Harvard has found itself embroiled in a weeklong controversy over a letter signed by 30 student groups that blamed the Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel and the university’s slow reaction to address it publicly. The letter, and the university’s response, set off a very public war of words that has sucked in some of the luminaries in Harvard’s orbit: a former university president and the current one, a billionaire hedge fund manager, a former White House staffer, and now, a billionaire board member.
The firestorm erupted on Saturday after Hamas attacked Israel, when an organization known as the Harvard Palestine Solidarity Groups published a letter on Instagram in which it said it held “the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence.” It took Harvard’s leadership almost 48 hours to denounce the letter. In the lead-up to the university’s response, former Harvard president Larry Summers and well-known economics professor Jason Furman rebuked the school for its slowness in speaking out. Meanwhile, hedge fund billionaire and alum Bill Ackman called on the university to release the names of the organization members who had signed the letter.
