It’s hard to get into Harvard, even if you’ve done it before.
Mark Zuckerberg, the head of Meta, and Bill Ackman, head of hedge fund Pershing Square, have discovered as much in their failed push to bring dissident candidates to Harvard’s Board of Overseers, one of the university’s two governing bodies.
The candidates — a slate of four backed by Mr. Ackman and one candidate backed by Mr. Zuckerberg — said on Friday they had not collected enough signatures to get on the April ballot for the board election.
“We’re disappointed, but we really appreciate all the support,” Zoe Bedell, an assistant U.S. attorney who ran for Ackman, said Friday. “We look forward to trying again next year.”
Their failure raised the question of how much support there was for Mr. Ackman’s persistent campaign against Harvard’s leadership in recent months.
Mr. Ackman highlighted the candidates’ military experience, and Mr. Zuckerberg’s running mate, Sam Lessin, is an entrepreneur and former employee of Facebook (as Meta was formerly known).
But they couldn’t clear the first hurdle: collecting 3,238 signatures from Harvard alumni to get their names on the ballot for the April election.
On Friday night, Mr Lessin posted on social media that he had received 2,901 nominations for registration, 337 short of the required 3,238.
“As far as I know, no write-in candidate has had more,” Mr Lessin wrote in a message to supporters published on Friday night.
He blamed technical difficulties in Harvard’s application process. “I easily have 337 and more in my inbox from alums who tried to submit but were disqualified!”
The candidates ran on a platform of protecting free speech, reviewing management, protecting against anti-Semitism and ensuring academic rigor. These issues have flared up at Harvard in recent months since Claudine Gay stepped down as Harvard president following accusations of plagiarism and tolerance of anti-Semitism.
The 30-member Board of Overseers serves primarily as an advisory group to Harvard’s most powerful corporation. But the superintendents do have a veto over presidential appointments, a crucial power since Harvard will conduct a search for Dr. Gay. And their consent is also required for new members of the Society, which currently has 12 members and one vacancy.
Only Harvard alumni may serve as supervisors, and only alumni may vote in annual board elections. There are five open positions for six-year terms.
Mr. Ackman, while trying to gather signatures, complained bitterly that Harvard had made the process opaque and cumbersome. Graduates had to navigate a somewhat confusing online system that required them to register at least 24 hours before the deadline to sign a petition. Mr. Ackman said Harvard appeared to have changed the format just days before the signing deadline.
“If that’s not election interference, I don’t know what is,” Mr. Ackman posted on X before the signatures are counted.
Harvard, Mr. Ackman and Mr. Zuckerberg declined to comment after the results became known.
Superintendent candidates are traditionally nominated through the Harvard Alumni Association. However, petition-nominated candidates have been on the ballot in the past, notably those who called for divestment from the fossil fuel industry or from apartheid-era South Africa.
There have been notable losers: Barack Obama secured several petition signatures in 1991, on a South African concession platform, but did not win a seat.
Mr. Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, are major donors to Harvard, most recently for artificial intelligence research. They took to YouTube to introduce Mr. Lessin, whom Mr. Zuckerberg met at Harvard. Dr. Chan, a Harvard graduate, is eligible to vote in the election, but Mr. Zuckerberg, who dropped out, is not.
In their video discussion, Mr. Lessin, Class of 2005, argued that supervisors could take a more active role. “They have veto power on a lot of really senior, important things,” he said, adding, “They haven’t used it very much recently.”
Mr. Ackman’s slate consisted of Ms. Bedell, an assistant US attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. Logan Leslie, founder of Northern Rock, an investment firm. Alec Williams, investment fund manager in Boise, Idaho. and Julia Pollak, chief economist at ZipRecruiter.
Ms Bedell said the plate grew out of a core group of friends with a commitment to the service. Mr Ackman had employed one of them – Mr Williams – and they contacted him for support, he said.
Even if they had managed to get on the ballot, only two of the petition’s candidates could have won seats. Harvard has set a limit of six superintendents appointed by petition at any one time, and there are already four on the board. Voting for the election is scheduled to begin on April 1 and run through mid-May.
Another petition hopeful, Harvey Silverglate, the co-founder of FIRE, a free speech group, received 457 signatures in his third attempt since 2009 to get on the ballot.
Mr. Silverglate said that without access to a master list of Harvard alumni, it was very difficult to tell people about his candidacy. “That was an inside game,” he said. He plans to run again next year.
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