Harvard: "Hire anyone else but a Harvard grad": Doxxing truck reveals Harvard students names as pro-Palestine letter scandal triggers blacklist calls

More than 30 Harvard student organizations released a signed open letter on Sunday, October 8, 2023, blaming Israel for its ongoing conflict with Palestine. Following this, a billboard truck drove around the campus' streets on Wednesday, October 11, 2023, revealing the names of the signatories. The names and photos of these students were projected under an electronic banner on the truck that identified them as the university's “Leading Antisemites”.

Truck revealing details of Pro-Palestine organizations' members at the university. (Image via X/Jason Furman)

After posting the letter online, the members of the Harvard College Palestine Solidarity Committee faced immediate backlash and severe criticism. This led to around eight students withdrawing their signatures from the joint statement. Since the publication of the letter, several CEOs have called for the university to release the members’ full names in an attempt to blacklist them from companies.

By Tuesday, about four online sites had shared the personal information of the members of the clubs that signed the letter, including their full names, class years, photos, hometowns, social media profiles, and past employment.

Investor Bill Ackman says companies should not hire any Harvard graduate. (Image via X/Ian Bremmer)

American hedge fund manager Bill Ackman quoted Ian Bremmer’s post on X sharing images of the letter. He wrote that a number of CEOs inquired for the names of the signatories to ensure that none of them would ever unknowingly hire any of the members of these organizations. One user replied to Ackman's quote and said that they would make it a policy of hiring everyone except for Harvard graduates.

Harvard student groups' open letter triggered blacklist calls from CEOs. (Image via X/@Bill Ackman)

CEOs and netizens call for blacklisting Harvard graduates over Pro-Palestine letter

Bill Ackman's call to boycott all students from the Ivy League School from being hired by companies was endorsed by several other CEOs. These included names like Jonathan Neman and Marc Rudov among several other netizens.

Some even said that if they saw any of these students applying to med schools, they would want them to be rejected outright. Meanwhile, others said that they could have people ask the students in the selection process about their views.

The statement triggered calls for blacklisting students from companies. (Image via X/Bill Ackman)

What did the Palestine Solidarity group write in its open letter?

In the letter, the Pro-Palestine student groups solely held Israel responsible for the violence that unfolded there in the past few days. It stated that the current events did not occur out of nowhere. The letter alleged that millions of Palestinians residing in Gaza had been forced into an open-air prison lifestyle for the last two decades.

The solidarity groups claimed that Israel has subjected the people of Palestine to a number of things. These included systematized land seizures, family separations, targeted killings, arbitrary detentions, routine airstrikes, and military checkpoints for 75 years.

At the end of the letter, the organizations urged the Harvard community to stand against, what they referred to as, the occurring “annihilation of Palestinians.”

However, several student groups under the committee reported that not all members had seen or read the letter thoroughly before putting their signatures on it.

Harvard's Palestine Solidarity committee voiced safety concerns over their members' information being publicly revealed

The Harvard Crimson, the university’s student newspaper reported that a conservative news media watchdog called Accuracy In Media organized what has been dubbed the "doxxing truck."

Adam Guillette, the President of the non-profit took responsibility for the arrangement on X. He stated that his team has been removing names of the Palestine Solidarity group members who backtracked on the letter but has also been adding new names simultaneously.

Adam Guillette writes that it was his non-profit that drove the truck with the billboard around the campus. (Image via X/Ian Bremmer, Bill Ackman)

However, the solidarity groups expressed their concerns about their members' personal information and other crucial details being revealed to the public. They told the Crimson that the truck actively threatened the safety of the students on campus. They said they had already received credible death threats which forced them to defer a solidarity vigil in acknowledgment of all the victims of the Israel-Hamas conflict.

They called the truck the ‘ugliest culmination’ of a strategy to suppress pro-Palestine activism ever witnessed by the committee in years.

A spokesperson from Harvard University previously said that school officials were in touch with the affected organizations and their members, and law enforcement authorities were also aware of the doxxing campaign.