Within the two-month battle over the destiny of Harvard’s president, the billionaire investor William A. Ackman has solid himself as a protector of Jewish college students and the standard-bearer for individuals who imagine faculties have fostered a hostile environment for critics of liberal orthodoxy.

However behind his anger are private grievances that predate the uproar that has engulfed campuses because the Oct. 7 assault by Hamas on Israel and Israel’s subsequent invasion of Gaza. Mr. Ackman, by his personal admission and based on others round him, resents that officers at his alma mater, to which he’s donated tens of tens of millions of {dollars}, and its president, Claudine Homosexual, haven’t heeded his recommendation on a wide range of matters.

Most lately, this consists of how to reply to complaints of antisemitism and the specter of violence towards supporters of Israel on campus.

“It might have been sensible for her to hear, or to not less than decide up the cellphone,” Mr. Ackman mentioned in an interview, describing a latest outreach to Dr. Homosexual that was a part of a stream of calls, texts and letters to college officers.

On Tuesday, Harvard’s board introduced that Dr. Homosexual, its first Black president, would keep in her put up regardless of requires her removing. Although Mr. Ackman’s marketing campaign — which has included the accusation that she was employed partly due to her race and gender — did not unseat her, he succeeded in shaping the talk about antisemitism at universities and showcasing questions in regards to the energy of main donors to dictate the route of elite establishments. He mentioned he desires to be a “constructive pressure” on the faculty.

These delicate to the notion {that a} rich alumnus may exert such affect over the varsity mounted a marketing campaign to again Dr. Homosexual. Mr. Ackman maintains assist from some corners of campus, together with Jewish teams who really feel that the college was too gradual to forcefully condemn the Hamas assault and has since equivocated on threatened violence towards Jewish college students. Mr. Ackman famous that he met with 230 Jewish college students in a city corridor on a latest journey to campus.

“When the historical past of this second is written, Invoice can be part of it,” mentioned Rabbi Hirschy Zarchi of Harvard Chabad, who additionally hosted Mr. Ackman on campus.

Mr. Ackman, who posts continuously on social media to almost a million followers, stands nearly alone amongst high-profile donors to Harvard in making himself a public adversary of the varsity. Different rich Harvard donors just like the financier Kenneth Griffin have pressed their views solely behind the scenes.

The president of the College of Pennsylvania, M. Elizabeth Magill, resigned this weekend amid organized pushback from high-profile alumni of the varsity. Ms. Magill, Dr. Homosexual and Sally Kornbluth, president of the Massachusetts Institute of Expertise, set off a furor at a congressional listening to final week, once they appeared to evade questions on whether or not college students must be disciplined in the event that they referred to as for the genocide of Jews.

“I don’t suppose we might have seen something nearing the extent of backlash towards these establishments had it not been for Invoice Ackman,” mentioned Chris Rufo, senior fellow of the conservative Manhattan Institute for Coverage Analysis, an outspoken critic of college range packages and matters like essential race idea. Mr. Rufo praised the hedge fund supervisor as an “elite defector,” a sentiment shared by a half-dozen Harvard donors who mentioned they supported Mr. Ackman’s goals however have been reticent to talk publicly and harm their relationship with the varsity.

There are others who disagree. Ben Eidelson, a professor at Harvard Legislation College, described Mr. Ackman as “an outsider.” “We are able to’t operate as a college if we’re answerable to random wealthy guys and the mobs they mobilize on Twitter,” he mentioned.

Mr. Ackman, 57, has an estimated fortune of $3.8 billion, based on Forbes, and a historical past of donating to Democrats. He based the hedge fund Pershing Sq. Capital and for years waged high-profile, drawn-out battles towards corporations he believes to be mismanaged. He misplaced a billion-dollar guess towards the dietary meals complement firm Herbalife, which he referred to as an outright fraud — allegations that have been by no means confirmed. Initially of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, he made $2.6 billion wagering that the inventory market would drop.

Lately, Mr. Ackman has additionally continuously weighed in on hot-button public points, together with the pandemic, Russia’s assault on Ukraine, the cryptocurrency change FTX, the collapse of Silicon Valley Financial institution, the presidential marketing campaign of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and the assorted goings-on round Elon Musk.

Key to Pershing Sq.’s playbook, which Mr. Ackman appears to have adopted in his battle towards Harvard, is a dedication to go to nice lengths to strain corporations to bend to his will.

He has given tens of tens of millions of {dollars} through the years to Harvard, however doesn’t rank among the many prime donors at a college that has landed quite a few nine-figure donations. His largest reward dates to 2014, when he and his former spouse introduced a $25 million donation to develop the economics division and endow three professorships.

Extra lately, he gave a smaller sum to the rowing crew, a crew he joined as an undergraduate.

However interviews with him and 10 associates revealed a gradual degradation of the connection together with his alma mater.

Within the interview on Monday, Mr. Ackman recalled that slightly over a yr in the past, Dr. Homosexual, who on the time was dean of Harvard’s School of Arts and Sciences, paid a go to to his waterfront Manhattan workplace. The matters of debate included Mr. Ackman’s plans to donate more cash.

The 45-minute chat was nice, he recalled, and so he anticipated that she could be receptive to his enter roughly two months in the past, when he referred to as her to debate his considerations in regards to the hazard to Jewish college students after the lethal Oct. 7 assault in Israel, and his disappointment within the college’s official response to it.

Dr. Homosexual forwarded his message to Penny Pritzker, chief of Harvard’s governing board, who engaged Mr. Ackman in what he described as “a wholly disappointing dialog.” Ms. Pritzker didn’t reply to requests for remark.

Mr. Ackman has privately steamed at Harvard over not less than the previous three years, a number of individuals who have mentioned the topic with him say, partly after the college’s administration disregarded his options for learn how to arrange a testing lab to get college students and employees again to campus throughout the pandemic.

Two years in the past, in an incident not beforehand reported, Mr. Ackman instructed members of Harvard’s fund-raising crew he won’t give one other dime as a result of they hadn’t heeded his recommendation on learn how to make investments an earlier donation, mentioned two folks with information of the exchanges. Mr. Ackman despatched off a sequence of fiery letters to Harvard directors questioning their monetary acumen. He wound up donating more cash anyway.

Requested about that episode, Mr. Ackman mentioned it was “a distraction from different issues” and declined to reply questions on it. A Harvard spokesman declined to touch upon faculty’s interactions with Mr. Ackman.

Mr. Ackman in contrast the college’s lack of engagement with him to corporations he focused in his early days as an activist investor pushing for modifications. Then, he would name chief executives and wouldn’t get his calls returned. Now, he mentioned, it’s extra widespread for company boards to ask him in.

On Nov. 4, he wrote a four-page letter to Dr. Homosexual, outlining his considerations about antisemitism on campus and what he referred to as double requirements on campus for various racial and ethnic teams. He supplied an in depth checklist of actions he needed the college to take.

After sending that letter, he mentioned he had minimal contact with Harvard. He continued to lift questions on Dr. Homosexual on social media and in public boards, together with by selling claims that Dr. Homosexual had plagiarized educational analysis.

Harvard’s board mentioned that Dr. Homosexual had not violated the varsity’s requirements for analysis misconduct, however that she would retroactively add extra citations and quotations to earlier analysis.

One other billionaire financier agitating for change at an elite college, the private-equity mogul Marc Rowan, tried a special tack. Mr. Rowan, who headed the board of advisers on the College of Pennsylvania’s Wharton College, had been publicly calling for the ouster of the college’s president, however final week instructed associates that he was stepping again, frightened it may do extra hurt than good to affiliate the trouble with a rich Wall Road investor, folks briefed on the conversations mentioned.

Even a few of Mr. Ackman’s supporters mentioned in interviews that they wished he had heeded the identical recommendation, although they didn’t wish to be named for worry of changing into Mr. Ackman’s goal themselves. Mr. Ackman mentioned {that a} extra demure method wasn’t an possibility, as he had no formal function on any Harvard boards. “They didn’t let me in,” he mentioned.

Mr. Ackman, who was criticized after he sought to determine college students in teams that blamed Israel for the Hamas assault, mentioned he doesn’t give a lot thought to his detractors.

“For each e mail I’ve gotten saying, ‘You’re a racist.’ I’ve gotten 1,000 folks saying, ‘What you’re saying is what I imagine’,” he mentioned. “I’ve gotten calls from among the most distinguished folks on the planet who mentioned, ‘I want I may say what you’re saying.’”

He mentioned he’ll proceed to share his considerations with Harvard’s administration and others on the faculty. He additionally predicted that others would proceed to mine Dr. Homosexual’s educational report. “I don’t see a state of affairs the place she survives for the long run or intermediate time period,” he mentioned on Monday.

He declined to remark Tuesday on the information that Dr. Homosexual would maintain her job.