On Friday local time, American hedge fund tycoon Bill Ackman, one of the core figures who pushed for the resignation of the former president of Harvard University, announced on social media that he would investigate all MIT faculty and staff, including President Kornbluth and members of the school board, to see if they had also committed plagiarism.
It was previously reported that Ackerman’s wife, Neri Oxman, had engaged in plagiarism similar to Claudine Gay, the former president of Harvard University who was recently forced to resign. Portions of her doctoral thesis from MIT were not properly cited.
In response to the report, Oxman responded to the report on social media on Thursday, saying that using quotation marks was "the correct way to title the work, and I regret and apologize for these errors." She also said that after reviewing the original material, she planned to "ask MIT to make any necessary corrections."
Her husband, Ackerman, posted on social media on Thursday praising her for her candid admission of wrongdoing. "Part of what makes her human is that she makes mistakes, admits them, and apologizes when appropriate," he wrote.
However, the incident did not end there. Ackerman revealed on Friday that the outlet that originally reported the story had just contacted his wife, claiming they had discovered more plagiarism in her work, including 15 examples in her paper for which she failed to cite sources.
Ackerman believes that his recent actions against the leadership of American universities such as Harvard led to the attack on his wife.
"Unfortunately, my actions to address issues in higher education resulted in attacks on my family," he wrote on the
In December, Ackerman began calling for the resignations of former Harvard University President Claudine Gay, as well as University of Pennsylvania presidents Liz Magill and MIT President Sally Kornbluth, after their performances sparked criticism while testifying before the U.S. Congress on how to deal with anti-Semitism on campuses.
University of Pennsylvania President McGill resigned on December 9, and Harvard University President Gay announced his resignation on January 2. As of Friday, Kornbluth remained MIT president.