Billionaire and Harvard Business School alumnus Len Blavatnik has paused his giving to Harvard University in protest over president Claudine Gay’s testimony to Congress on December 5 about antisemitism on campus, Bloomberg reports.

Blavatnik has donated at least $270 million through his family foundation to the university, including a $200 million pledge to Harvard Medical School. A source familiar with Blavatnik and his wife told Bloomberg that the couple is “holding back donations until the university tackles what they see as rampant antisemitism on campus.”

Blavatnik joins a wave of donors who have withdrawn support from Harvard in the last two months, saying they felt the university’s initial statements did not do enough to signal support for Israel following Hamas’s October 7 attacks. Prominent donors who cut ties with the university include the Wexner Foundation, chaired by billionaire Leslie H. Wexner; Israeli billionaire and businessman Idan Ofer; and Bill A. Ackman, who went so far as to demand that Harvard publish the names of students who signed on to a statement by the Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee, which expressed the view that Israel was responsible for the attacks. Kenneth Griffin also put pressure on the university to defend Israel, just one day before the university released its initial statement.

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