Billionaire hedge fund manager and prominent Harvard donor Bill Ackman capitalized on plagiarism revelations by Harvard’s president, Claudine Gay. This became a focal point in his campaign for Gay’s removal, which Ackman, who is Jewish, initiated due to his perception of her mishandling of large pro-Palestine protests against Israel’s bombardment of Gaza on Harvard’s campus.

He wrote on X that Gay deserved to be fired as Harvard’s president entirely due to “serious plagiarism issues.”

“Students are forced to withdraw for much less,” Ackman continued. She ultimately resigned but stayed on at the university as faculty.

Business Insider conducted an investigation revealing a comparable pattern of alleged plagiarism by Ackman’s wife, Neri Oxman, a tenured professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology since 2017. The investigation found that Oxman had plagiarized multiple paragraphs in her 2010 doctoral dissertation, lifting at least one passage directly from other writers without proper citation.

Ackman vowed legal action against Business Insider, however, Oxman publicly acknowledged shortcomings in properly citing some of her work. She conveyed regret and issued an apology on X/Twitter. Still, Ackman contested the accuracy of Business Insider’s reporting and hinted at Oxman securing legal representation. Ackman, recognized for his unwavering stance against plagiarism, took to X to declare that Business Insider is facing dire consequences, asserting that the publication is “toast.” He further pledged forthcoming actions in the following weeks.

Business Insider stands behind its reporting, CNN reported. “Business Insider supports and empowers our journalists to share newsworthy, factual stories with our readers, and we do so with editorial independence,” Barbara Peng, chief executive of Business Insider, wrote in a statement. “We stand by our newsroom and our reporting, which will continue onward.”

There’s another scandal connected to Oxman. In 2019, revealed emails from the Boston Globe exposed Ackman’s efforts to shield Oxman’s name from an emerging scandal involving a sculpture she gifted to Jeffrey Epstein as gratitude for a $125,000 donation to her lab, Bloomberg reported.

Photo: Bill Ackman and Neri Oxman, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, https://www.cshl.edu/giving/double-helix-medals-dinner/bill-ackman-and-neri-oxman/