Harvard Business Grads ‘Confused’ Over Vote, Lessin Says

The Baker Library of the Harvard Business School in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

(Bloomberg) — Sam Lessin, the venture capitalist who ran unsuccessfully this year to get on the Harvard University alumni board, is raising concerns over the process, which he claims blocked people from taking part.

“The problem, of course, is that the 2020 changes to the process not only raised the required votes count by more than 6x… but also saw the end of accepting paper ballots,” said Lessin, a former Facebook executive who was endorsed by his friend Mark Zuckerberg. “The result of this is that hundreds and hundreds of alums that tried to vote were unable.”

Harvard said the process actually moved online in 2016 and four “petition candidates” were elected to the Board of Overseers in 2020 and 2021.

“The process for collecting signatures to support petition candidates did not change during the course of the petition period this year,” said Harvard spokesman Jonathan Swain. “We are confident that this process was fair, it appropriately verified eligibility, and was open to all eligible alumni.”

Lessin though did what venture capitalists do when they spot a problem. He created a 32-page slide deck with “concrete data and evidence” of how the system failed and sent it to his supporters.

One group in particular seem to have had difficulties participating — graduates of Harvard Business School, Lessin said.

“The problem is particularly acute among HBS graduates, who were confused about HarvardKey vs their alternative HBS login and email systems, and many of whom were unable to vote (or took hours to get through the signup process),” Lessin wrote.

Lessin said he received 2,901 nominations but came up 337 votes short to get on the ballot. He and others, including a slate of four backed by billionaire investor Bill Ackman, mounted a last-minute effort to be on the Harvard Board of Overseers. The alumni group has some oversight role for the powerful Harvard Corporation, which is led by Penny Pritzker, and is there to help guide the president.

Ackman accused Harvard on social media of “election interference” and creating a “labyrinth of complexity.” Harvard’s former president Larry Summers, a paid contributor to Bloomberg Television, called the requirements for being on the ballot “reminiscent of Tammany Hall at best and Brezhnev at worst.”

The insurgent candidates emerged late in the qualifying period as the university was trying to navigate turmoil on campus over accusations of antisemitism, plagiarism allegations against President Claudine Gay, and criticisms from alumni, donors, lawmakers and professors over its approach to free speech and political biases.

Lessin said he was motivated to run after Gay testified before the House Education and the Workforce Committee on Dec. 5, and failed to clearly say that calling for genocide against Jews was against school policy. She resigned last month after less than a year in the role.

Voting for the vacant seats takes place in April for more than a month.

On Sunday, Harvard announced the appointment of two new members of the Harvard Corporation, Kenneth Frazier, the former chief executive officer of Merck & Co., and KKR & Co. Co-CEO Joseph Bae.

(Updates with Lessin slide deck in fifth paragraph and moves Harvard response to third paragraph.)

Most Read from Bloomberg

©2024 Bloomberg L.P.