Billionaire halts Harvard donations after claiming the university produces 'whiny snowflakes'

A hedge fund billionaire who has donated more than $500 million to Harvard University over the years has halted contributions to his alma mater after claiming the elite institution produces "whiny snowflakes".

Ken Griffin, one of the richest people in the world, joins a growing list of donors to Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania, Columbia and other top schools who have decided to close their chequebooks.

At a conference in Miami on Tuesday, Mr Griffin expressed deep frustration with the state of American universities.

The founder of hedge fund Citadel, the 55-year-old said he is no longer supporting Harvard financially but would like that to change.

Mr Griffin suggested that students at elite schools are “just caught up in the rhetoric of oppressor and oppressee and… just like whiny snowflakes.”

“Until Harvard makes it very clear that they’re going to resume their role as (educators of) young American men and women to be leaders, to be problem solvers, to take on difficult issues, I am not interested in supporting the institution,” he told CNBC.

Harvard has not yet publicly commented.

The donor backlash at Ivy League schools, a group of eight prestigious private colleges and universities in the US, raises questions about the sway wealthy individuals hold over educational institutions.

Just last April, Griffin made a $300 million (£237m) gift to Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

At the time, the billionaire praised Harvard as a “great institution” and hailed FAS for being “committed to advancing ideas that will shape humanity’s future, while providing important insight into our past.”

Over four decades, Griffin has donated more than $500 million (£395m), Harvard said at the time.

That includes a $150 million (£118m) contribution to financial aid in 2014 that Harvard said holds the record for the "largest single gift to undergraduate financial aid and to Harvard College."

Mr Griffin, who has built a fortune that Bloomberg estimates is $37 billion, is now expressing concern about the direction of elite schools and diversity, equity and inclusion policies [DEI].

“Will America’s elite universities get back to the roots of educating American children - young adults - to be the future leaders of our country or are they going to maintain being lost in the wilderness of microaggressions and a DEI agenda that has no real endgame,” he said.

DEI policies have emerged as a flashpoint at major universities and in the business world, with some arguing they have gone too far.

A number of other major Harvard donors have halted their donations to the school, including former Victoria’s Secret billionaire Leslie Wexner and billionaire Len Blavatnik, whose family foundation has donated at least $270 million to Harvard.

Only last month, its president, Claudine Gay, resigned over fierce criticism of the University's response to the Hamas attack on Israel and allegations of professional plagiarism.

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