Harvard students will be blacklisted by Wall Street CEO warns

Harvard students who blamed Israel for the massacre of its citizens by Hamas had their own future thrown into doubt last night as a host of blue chip CEOs declared them unemployable. The elite university faced a massive backlash after 31 of its student societies issued a joint statement ‘holding the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence’.

The Anti-Defamation League denounced the statement as ‘anti-Semitic’ and others accused the university of tolerating hate speech. But Wall Street appears even less forgiving with billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman (pictured) revealing that his fellow bosses want to know who they are so ‘none of us inadvertently hire any of their members’. The CEO of Pershing Square Capital Management said he has been approached by ‘a number of CEOs’, adding: ‘One should not be able to hide behind a corporate shield when issuing statements supporting the actions of terrorists, who, we now learn, have beheaded babies, among other inconceivably despicable acts.’

Jonathan Neman (pictured), CEO of food chain Sweetgreen agreed, tweeting he ‘would like to know so I know never to hire these people’. DoveHill Capital Management CEO Jake Wurzak supported the call, and EasyHealth healthcare services CEO David Duel responded: ‘Same.’ In their statement on Sunday the groups said the attack which left more than 1,000 dead ‘did not happen in a vacuum’, and claimed the Israeli government has forced Palestinians to live in ‘an open-air prison for over two decades’.

‘The apartheid regime is the only one to blame. Israeli violence has structured every aspect of Palestinian existence for 75 years,’ they wrote. ‘From systematized land seizures to routine airstrikes, arbitrary detentions to military checkpoints, and enforced family separations to targeted killings, Palestinians have been forced to live in a state of death, both slow and sudden.’ Among names to have emerged so far are Shir Lovett-Graff, founder of the university’s Jews for Liberation, Bengali Association co-treasurer Shifa Hossain and Fatima Almire of Harvard’s Middle Eastern and North African Student Association.

Many of the groups which put their names to the statement appeared to be disabling their web pages last night while at least two had withdrawn their support in response to the backlash. The university’s Nepali student association said it condemned ‘violence by Hamas’ and said it regretted that the statement ‘has been interpreted as a tacit support for the recent violent attacks in Israel’.

And the Harvard Undergraduate Ghungroo, which promotes South Asian culture, said it would like to ‘formally apologize’. ‘The Ghungroo strictly denounces and condemns the massacre propagated by the terrorist organization Hamas,’ it added. ‘We truly apologize for the insensitivity of the statement that was released recently.’

The statement was initially removed by Instagram but reposted on Monday night with the names of the student groups replaced by just ‘Harvard Palestine Solidarity Groups’. ‘For student safety, the names of all original signing organizations have been concealed at this time,’ it added. Harvard law student Danielle Mikaelian said she had stepped down from her role as a board member of one of the student groups that co-signed the controversial statement, calling it ‘egregious’.

The slowness of the college to distance itself from the remarks also sparked fury with Harvard President Emeritus Lawrence Summers calling it ‘sickening’. ‘The silence from Harvard’s leadership has allowed Harvard to appear at best neutral towards acts of terror against the Jewish state of Israel,’ he wrote on social media platform X. ‘I am sickened.’

His successor Claudine (pictured) finally issued a statement on Tuesday condemning ‘terrorist atrocities committed by Hamas in Israel’ and insisting the 31 student groups ‘don’t speak for the university or its leadership’. ‘Let me also state, on this matter as on others, that while our students have the right to speak for themselves, no student group — not even 30 student groups — speaks for Harvard University or its leadership,’ She said. ‘As the events of recent days continue to reverberate, let there be no doubt that I condemn the terrorist atrocities perpetrated by Hamas. Such inhumanity is abhorrent, whatever one’s individual views of the origins of longstanding conflicts in the region,’ she said.

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