Letter to the Editor: Harvard United

DJT’s relentless instigated chaos marks his calculated end game — to call off the next presidential election, noting too much danger.

To the editor:

When the enormous cost of Donald Trump’s presidency is written, his tactics of flattery, his bullying intimidation, and his joy in humiliation will be detailed. As will be his horrifying lack of judgment, like believing a murderer schooled by the KGB can be trusted. And surely the 47th president’s delight in trying to destroy Harvard, our nation’s oldest operating university, founded in 1636, will be a marked step toward public understanding that Trump, not Harvard, is the creator of a dangerously hostile environment.

Harvard has its share of elitists, but unlike our president, the overriding campus motivation is not malicious destruction. When my husband entered his senior year at Harvard, he learned he was a candidate for magna honors. To achieve this, a thesis was necessary. A history major, he painstakingly developed his writing points, making an appointment with an esteemed professor in the Chinese department to share his ideas. Before any discussion, the professor sternly asked if my husband spoke or wrote Chinese. When the answer was no, he was dismissed with these words: “My boy, you can’t do anything worthwhile.”

Long story short: My husband determined he would never again allow his ideas to be demeaned. But mature reflection taught him far more about his condescending professorial dismissal, what all excellent educators expect of their graduates—to push themselves with honor far beyond their very best. Not for themselves, but for the betterment of others, for our world community. And he has.

Understandably, a united Harvard now stands against a president who may well have been rejected by them decades ago—for good reason. Noticeably, at the recent Columbia graduation, acting president Claire Shipman was booed for capitulating to some demands by the Trump administration. Meanwhile, Harvard president Alan M. Garber, who in his message defended the value of education, was applauded. One student proudly called out the same two words spoken to my husband in 1957: My boy.

Published in The Philadelphia Inquirer June 11, 2025