After Reports of His Own Wife's Plagiarism, Bill Ackman Threatens Plagiarism Reviews For All MIT Faculty

This week Harvard's president Claudine Gay resigned 'after conservative activists revealed she had plagiarized,' writes Business Insider, adding that hedge fund manager/prominent Harvard donor Bill Ackman 'helped lead the charge.'

Then Business Insider 'analyzed Ackman's wife's doctoral dissertation and found numerous instances of plagiarism.' In most cases Ackman's wife put the author's name and publication date immediately after the material which she used — but did not put quotation marks around it. But according to the Business Insider, 'At least 15 passages from her 2010 MIT doctoral dissertation were lifted without any citation from Wikipedia entries.'

Her husband, Ackman, has taken a hardline stance on plagiarism. On Wednesday, responding to news that Gay is set to remain a part of Harvard's faculty after she resigned as president, he wrote on X that Gay should be fired completely due to 'serious plagiarism issues... Students are forced to withdraw for much less,' Ackman continued. 'Rewarding her with a highly paid faculty position sets a very bad precedent for academic integrity at Harvard.'

Ackman's wife was a tenured MIT professor from 2017 to 2021, according to the article. 'It is unfortunate that my actions to address problems in higher education have led to these attacks on my family,' Ackman posted Friday night on Twitter.

Then Ackman threatened 'a review of the work of all current MIT faculty members. We will begin with a review of the work of all current MIT faculty members, President Kornbluth, other officers of the Corporation, and its board members for plagiarism.'

Business Insider notes that Ackman 'has been vocal about wanting to see MIT's president, Sally Kornbluth, fired since Kornbluth testified on December 5 in front of a congressional panel examining how university presidents handled student protests against Israel's war in Gaza. Kornbluth said in her opening statement that she didn't support 'speech codes' that would restrict what students say during protests.'

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