Mark Zuckerberg to break silence on Harvard antisemitism with board endorsement 

Mark Zuckerberg has kept relatively mum about antisemitism at Harvard — but he’s expected to break his silence on Friday as he endorses a Silicon Valley mogul to join a powerful panel that supervises the embattled Ivy League university, On The Money has learned.

Sam Lessin — a tech investor and former Facebook employee who also happens to be married to The Information founder Jessica Lessin — is pushing for a spot on Harvard’s Board of Overseers, a group of roughly 30 which is supposed to keep an eye on the Harvard Corporation and the university’s president. 

On Friday, Lessin is slated to speak on a Zoom call at 6:30 p.m. ET with Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan about the future of Harvard and why the Facebook founder is supporting Lessin’s bid. 

This will be the first time Zuckerberg, who is Jewish, has publicly discussed Harvard and the future of the school since the attacks on Israel. 

“Antisemitism at Harvard is extremely disappointing and a huge problem,” Lessin told On The Money. “It needs to be solved but it’s also the canary in the coal mine in terms of a free speech problem.”

After the Oct. 7 attacks, Lessin said he called Harvard “and said I wouldn’t be donating anymore until governance and administration improved and the campus was clearly putting academics first.”