abating, with free speech advocates and billionaire college donors wading into the fray.

Liz Magill, the president of the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn), survived an emergency meeting of its board of trustees on Thursday amid backlash to her “disastrous” comments to the hearing investigating rising campus antisemitism since the beginning of the Israel-Gaza war.

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US university presidents face firestorm over evasive answers on antisemitism

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Congressional testimony on campus policies by heads of Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania and MIT draws criticism

The presidents of three of the nation’s top universities are facing intense backlash, including from the White House, after they appeared to evade questions during a congressional hearing about whether calls by students for the genocide of Jews would constitute harassment under the schools’ codes of conduct.

In a contentious, hours-long debate on Tuesday, the presidents of Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) sought to address the steps they were taking to combat rising antisemitism on campus since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war. But it was their careful, indirect response to a question posed by the Republican congresswoman Elise Stefanik of New York that drew scathing criticism.

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Misinformation expert says she was fired by Harvard under Meta pressure

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Joan Donovan says funding was cut off for criticizing Meta when university was receiving $500m from Mark Zuckerberg’s charity

One of the world’s leading experts on misinformation says she was fired by Harvard University for criticising Meta at a time that the school was being pledged $500m from Mark Zuckerberg’s charity.

Joan Donovan says her funding was cut off, she could not hire assistants and she was made the target of a smear campaign by Harvard employees. In a legal filing with the US education department and the Massachusetts attorney general first published by the Washington Post, she said her right to free speech had been abrogated.

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US university presidents to testify before Congress over claims of antisemitic protests on campuses

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Heads of Harvard University, University of Pennsylvania and Massachusetts Institute of Technology will be questioned

The presidents of Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, three of the country’s most prestigious universities, are set to testify before a congressional committee next week on claims that antisemitic protests have taken place on their campuses, marking the latest window into ongoing tensions sparked by the Israel-Hamas war.

Next Tuesday, Harvard’s Claudine Gay, Penn’s Liz Magill and MIT’s Sally Kornbluth will stand before the House education and workforce committee, a body chaired by Virginia Foxx, a Republican from North Carolina.

“Over the past several weeks, we’ve seen countless examples of antisemitic demonstrations on college campuses. Meanwhile, college administrators have largely stood by, allowing horrific rhetoric to fester and grow,” said Foxx in a statement introducing the hearing, which is titled Holding Campus Leaders Accountable and Confronting Antisemitism.

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Harvard journal accused of censoring article blaming Israel for Gaza genocide

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Harvard Law Review declined an essay by Palestinian doctoral candidate Rabea Eghbariah after it had been initially approved

A prestigious journal published by Harvard Law School has been accused of censorship after it refused to publish an academic article accusing Israel of committing genocide in Gaza, allegedly because editors feared a backlash.

The Harvard Law Review, which is run by the school’s student body, declined the 2,000-word essay – titled The Ongoing Nakba: Towards a Legal Framework for Palestine – by a Palestinian doctoral candidate, Rabea Eghbariah, after it had been edited, fact-checked and initially approved.

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Jewish and Muslim Americans fear rise in hate crimes amid Israel-Hamas war

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With protests escalating and police departments on alert, assaults and harassment have been reported

Jewish and Muslim Americans in cities all around the country are worried that escalating tensions between Israel and Palestine, which some are calling “isolating and scary”, will exacerbate hate crimes and harassment in the United States.

For many Arab Americans in New York City, Bay Ridge was always a place of safety. The south Brooklyn neighborhood is 3 sq miles of Arabic bodega signs, halal grocers and a growing community of Palestinian, Yemeni, Syrian and Egyptian families.

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US CEOs urge Harvard to name students in groups behind letter blaming Israel for Hamas attacks

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Several chief executives called for names to be made public so that they, and others, could know not to hire the students

A group of US business leaders has demanded that Harvard University release the names of students who were part of organizations that signed a letter blaming Israel for deadly attacks by Hamas that triggered a severe escalation of violence across Israel and Gaza.

Several chief executives called for the names to be made public so that they, and others, could know not to hire the students once they leave Harvard.

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Harvard professor who studies honesty accused of falsifying data in studies

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Francesca Gino, a prominent Harvard Business School professor, allegedly has falsified results in behavioral science studies

In an ironic twist in the world of behavioral science, a Harvard professor who studies honesty has been accused of data fraud.

Over the last few weeks, allegations have surfaced against Francesca Gino, a prominent Harvard Business School (HBS) professor who has been accused of falsifying results in several behavioral science studies.

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Former Maryland trash hauler graduates from Harvard Law School

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Rehan Staton became a viral media sensation on his admission, and film-maker Tyler Perry covered his tuition fees

The man who worked as a trash hauler in Maryland before earning international news headlines by gaining admission into the prestigious Harvard Law School has graduated.

Rehan Staton received his juris doctorate from Harvard after walking across the stage in his cap and gown during a commencement ceremony on Thursday afternoon at the school’s campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

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‘Truth is sacred’: Tom Hanks gives keynote speech and receives honorary degree from Harvard

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The two-time Academy Award winner spoke to the graduates on truth and was given a volleyball as a gift

As the US grapples with a disinformation crisis, Tom Hanks told graduates of Harvard on Thursday to be superheroes in their defense of truth and American ideals, and to resist those who twist the truth for their own gain.

“For the truth to some is no longer empirical. It’s no longer based on data, nor common sense, nor even common decency,” the two-time Academy Award winner said during his keynote address. He invoked the Latin word for truth, “veritas”, Harvard’s motto.

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Harvard Kennedy School condemned for denying fellowship to Israel critic

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ACLU and Pen America back former Human Rights Watch chief Kenneth Roth and say decision ‘raises serious questions’

Leading civil rights organisations have condemned Harvard Kennedy School’s denial of a position to the former head of Human Rights Watch over the organisation’s criticism of Israel.

The American Civil Liberties Union called the refusal of a fellowship to Kenneth Roth “profoundly troubling”. PEN America, which advocates for freedom of expression, said the move “raises serous questions” about one of the US’s leading schools of government. Roth also received backing from other human rights activists.

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