Bill Ackman's DEI Rants Spotlight a Need for Gender Parity in VC Portfolios
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Bill Ackman's DEI Rants Spotlight a Need for Gender Parity in VC Portfolios
Another day, another epically long, obsessive X post (or five) from activist investor Bill Ackman, whose recent high-profile attacks on the social media platform began with the female presidents of Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and University of Pennsylvania over their Congressional testimony in response to antisemitic protests on campus. They eventually morphed into a laser-focused targeting of now-former Harvard President Claudine Gay after allegations of plagiarism surfaced.
More than anything, though, it was Ackman's criticism of Harvard’s board, whose diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) criteria he blamed for Gay’s appointment, that now has some observers concerned that such tactics could bleed into corporate America. As Bloomberg Opinion’s Beth Kowitt pointed out in a recent column, Ackman’s campaign against Harvard reveals a “playbook” for how to attack corporate DEI. And perhaps nowhere is diversity and inclusivity more critical to the U.S. economy than in small businesses, including startups, which account for roughly 44% of U.S. economic activity, according to the U.S. Small Business Administration’s most recent data.
Ackman’s commentary on what he perceives to be fundamentally flawed DEI ideology—“DEI is racist because reverse racism is racism, even if it is against white people (and it is remarkable that I even need to point this out),” he said in one post—compelled others to jump into the fray, including X owner Elon Musk, who shares Ackman’s position on DEI as “racist,” and billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban, whose X post outlines why he is an advocate of corporate inclusivity initiatives. Ackman shows no signs of backing off his hot-button issues any time soon: On Friday, he sat down with Squawk Box’s Andrew Ross Sorkin to discuss the Harvard/MIT/UPenn saga, antisemitism, DEI and ping-ponging allegations of plagiarism, among other subjects in which he intends to insert himself.
No one questions the Pershing Square chief executive’s right to freely express himself, but he has a distinct advantage: He is male, white, very rich, and has turned the platform, formerly known as Twitter and on which he has 1.1 million followers, into a bully pulpit. (Let’s call it The Ackman Effect.) It’s impossible to ignore Ackman’s voluminous X postings, and following along daily has become like hate-watching “And Just Like That,” but with far more on the line for women, culturally and financially, in the real world.