$500 million Harvard megadonor halts donations, says elite schools produce ‘whiny snowflakes’
By Matt Egan, CNN
New York (CNN) — Hedge fund billionaire Ken Griffin, who has donated more than $500 million to Harvard University over the years, has halted contributions to his alma mater and claimed elite schools produce “whiny snowflakes.”
Griffin, one of the richest people in the world, joins a growing list of donors to Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania, Columbia and other top schools who have decided to close their checkbooks.
At a conference in Miami on Tuesday, Griffin expressed deep frustration with the state of American universities, including the disastrous testimony before Congress by the presidents of Harvard, MIT and UPenn.
Griffin, the founder of hedge fund Citadel, said he is no longer supporting Harvard financially but would like that to change.
“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,” Griffin told CNBC’s Leslie Picker during the MFA Network Miami conference.
Harvard did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The donor backlash at Ivy League schools raises questions about the sway wealthy individuals hold over educational institutions.
Just last April, Griffin made a $300 million gift to Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS). At the time, the billionaire praised Harvard as a “great institution” and hailed FAS for being “committed to advancing ideas that will shape humanity’s future, while providing important insight into our past.”
Across four decades, Griffin has donated more than $500 million, Harvard said at the time. That includes a $150 million contribution to financial aid in 2014 that Harvard said holds the record for the “largest single gift to undergraduate financial aid and to Harvard College.”
Griffin, who has built a fortune that Bloomberg estimates is $37 billion, is now expressing significant concern about the direction of elite schools and diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies.
“Will America’s elite universities get back to the 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 and a DEI agenda that has no real endgame,” Griffin said.
DEI policies have emerged as a flashpoint at major universities and in the business world, with some arguing they have gone too far.
Griffin suggested that students at elite schools are “just caught up in the rhetoric of oppressor and oppressee and… just like whiny snowflakes.”
The billionaire also reiterated that he won’t hire students who signed an anti-Israel statement issued by Harvard organizations in October. However, Griffin said it’s “just wrong” to lump all students who belonged to groups that signed the statement together, saying: “Don’t paint them all with the same brush.”
A number of other major Harvard donors have halted their donations to the school, including former Victoria’s Secret billionaire Leslie Wexner and billionaire Len Blavatnik, whose family foundation has donated at least $270 million to Harvard.
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