Hedge fund manager Bill Ackman is wading further into the conversation about Harvard University‘s governance, backing four outsider candidates to bring “fresh blood and new perspectives” to the Board of Overseers.
Ackman, who holds a B.A. and M.B.A. from the school, threw his support behind a coalition of insurgent candidates running for the Board of Overseers under the name Renew Harvard. The billionaire is widely seen as a major force in the ouster of former Harvard President Claudine Gay.
The school’s Board of Overseers is one of two governing bodies at Harvard, along with the President and Fellows, which is otherwise known as the Corporation. The overseer board, founded in 1642, governs a wide variety of university projects that maintain “the quality of Harvard’s programs and assures that the University remains true to its charter as a place of learning.”
Ackman has been soliciting signatures for the candidates on X, telling his fellow Harvard alumni to allow the Renew Harvard candidates ballot access for the April elections to fill five annual vacancies on the board. The signatures are due on Wednesday, and Ackman said Sunday that Harvard increased the number of signatures required to get on the ballot from 600 to 3,300 “to make it more than five times more difficult for alumni to participate in Harvard’s governance.”
In a Jan. 14 post, Ackman said the candidates are running on a platform to “renew Harvard’s leadership, defend free speech, protect students, and fix mismanagement,” adding that “the other candidates for election have been chosen by the incumbent board and/or administration so only these four represent fresh blood and new perspectives.”
Harvard has weathered controversy for months since Gay struggled to defend the university’s handling of antisemitism on campus in the wake of the Oct. 7 Hamas-led terrorist attack on Israel. The fallout prompted scrutiny of the diversity, equity, and inclusion ideology that has taken root at the school, leading to calls from prominent critics such as Ackman for deeper reforms.
The Harvard Alumni Association picked eight candidates to appear on the ballot, who are widely seen as the establishment candidates with pre-approval from representatives of the status quo.
Zoe Bedell, one of the Renew Harvard candidates, told the Harvard Crimson that the process of gathering signatures, with the high threshold, shows the school is “resistant to change.” According to Ackman’s Sunday X post, the reform candidates are only about halfway to the goal.
“One question that has come to my mind repeatedly here is, ‘What is Harvard afraid of?’” Bedell added. “They’ve really implemented a lot of obstacles to having anything even remotely resembling an outside voice.”
Renew Harvard was established in the wake of Gay’s resignation and includes candidates who have vast legal, business, and military service. According to the coalition’s website, Gay’s resignation merely provided the “natural opportunity to correct course” but that much more needed to be done.
“We must not think that the problems will resolve with one resignation,” the website reads. “Harvard’s new leadership must be qualified, prepared, and committed to upholding Harvard’s policies and values for all students and faculty. A selection process that repeats the flaws of the last process will not yield change.”
Ackman is not the only prominent voice to wade into the battle over Harvard’s future governance. Mark Zuckerberg, the Facebook founder who dropped out of Harvard, is backing a candidate for the overseers board who has promised more transparency, according to the Harvard Crimson.
Zoe Bedell
Bedell, who holds a law degree from Harvard, is an assistant U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia focusing on cybercrime. She has also clerked for Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan and then-U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit Judge Brett Kavanaugh.
“We all share the same values — the same fundamental values — about this commitment to academic freedom and the free exchange of ideas,” Bedell said, according to the Harvard Crimson. “We’d like to right the ship and restore that focus on academic freedom, and the free exchange of ideas that I think makes Harvard specifically — and universities generally — great places for learning.”
The litigator also served in the Marine Corps as an officer and was deployed to Afghanistan twice, after which she campaigned against the combat exclusion policy that barred women from combat positions in the military.
Logan Leslie
Leslie holds a B.A., J.D., and M.B.A. from Harvard and is the founder and CEO of small business acquisition and operation company Northern Rock, which employs over 500 professionals across the South.
He served for 20 years in the military, seeing several deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, and he now serves as a special forces command sergeant major in the Army National Guard.
A Georgia resident, Leslie was appointed by Gov. Brian Kemp (R-GA) to the state’s Workforce Development Board.
Alec Williams
Williams holds an M.B.A. from Harvard, which he earned using the G.I Bill.
He is a veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan and has 14 years of service as a lieutenant commander in the Navy Reserves.
Williams also holds a J.D. and taught law classes as an adjunct in his home state at the University of Idaho College of Law. He is an entrepreneur and manages funds for real estate, private equity, and venture capital.
Julia Pollak
Pollak holds a B.A. from Harvard and is the chief economist at online employment marketplace ZipRecruiter and co-chair of the Labor Economics Roundtable of the National Association of Business Economics.
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For 11 years, Pollak served as a drilling reservist in the Navy. Pollak previously worked at the RAND Corporation and was an adjunct instructor of economics at Pepperdine University.