HARVARD: THE PRESSURE’S NOT OFF. Billionaire Megadonor Ken Griffin Says He Will Stop Donations to Harvard.

Griffin announced his decision to stop donating to Harvard during a keynote talk at a conference hosted by the Managed Funds Association in Miami. . . .

“I’d like that to change and I have made that clear to members of the corporate board,” he said. “But 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.”

He added that Harvard students were “whiny snowflakes” caught in a misguided ideology of oppressor and oppressed during his remarks.

“Will America’s elite university 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 asked.

A Harvard spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

During his remarks, Griffin also said that his firms Citadel LLC and Citadel Securities, which recruit heavily from Harvard, would not hire any students who allegedly signed a controversial student group letter in response to Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel — mirroring a pledge by billionaire hedge fund CEO Bill A. Ackman ’88 and other business leaders who have heavily criticized the University in recent months.

Griffin, whose donations to Harvard total more than $500 million, is the largest donor to date to publicly pledge not to give to Harvard over its handling of antisemitism and its historic leadership crisis last fall. His announcement is also a serious signal that donor backlash did not end with former Harvard President Claudine Gay’s resignation Jan. 2.

Good.