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Ken Griffin has called on Harvard University to embrace “Western values,” with the billionaire hedge fund manager and donor saying the chaos spreading across college campuses is a product of of a “cultural revolution” in American education.
Griffin, who founded the $63 billion US hedge fund Citadel and has given more than $500 million to his alma mater, told the Financial Times that the US has “lost its vision of education as a means to pursuing truth and acquiring knowledge” over the past decade. .
“The story of some of our universities has grown to the point where the system is rigged and unfair, and America is plagued by racism,” he said in an interview. systemic and systemic injustice”.
Universities including Harvard, Stanford and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have been decimated by sometimes violent protests against Israel’s war in Gaza, pitting wealthy donors against student activists. pellets.
Bill Ackman, another hedge fund billionaire, led a successful campaign for Harvard president resigned. Marc Rowan, head of private equity group Apollo Global Management, has sparked a fierce debate about governance at the University of Pennsylvania, where its Wharton business school reported a fall into donations.
“What you are seeing now is the end product of the cultural revolution in American education that is taking place in American educational institutions, specifically using the paradigm of the oppressor and oppressed people”.
“Protests on college campuses are almost like performance art and we are not really helping the Palestinians or the Israelis in these surreal protests,” the 55-year-old financier said, adding that in previous humanitarian crises, Americans would focus on practical help. , such as organizing meal outings.
While a Harvard student, Griffin installed a satellite dish on the roof of his dormitory so he could trade convertible bonds, laying the groundwork for founding his hedge fund in 1990.
Since then, he has given the school about a quarter of the more than $2 billion he has given to philanthropic efforts, making him one of the university’s largest donors in history. modernity of the school. A record $16 billion profit for Citadel investors in 2022 made Griffin’s company the most successful hedge fund of all time.
In January, the financier called Harvard students “whiny snowflakes” and said he was pausing donations to the university because of its handling of anti-Semitism on campus, which which he blamed on the school’s “DEI agenda.”
His critique of its diversity, equity and inclusion policies came amid a leadership crisis that peaked earlier that month with the resignation of president Claudine Gay. With an endowment worth $50 billion, Harvard is the richest university in the world.
When asked what Harvard should do next, Griffin told the Financial Times: “Harvard should put it front and center [that it] stands for meritocracy in America and will educate the next generation of leaders in America’s business, government, health care and philanthropic communities. Harvard will cherish our Western values that built one of the world’s greatest nations, foster them in its students, and ask them to demonstrate them. for the rest of my life.”
Griffin calls himself a proponent of free speech and promoting the “American dream.” Those who know him expect that he might one day turn to politics.
“Freedom of speech does not give you the right to storm a building or vandalize it,” Griffin said. “That is not freedom of speech. It was just chaos.”
The Citadel founder drew parallels between US campus protests and the Black Lives Matter social movement, as some social media users posted black squares on Instagram, to express solidarity with the fight for racial justice.
“That day, you didn’t help a single child learn to read, write or do math better,” he said. “Want to be praised for posting a black screen on your Instagram account? Give me a break. What a shame.”
The withdrawal of millions of dollars in planned funding by donors to punish US universities for their response to a Hamas attack on Israel has raised questions about the influence of authoritarian actors. for US universities.
However, Griffin said many of Harvard’s wealthy donors he has spoken to have “little interest in micromanaging the university.” “There is a clear interest in Harvard serving as a beacon for the search for truth and meritocracy,” he said: “Many wealthy donors with insight have The value of transformation and innovation strategies is clearly needed at this time.”
Additional reporting by Joshua Chaffin in New York
