If Harvard alum Bill Ackman is correct, the university has lost more than $1 billion in “cancelled, paused, and withdrawn donations” from both Jewish and non-Jewish alumni since Claudine Gay’s disastrous congressional testimony, where she argued context is necessary to determine whether calls for genocide against the Jewish people violate the school’s harassment and bullying policies. But the fallout for Harvard has not just been financial. Its reputation has taken a tremendous hit as well. Not only was Gay's congressional testimony controversial, but so too was the way she initially handled Harvard’s response to the Oct. 7 attack on Israel. Since then, the university has failed to adequately address the rising anti-Semitism on campus, and now the president is embroiled in a plagiarism scandal.
It's within this context that some are deciding they just want nothing to do with Harvard at all. Former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan withdrew his offer to participate in two fellowships back in October; a top law firm decided it would stop participating in in-person recruiting events at Harvard; and now a business school in Austria said it’s done with its partnership with the university.
The Lauder Business School in Vienna, Austria, “in solidarity with the Jewish student community,” made the announcement earlier this month.
“Since 2014, Lauder Business School has proudly been an affiliate of Professor Michael Porter’s Microeconomics of Competitiveness Network at Harvard University, and we have valued and enjoyed the productivity of this cooperation over the years,” Daniella Sheinfeld, head of communications for Lauder Business School, said in a statement, according to CNN. “However, due to recent events, Lauder Business School has decided to withdraw from this network.”
A statement on Facebook noted that Lauder “is forming new partnerships that are more closely aligned with our core values and standards.”
How much longer the university will continue backing Gay despite the continued fallout remains to be seen.