Billionaire Kenneth Griffin, the founder and CEO of Citadel, the most successful hedge fund of all time, has suspended all donations to his alma mater, Harvard University, in the wake of its leadership’s lack of response to the antisemitism crisis on campus and its overemphasis on progressive causes such as Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI).

Speaking at a conference in Miami on Tuesday, Griffin, who is not Jewish, was asked if he still supports Harvard. “No,” he replied. “And I’ve made that clear to members of the corporate board.”

“Until Harvard makes it very clear that they’re going to resume their role as educating young American men and women to be leaders, to be problem solvers, to take on difficult issues, I’m not interested in supporting the institution,” Griffin said in his first public comments on the issue.

Griffin called Harvard students “whiny snowflakes” and excoriated elite universities in general, saying: “Will America’s elite universities 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 endgame, and just being loss in the wilderness?”

Griffin added that his firms, Citadel LLC and Citadel Securities, will not employ any students who signed a group letter saying that Israel was “entirely responsible” for the Hamas attack on October 7th.

Less than a year ago, Griffin donated $300 million to Harvard in April 2023, which raised his total contributions to the university over the years to over half a $billion. In 2014, he made headlines when he donated $150 million to Harvard, the largest single donation ever made to the institution at the time.

Griffin’s suspension of donations to Harvard follows similar moves by other billionaires but he is the first non-Jewish billionaire to announce that he halted donations to the university.

As of April 2023, Griffin had an estimated net worth of $35 billion, making him the 38th-richest person in the world.

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)