Trump’s Harvard fiasco underscores the White House’s incompetence crisis
www.msnbc.com
Just when it seemed the White House’s Harvard mess couldn’t get worse, it appears Team Trump didn’t intend to send its original set of outlandish demands.

It started with a weird letter. On April 11, Harvard University officials received a series of outlandish written demands from the Trump administration, including a “request” to install outside auditors who would monitor the school’s academic departments.

Or put another way, the White House effectively argued, “This mess is Harvard’s fault for not realizing that we shouldn’t have sent our absurd correspondence.”

Harvard representatives issued an official response of their own, noting that the original letter “was signed by three federal officials, placed on official letterhead, was sent from the email inbox of a senior federal official and was sent on April 11 as promised.” The university added, “Recipients of such correspondence from the U.S. government — even when it contains sweeping demands that are astonishing in their overreach — do not question its authenticity or seriousness.”

  • pelespiritOPMEnglish
    2·
    24 days ago

    Student Discipline Reform and Accountability. Harvard must immediately reform its student discipline policies and procedures so as to swiftly and transparently enforce its existing disciplinary policies with consistency and impartiality, and without double standards based on identity or ideology. Where those policies are insufficient to prevent the disruption of scholarship, classroom learning and teaching, or other aspects of normal campus life, Harvard must develop and implement disciplinary policies sufficient to prevent those disruptions. This includes but is not limited to the following: