Not So Affirmative

Donald Trump, a prospective Republican presidential candidate and television celebrity, has taken to personally attacking the President’s credentials as a recent and burgeoning pastime. Recently, however, he may have struck a bit close to home for students like us at Harvard and its peer schools: he has questioned President Obama’s membership in the Ivy League.

President Obama, who has degrees from Columbia University and Harvard Law School, was the first African American President of the Harvard Law Review. An accomplished scholar, President Obama began his college career at Occidental College before transferring to Columbia. After earning his Columbia degree, President Obama worked as a community organizer before entering Harvard; he later taught at the University of Chicago for over a decade.
Mr. Trump, too, has an impressive academic record, graduating from Penn’s Wharton School of Business after transferring from Fordham University. Yet Trump is not simply satisfied with his own Ivy League credentials; he feels the need to attempt to cast doubt over the president’s. Trump, who has fallaciously doubted President Obama’s citizenship, loses no opportunity to slander the president, pointing to the fact that Obama has not released his college grades as a sign that he may not have deserved to have been admitted. He cites anecdotal evidence that Obama was not a great student to bolster his case. Additionally, he notes that many of his friends’ bright children have not been offered admission to Harvard – which is not much of a point, considering that Harvard’s acceptance rate hovers between 6 and 7% and many bright students are denied.
But Mr. Trump’s accusation says more about the Donald than the president: not only is he questioning Obama’s intelligence, but he is playing a frightening game of race politics that brings up the burning question of Affirmative Action. Ivy League schools, unlike, for example, the University of California system, work hard to provide students from different backgrounds equal opportunities by encouraging diversity on their campuses through affirmative action programs, which increases the odds of admission for underrepresented minority candidates. Qualified and successful African American and Hispanic Harvard men and women live under the cloud of this policy, which has the unfortunate consequence of making it seem like these individuals did not merit admission as much as their Caucasian or Asian counterparts (regardless of their qualifications).
What Trump ignores are the considerable hurdles a candidate for admission like President Obama had to face as a student from a uniquely challenging background. Growing up without a father, living in different countries, and still successfully making it through school and to the Ivy League, President Obama’s accomplishments, like those of any Ivy League student, are impressive. To diminish his successes by implying that he got a race bonus is telling thousands of Ivy Leaguers that they did not earn what they have rightfully earned. Needless to say, it is wrong. And what if the question were inversed? No doubt men such as Mr. Trump have been making the most of an Ivy League education for years – access to which for many years had been limited for minority students. It is interesting to note, in fact, how President Kennedy attended Harvard regardless of his rather unexciting application. How can we be so sure Mr. Trump merited a Penn education? But that is not our business, or for us to question. Mr. Trump deserved to attend the Ivy League as much as President Obama did – they both got in, which says enough about their capacity to lead and succeed.
Rather than worry himself over the President’s credentials or qualifications, perhaps Mr. Trump should begin making distinctions on how his Presidency would be different. Trump should discuss his policy views, his plans for the future, and why he would be a better president. Wasting the nation’s time on non-issues such as birth certificates and transcripts is ridiculous. Perhaps having faith in the Government of Hawaii and Ivy League admissions offices might be a good idea – they do their job, let the candidates do theirs.
If you are interested in The Harvard Crimson’s take on the issue, including President Kennedy’s application, please click here.

To read my original post on Trump, click here, or click here to read Frank Mace’s take on “sensationalist” politics.
Photo credit: Momos, April 30, 2007, via Wikimedia Commons: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Columbia_University_01.jpg.