Rowan recounts why he went public against his alma mater's handling of a Palestine rights conference, framing it as favored speech rather than free speech, which led him and other donors to withhold funding until leadership resigned. ✦ AI generated
Marc Rowan · a16z Podcast · 2026-05-27 · original ↗
starts at this moment · 39:27
“I'm curious how you thought about, you know, being so vocal with university leadership kind of in in that moment.”
What we were watching was not free speech. We were watching favorite speech, preferred speech. And in the initial foray with the university that I had ahead of their Palestine Rights Conference, I wrote to the president of the university and I said, I'm a free speech absolutist. I believe this conference should go forward, but the university as a 300-year-old moral institution is funding it, promoting it, requiring students who are Jewish to attend it during Jewish high holidays.
verbatim transcript · starts at 39:27
39:27whole thing struck me as just incredibly unfair and incredibly ill- advised. >> What we were watching was not free speech. We were watching favorite speech, preferred speech. And in the initial foray with the university that I had ahead of their Palestine Rights Conference, uh I wrote to the president of the university and I said, "I'm a free speech absolutist. I believe this conference should go forward, but the
39:53university as a 300-year-old moral institution is funding it, >> promoting it, requiring students who are Jewish to attend it during Jewish high holidays. and you've outsourced the ownership of this conference which had gone on for many years to a known Hamas sympathizer and terrorist sympathizer. Other than that, I was fine with it. >> Right. Right. Exactly. >> And the inability to reflect on the role of a university in society.
40:23What is the role of a university in society? And too many times the question was amorphous. I don't think our president at the time knew what the role of a university in society was. >> Is it academic excellence and research or is it social change? >> Right? >> And if it's social change, whose social change, >> right? >> Is it her social change? Is it what the
40:48trustees decided? Is it what the faculty decided? Was there a vote? No. What had happened in our university is we had had this us versus them. this anti-Americanism, anti- capitalism, >> anti-merit on steroids. Israel, Palestine is not fully an anti-Semitic issue. >> And that's not what I saw at these universities. I saw it as an anti-American, anti-system issue. [clears throat] And so when it persisted, I believe that we should not support
41:24those things that violate fundamental moral principles. and I said, "So, >> yep." >> Turns out a lot of other people felt the same way, even if they weren't saying it. Vast majority of donors decided to give the university a dollar per year versus whatever their donation was, we got the university's attention. >> Yep. >> Ultimately, the public vaua at testimony in DC where the inability to actually