In response to allegations that his wife had plagiarized her MIT thesis, billionaire Bill Ackman, who drew attention by challenging antisemitism at Harvard University, has decided to go 'Conan the Barbarian' on MIT, and its media ally, Business Insider, playing the pair at their own 'gotcha-journalism' cancel-culture game:

My wife, @NeriOxman, was just contacted by Business Insider claiming that they have identified other plagiarism in her work including 15 examples in her dissertation where she did not cite Wikipedia as a source.

Business Insider told us that they are publishing their story…

— Bill Ackman (@BillAckman) January 5, 2024

Dinesh D'Souza had the best response:

Excellent response! You are experiencing the unscrupulous viciousness of the Left, and the only way to respond is to go full Conan the Barbarian on them. Raze their institutions to the ground, and leave no stone on top of another

— Dinesh D'Souza (@DineshDSouza) January 6, 2024

And while he was at it, Ackman would also do this:

This is an excellent idea. We will review the work of the reporters and staff at BI for completeness. https://t.co/4VImfFN4A6

— Bill Ackman (@BillAckman) January 6, 2024

Ackman set off a firestorm at Harvard by first saying he wanted to know who the antisemitic protestors were at that school, which is his alma mater, and then calling for the publication of their names so he wouldn't accidentally hire them at his hedge fund firm.

Business Insider wrote this last Oct. 23:

Like many on Wall Street, the billionaire investor Bill Ackman is full of rage, fear, and sadness over the brutal and terrifying terrorist attack that Hamas unleashed on Israel. But unlike his fellow titans of finance, the CEO of Pershing Square Capital Management — one of the world's most powerful hedge funds — has spent the last few days taking his feelings out on a small group of students at Harvard. 

Earlier this week, after 30 student groups at the university signed a deranged statement that blamed the Israeli government for the attack, Ackman responded on X, formerly Twitter, by demanding that Harvard — his alma mater — release the names of the students involved in the organizations so that he and other Wall Street executives could refrain from hiring them. "The names of the signatories should be made public," Ackman fumed, "so their views are publicly known."

Then the outlet wrote several articles detailing the wife's plagiarism. which to be honest, looks like, yeah, it was plagiarism, and that is not good given that she runs the famed MIT lab which is known for its innovation, rather than for copying others.

The wife has since said she will correct the way Claudine Gay did.

But even as it appears true, it's also pretty obvious it's a hit job.

Harvard's president at the time, Claudine Gay, and two university-president colleagues, one of whom was running MIT, made weak responses to congressional inquiries about antisemitism on their campuses. That Gay and the Penn president were forced to resign for it enraged the left. Ackman was blamed, so they turned the plagiarism checker onto him and his, not because there was a compelling public interest, but to make him look like a hypocrite. Ackman can see this game they are playing and he's biting back. 

Business Insider published this on January 5:

Neri Oxman, a former MIT professor and celebrity within the world of academia, stole sentences and whole paragraphs from Wikipedia, other scholars, and technical documents in her academic writing, Business Insider has found.

Oxman is married to billionaire Pershing Square Capital Managment founder Bill Ackman, who has been vociferously campaigning for numerous university presidents to resign over what he perceives as their mishandling of student protests related to Israel's war in Gaza. Ackman has termed plagiarism a "very serious" offense.

He used revelations unearthed by right-wing activists that Harvard president Claudine Gay had plagiarized dozens of times across the body of her academic work to underscore his calls for her resignation. Gay stepped down on Tuesday.

While it appears to be true, Ackman could clearly see the double standard here. His wife was only investigated because he took a stand against antisemitism. If his wife was to be investigated as a petty plagiarist as retaliation for Ackman's stirring up the pot at Harvard which led to the resignation of Gay for plagiarism, and then held up to scorn for it, well then, all of them at MIT could get the same treatment. Suddenly, the shaming of Oxman, Ackman's wife, doesn't look like such a bad thing if Ackman uncovers significant plagiarism across the board at MIT.

What a pretty picture that will be. Business Insider, too, would be get the same treatment.

Ackman is out advertising for contractors.

Sauce for the goose, sauce for the gander, and Ackman has a very deep pocket.

He's obviously starting to understand how the swamp's game is played and means to bore harder on taking down this rotten corrupted establishment, not bow down.

Image: Insider Monkey, via Flickr // CC BY-ND 2.0