Infoumous investor Steve Eisman has demanded that the University of Pennsylvania stop using his name for a scholarship fund established by his family.
The hedge fund manager, famously portrayed by Steve Carrell in the movie “The Big Short,” blasted UPenn over the college’s support for anti-Israel protests.
Eisman responded by declaring that he doesn’t want his “family’s name associated with the University of Pennsylvania. Ever.”
He said he was inspired to pull his name from the fund after seeing an interview with another alum who was responding to a UPenn-hosted event called “The Palestine Writer’s Literature Festival.”
Hedge fund manager Mark Rowan sat down with CNBC in October and demanded UPenn fire its leadership.
Eisman told CNBC’s Squawk Box on Thursday:
“A couple of days after the interview, I called my contact person at the university, and I said, you know, we have a small scholarship that we created about a dozen years ago, and I called my contact and said [that] I wanted our names removed immediately.”
“I do not want my family’s name associated with the University of Pennsylvania. Ever.”
“My history with the University of Pennsylvania is pretty deep,” Eisman continued.
“I went there, my wife went there, we met there.
“My sister went there, my brother-in-law went there and they met there.
“So a lot of members of my family have been there.
“I’ve gone back to the university many times to speak.”
Eisman said there was only one way to change his mind about supporting the college again:
“You could fire the president and the chairman of the board of trustees immediately.”
Eisman expressed doubt that would happen.
However, he asserted that it was “that’s the only thing that would move me at all.”
“What we have in the protestors right now is, dressed up in the clothing of progressivism is pure hatred of Jews,” Eisman added.
“Any student who holds up a sign that says ‘Free Palestine from the river to the sea’ should be expelled,” he concluded.
“That’s not free speech, that’s calling for murder.”
WATCH:
"We have a small scholarship we created at @Penn. I wanted our names removed from it immediately. I don't want my family's name associated with the University of Pennsylvania ever," says Steve Eisman. "Dressed up in the clothing of progressiveness is the pure hatred of Jews." pic.twitter.com/VQK7uDIQjJ
— Squawk Box (@SquawkCNBC) November 2, 2023
Eisman joins a host of other prominent alumni pulling funding from UPenn in the weeks following Hamas’ October 7 terrorist attack on Israel.
Rowan, computer scientist David Magerman, and former U.S. Ambassador to China John Huntsman Jr. have all declined to send money to the school.
They all cited the administration’s alleged reluctance to strongly support Israel in the wake of the attack.
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