- Billionaires are withholding donations to Ivy League schools.
- They’ve criticized the institutions’ responses to antisemitism.
- Len Blavatnik, who is Jewish, joined the group of billionaires suspending donations.
Billionaire investor Len Blavatnik is pausing donations to Harvard University, joining a group of wealthy megadonors who have criticized the response to antisemitism on campus in the wake of the Israel-Palestine conflict.
A source familiar with the matter confirmed to CNN that the Blavatnik Family Foundation is suspending donations to the university. A spokesperson for the foundation did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider sent after working hours.
Blavatnik, who is Jewish and received his MBA from Harvard Business School, is a heavyweight donor to the Ivy League school. CNN’s source said Blavatnik’s foundation has given at least $270 million.
Blavatnik did not make specific requests to Harvard but wants the school to “do better” to protect Jewish students on campus, the source told CNN.
“He’s not trying to step away or abandon the place,” the source said.
Divisions over the ongoing Israel-Palestine conflict have pervaded US college campuses for years, but the Hamas terrorist attack in October has increased tensions among student bodies, and Harvard, in particular, has taken center stage.
After a group of student organizations called the Harvard Palestine Solidarity Groups blamed the Israeli government for the October 7 attack in a public statement, billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman demanded the university release the names of the students associated with the letter.
Donors soon began to announce pauses in donations to their elite alma maters, including University of Pennsylvania grads Apollo Global Management CEO Marc Rowan and the family of former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr.
Criticism of elite schools from business leaders only mounted in December after a congressional hearing that included presidents of UPenn, MIT, and Harvard. Many, including Ackman, denounced their responses to a question from Republican Rep. Elise Sefanik, who asked whether calling for a genocide of Jews violates their school’s code of conduct.
“It can be, depending on the context,” Harvard’s president Claudine Gay said.
Gay later issued a statement on X, taking a clearer stance: “Calls for violence or genocide against the Jewish community, or any religious or ethnic group are vile, they have no place at Harvard, and those who threaten our Jewish students will be held to account.”
A spokesperson for Harvard did not respond to a request for comment sent outside working hours.
During the October 7 terror attack, about 1,200 people were killed and 240 taken hostage by Hamas, the militant group that governs Gaza, and other groups. Israel responded to the attack with airstrikes and a ground invasion that has killed at least 20,000 people in Gaza, according to health officials in Gaza.
In the months since the attack, instances of antisemitism and islamophobia have been on the rise in the US.
