Trump’s thing with Harvard

There are eight schools in the United States that are loosely referred to as “Ivy League.” In alphabetical order they are: Brown University, Columbia University, Cornell University, Dartmouth College, Harvard University, University of Pennsylvania, Princeton University, and Yale University.

Harvard is generally considered the most prestigious of the eight. Not many people know this (and I realise that I sound a little like Trump when I say it) that the University of Pennsylvania is on that list. The U of P is dead last in the prestige tables for the Ivy League.

That’s where Trump went. His father used his money to buy him in because Trump’s high school grades were for shit. Trump paid a smart Jewish kid named Joe Shapiro to take his SAT test for him. Dr William T. Kelley, Trump’s former professor at the Wharton School in the U of P, oftimes repeated that “Donald Trump was the goddamn DUMBEST student I ever had.” I don’t doubt it.

Some people who went to any of the seven Ivy League schools that weren’t Harvard have an inferiority complex about their schools. They live in the shadow of Harvard. There are few for whom that can be said more than Trump. Trump has always had a giant chip on his shoulder about Harvard.

There is a rumour (for which I can find no solid evidence) that Barron Trump was rejected by Harvard. Malia Obama, the former President’s daughter, is a Harvard graduate like her father and mother. The undeniable fact that the Obama family is ten times smarter than the Trump family — and they have the receipts — is personally galling to someone as thin skinned and immature as Trump, of course.

So it’s no accident that Trump’s thing with Harvard is personal. Trump has enlisted his puppy-murdering secretary of homeland insecurity, Kristi Noem, to revoke Harvard’s certification to host international students. Fortunately that was temporarily struck down by a court-ordered temporary restraining order.

The false perception, encouraged by the lie-spreading Trump “administration,” that international students are freeloaders on American generosity is just that, false. Most international students, comprising about one third the total student body, pay full freight to attend Harvard. They pay for many of the American students attending on grants and Harvard-supplied scholarships.

I recall that from my student days. International students paid a blood-curdling fee for every unit, while thanks to my scholarship, government grants and low tuition, my education was nearly free. It was a fantastic time and I’m sorry to say it’s no longer as cheap and easy for students today as it was for me. But that’s another story.

When she isn’t getting cosmetic surgery or buying designer clothes or murdering her daughter’s puppy, DHS secretary Noem is exacting revenge for Trump, and her attacks on Harvard will not stop. Noem sent a letter to Harvard spelling out in no uncertain terms that Trump and his sycophants will weaponize the state against anyone — including Harvard — who incurs their displeasure. Displeasure comes in the form of Harvard’s unwillingness to comply with Trump’s DEI-hating fetish. These are illegal demands, of course, and Harvard can do whatever it wants when it comes to diversity, as long as it breaks no laws.

Instead of doing his job, Trump spends his time on “Truth” Social, whipping up hatred for people like Taylor Swift and Bruce Springsteen, and institutions like Harvard. Trump’s audience already hates educated people, because “educated” they are not. Since Harvard is the ultimate in education, they resent that fine and hallowed institution most of all.