In November of last year, a flood of alumni donations came pouring into Harvard—hardly an unusual event for a school that oversees a $50 billion endowment. But something stood out: Many of the donations amounted to exactly $1.
The piddling contributions were a protest of a campus culture that, in the eyes of critics, had restricted political speech while giving free rein to anti-Semitism. The action had been inspired by Marc Rowan, CEO of private equity giant Apollo, who a month earlier had called on fellow alums of the University of Pennsylvania—where he has been a prodigious donor—to join him in stiffing that school with $1 donations. And they came as another big Wall Street name, hedge fund manager Bill Ackman, launched a noisy campaign to oust the presidents of Harvard, Penn, and MIT after those officials testified before Congress about campus anti-Semitism in a way many viewed as hypocritical and insensitive. (By early January, the heads of Harvard and Penn had resigned.)
This Ivy League vs. Wall Street battle erupted in the context of bitter division over the Israel-Hamas conflict and its tragic cost in thousands
