Billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman led the charge to push out Harvard’s president Claudine Gay amid charges of plagiarism. But now the recriminations have boomeranged back on him, with reports that his academic wife may have committed plagiarism in her dissertation.
The reports in Business Insider late last week have triggered off a dizzying array of allegations from Ackman, who insists his family should be off-limits to scrutiny, which has pushed the news site’s publisher, Axel Springer SE, into saying it is investigating how the stories came together.
For those having trouble keeping track, here’s a blow-by-blow of how events have unfolded:
Harvard’s president steps down
After Claudine Gay stepped down last week as president of Harvard, following allegations of plagiarism and a disastrous appearance before Congress, Ackman, the head of Pershing Square Capital Management, took a victory lap of sorts for pushing for her ouster.
Ackman, a Harvard grad and a significant donor, originally focused his criticism on what he said was Gay’s weak response to pro-Palestinian protests on campus following the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas that left more than 1,200 Israelis dead. But he later pointed to plagiarism allegations against Gay, who is Black, from conservative activists as proof that she was unfit for the job and only got it because of a diversity push at the hallowed Ivy League school.
Ackman’s wife falls into the crosshairs
Given Ackman’s high-profile role in the situation at Harvard, the media outlet Business Insider turned its gaze on him, first running some of his academic work at Harvard through plagiarism-tracking software, said a person familiar with the matter. When that didn’t find any issues, reporters there did a similar search on papers Ackman’s wife, Neri Oxman, a high-profile design and architecture academic, wrote while at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Those uncovered several alleged instances of plagiarism from other works and even Wikipedia, Business Insider reported in a series of stories.
On X, the social media site formerly known as Twitter, Oxman acknowledged making a few errors in some of the passages of her 330-page Ph.D. dissertation cited by Business Insider’s reporting.
Ackman on the warpath
While his wife was apologetic, Ackman took to X to unleash a flurry of accusations at Business Insider, its reporters, its owners, Axel Springer, and its owner, private equity firm KKR
KKR,
and even MIT and its chairman. Ackman had previously called for the ouster of MIT’s president after she appeared alongside Gay before Congress at the highly-criticized hearing on anti-Semitism on campuses.
Ackman alleged that the articles had been driven by anti-Semitism as Oxman, whom he married in 2019, hails from Israel. He also complained that Business Insider hadn’t given him and his wife enough time to respond to the stories they were preparing to publish. Ackman also argued that his wife should be off-limits as she is not a public figure.
At no point has Ackman or Oxman challenged the content of the reporting.
Enter Axel Springer
Business Insider is owned by the German media conglomerate Axel Springer SE, which has operated with a set of principles since its founding after World War II, that include support for Israel’s right to exist, a united Europe, and a dedication to free-market economies, among other things.
When Ackman accused a Business Insider editor of being a “known anti-Zionist,” that got the attention of executives at Axel, who are sensitive to the issue given their company’s long-standing position, said a person familiar with the matter.
So the firm issued a statement saying it would have Business Insider review how the stories came together to make sure all standards were met.
“While the facts of the reports have not been disputed, over the past few days questions have been raised about the motivation and the process leading up to the reporting — questions that we take very seriously,” the company said. “All Axel Springer publications are committed to journalism that meets rigorous editorial standards and processes.”
Business Insider Editor Nich Carlson, followed with a statement saying he personally approved the stories and stood by their reporting and that he was sure any review would show that the work met all standards.
Axel Springer is confident that Business Insider’s reporting was sound, said a person familiar with the media conglomerate’s thinking, but the company wanted to make sure that the process — specifically the notion that Ackman and his wife weren’t given enough time to respond — was handled properly.
“We are sure there is no bias in BI’s reporting,” the person said. “But if Ackman is going to call us out on this, we will engage the question.”
The person familiar with Axel Springer also dismissed the notion that Oxman wasn’t a public figure, noting she had been the subject of numerous profiles in major publications like The New York Times, Vanity Fair, People magazine and the New York Post, and had long palled around with celebrities like Brad Pitt and Bjork.
“She may not be involved in Bill Ackman’s crusade these past few weeks, but it’s not serious to say she is not a public figure,” the person said.
A spokesperson for Bill Ackman did not immediately respond to request for comment.
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