'Bill Ackman, Leading US University President Ouster Campaign, Faces Controversy Over Wife's Plagiarism Allegations'

Ackman "Will Investigate All MIT Faculty Papers"

Bill Ackman, a hedge fund mogul and chairman of Pershing Square Capital who led the 'anti-Semitic university president ousting campaign' against prestigious American universities, has been embroiled in a 'double standard' controversy due to plagiarism allegations involving his spouse's thesis.

On the 6th (local time), The New York Times (NYT) reported that plagiarism was found in the doctoral dissertation of Ackman's spouse, Neri Oxman, a former Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) professor.

Oxman, an architect, is said to have copied sentences from the online encyclopedia Wikipedia and other papers without proper citation in the dissertation she submitted to receive her PhD from MIT. Oxman apologized, stating that mistakes were found in several paragraphs of the 330-page dissertation.

Ackman regards the plagiarism allegations against his wife as retaliation for his leadership in the anti-Semitic university president ousting campaign. Targeting MIT, he stated, "My actions pointing out the problems of educators have triggered attacks on my family," and added, "I will investigate the entire faculty's dissertations, including the MIT president's, to determine plagiarism and disclose the results to the public."

Sally Kornbluth, MIT's president, is the only one among the three prestigious university presidents targeted by the American conservative ousting campaign who has not stepped down. Elizabeth Magill, former president of the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn), and Claudine Gay, former president of Harvard University, both recently resigned. In particular, Gay's resignation was decisively due to insufficient citation in her dissertation.

Ackman actively raised issues about ideological polarization on campuses after a statement by a Harvard student group blaming Israel for the surprise attack by the Palestinian armed group Hamas was released in October last year. He especially pointed out the qualifications of Gay, who was elected as Harvard's first Black president, contributing to the plagiarism controversy.

Ackman, a Harvard alumnus, founded Pershing Square Capital in 2004 and gained fame by conducting a large-scale short selling campaign against the global health supplement company Herbalife.