Billionaire and Harvard alum Bill Ackman told CNBC’s "Squawk Box" on Monday that there needs to be a change in corporation leadership at his alma mater.
The Trump administration has targeted universities like Harvard University over their failures to reign in antisemitic protests on campus since Oct. 7, 2023. President Donald Trump has so far frozen $2.2 billion worth of federal grant money to Harvard and called on the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to revoke the school’s tax-exempt status.
Ackman, a vocal critic of Harvard, agreed with the idea of removing Harvard’s non-profit status, though he admitted doubting it will end up happening.
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Ackman said the proper response by the school should be to acknowledge the things Trump is right about in his attacks and work to correct these examples. He called out Harvard’s decision to instead sue the Trump administration for freezing federal funding as "the wrong thing to do."
"Harvard became, over time, a political advocacy organization for one party," Ackman said. "When a university goes from being a university to becoming a political advocacy organization, it doesn’t deserve nonprofit status."
He added, "Harvard should be a place where students go to learn, and the best research gets done. It shouldn’t be a place that is allowing pro-terrorist organizations on campus, that only allows certain kinds of thinking and speech on campus. That’s a political advocacy organization. It’s not a university."
However, he did not put the blame entirely on Harvard President Alan Garber, calling him a "good president." Ackman singled out Harvard Corporation Lead Member Penny Pritzker before calling for new leadership.
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"If this were any other kind of corporation, the notion that she’s still chairman of Harvard, leading the charge here and, in terms of Harvard, managed everything from COVID…to endowment management, to waste, to free speech, to who they hired as president of the university…It’s time for a change in leadership in the board at Harvard," Ackman said.
Fox News Digital reached out to Harvard for comment.
It is so far unclear whether the Trump administration will follow through on its threat to the university's tax-exempt status or if the president’s actions would hold up in court.