Harvard Megadonor Kenneth Griffin Halts Donations in Wake of Anti-Semitism Concerns

Billionaire businessman is pulling the plug on his donations due to how the school handled alleged anti-Semitism

Founder and CEO of Citadel LLC Kenneth C. Griffin at the New York Times 2013 DealBook Conference in New York, on November 12, 2013. Larry Busacca/Getty Images

Billionaire businessman and investor Kenneth Griffin, who has donated more than half a billion dollars to Harvard University, has said he will no longer support the school over its handling of alleged anti-Semitism and branded students at elite universities as “whiny snowflakes.”

Mr. Griffin, whose donations to Harvard have reportedly totaled more than $500 million over the years, made the comments at the Managed Funds Association conference in Miami on Jan. 30.

The hedge fund manager—who started trading in his Harvard dormitory—said he was pulling the plug on his donations to the school due to how it handled alleged anti-Semitism in the wake of the Israel-Hamas conflict.

Mr. Griffin also cited the handling of on-campus demonstrations about the Middle East conflict by Harvard’s former president, Claudine Gay, as a reason for stopping donations. This includes her comments during a congressional hearing where she was unable to confirm whether calls for the genocide of Jews on campus would violate the school’s conduct policy.

Ms. Gay, who also faced allegations of plagiarism stemming from her career in academia, resigned from the position earlier this month.

The businessman was asked during Tuesday’s conference whether he was still supporting his alma mater financially, to which he responded that he was not.

“I’d like that to change and I have made that clear to members of the corporate board,” he said. “But until Harvard makes it very clear that they’re going to resume their role as [educators of] young American men and women to be leaders, to be problem solvers, to take on difficult issues, I am not interested in supporting the institution,” Mr. Griffin said, according to the school’s student newspaper, The Harvard Crimson.

Elite Students ‘Just Like Whiny Snowflakes’

The billionaire investor also shared his concerns regarding so-called Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) policies across America’s elite universities.

He suggested that students at such elite schools are “just caught up in the rhetoric of oppressor and oppressed and … [are] just like whiny snowflakes,” according to CNN.

“The real question is will (they) get back to their roots of educating American children, young adults, to be the future leaders of our country, or are they going to maintain being lost in the wilderness of microaggressions, a DEI agenda that seems to have no real end game, and just being lost in the wilderness?” he said, according to Reuters.

Elsewhere during his remarks on Tuesday, Mr. Griffin reportedly said his firms Citadel LLC and Citadel Securities, both of which recruit heavily from Harvard, would not be taking on students who allegedly signed a statement insisting that they “hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence” in the wake of the Hamas’ Oct. 7 incursion on Israel.

Billions in Donations

The statement was reportedly authored by the Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee and originally co-signed by 33 other Harvard student organizations.

Billionaire hedge fund CEO Bill Ackman, along with several other business leaders, has urged Harvard University to release the names of students whose organizations signed a controversial letter. This group includes the CEOs of FabFitFun, health tech startup EasyHealth, and Dovehill Capital Management, who also requested that these students be blacklisted.

At the time, then-Harvard president Ms. Gay issued a statement saying that “no student group, not even 30 student groups, speaks for Harvard University or its leadership.”

Protesters hold signs in support of Palestine during a rally at Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass., on Oct. 14, 2023. Joseph Prezioso/AFP via Getty Images

Mr. Griffin, who is the founder and CEO of Citadel and has an estimated fortune of around $37 billion, has donated generously to Harvard since graduating from the school in 1989.

In 2014, he gave the university a $150 million gift to predominantly support need-based financial aid for undergraduates, according to Harvard’s official website. At the time, school officials said it was the largest gift in the college’s history and would benefit as many as 800 students every year.

Last year, Mr. Griffin doubled that donation, handing over $300 million to the faculty of arts and sciences, prompting the school to rename the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences to the Harvard Kenneth C. Griffin Graduate School of Arts and Sciences in his honor.

The Epoch Times has contacted a Harvard spokesperson for comment.