The man behind campaign to force Harvard's president to resign

Chief among the campaigners celebrating the resignation of Claudine Gay as president of Harvard University was a man who arguably did the most to push Gay, Harvard's first black president, out of the door: Bill Ackman, a billionaire hedge-fund manager and Harvard alumnus.

- Adam Gabbatt

Ackman, who accused Gay of antisemitism and plagiarism, was a major player in what was increasingly seen as a rightwing campaign against the Harvard president - who said many of the attacks against her were "fuelled by racial animus".

In the past month alone, the 57-year-old has tweeted about Gay, Harvard or both, more than 100 times to his 1 million followers. On Tuesday he topped that with a 4,000word X post about "racism against white people"; universities' efforts to increase diversity; and accusations that student groups were "supporting terrorism".

Ackman's campaign came after "years of resentment", the New York Times commented, in part because his donations to Harvard had not given him greater influence over the university.

A previous donor to the Democratic party, Ackman has denied his politics are now rightwing. But his campaign was seized upon by conservatives and a Republican party long resentful of an alleged liberal bias, and of affirmative action efforts, on college campuses and elsewhere something commenters pointed out after Gay's resignation.

AI Sharpton, the civil rights leader and founder of the National Action Network, was among those who blamed Ackman for Gay's departure, citing his "relentless campaign against President Gay, not because of her leadership or credentials but because he felt she was a DEI [diversity, equity and inclusion] hire".

"President Gay's resignation is about more than a person or a single incident. This is an attack on every black woman in this country who's put a crack in the glass ceiling," Sharpton said.

The National Action Network was planning to picket outside Ackman's office in Manhattan, Sharpton said.