Academia, Criminal law

Bribery Scandal Rocks Higher Education

Higher education has been rocked by the extraordinary crackdown on the purchasing of admissions into some of the country’s top universities and colleges by wealthy families. The scheme by William “Rick” Singer, 58, raked in as much as $2.5 million per student through his Edge College & Career Network. Schools have long catered to the families of major donors. Jared Kushner for example has long been accused of getting into Harvard with mediocre grades after his father pledged $2.5 million. This scandal however is far more organized and widespread. That is most striking about the sting operation code-named “Operation Varsity Blues” is that, among almost 50 arrested individuals, are the large number of parents who are being charged.

Singer has pleaded guilty to organizing the conspiracy to used contributions to a scam charity to bribe school officials, particularly coaches. Among the charged were 33 parents, 13 coaches, and various associates of Singer. They are a Who’s Who of the top one percent from famous actresses to powerful business figures. This is a display of unhinged greed by coaches who held top positions at top universities. One of the charged coaches was the private tennis instructor for Michele Obama and her two daughters.

There were also test administrators who took bribes in the conspiracy, which began in 2011. What is interesting is that this included arrangements for wrong answers to be corrected as well as having third persons take the test. Singer would ask the parents in advance what score they wanted the child to receive.

No students have been charged and will presumably be allowed to stay at their schools. In at least one case, parents asked how they could keep their children from knowing about their rigging the process.

However, given that some of the payments were made to have third parties take standardized tests for some students, it is hard to imagine how the students were not aware of that scheme since they either did not take the test or had some extraordinary improvement in a later test score. There were also photoshopped images and staged photos where students pretended to be athletes. It is hard to see how some of those acts were done without the knowledge of the students.

That leaves the question of what to do with the kinder. It seems to me that there is little choice but to expel students who had to have had knowledge of the scheme by the fact that they did not take the test or posed for fraudulent pictures. That would be a question of academic honesty. Ironically, people like Kushner did not lie. Their families gave a huge amount of money to the school which decided that the money made the admission worth the cost of admitting a less competitive student. Many would object to the transaction but schools have long favored donors who helped pay for buildings or scholarships.

Some of the named coaches have been fired. One was former Yale soccer coach Rudolph Meredith who allegedly accepted $400,000 to give applicants an edge by identifying them as recruits for the team. John Vandemoer, a former Stanford University sailing coach, has already pleaded guilty to racketeering conspiracy.

One glaring case involves the daughter of Actress Lori Loughlin. Olivia Jade, 19, was hardly enthusiastic about college, a sentiment shared with her large social media following. Yet Loughlin allegedly paid $500,000 to get her into the University of Southern California as well as her sister, Bella, 20. That money allegedly got the two daughters designated as recruits for the USC rowing team, even though neither is on the squad. Olivia then went on a video to her fans to discuss college and was asked, according to People, how she would balance her social media postings with college. The response is likely to be played back in court: “I don’t know how much of school I’m gonna attend but I’m gonna go in and talk to my deans and everyone, and hope that I can try and balance it all. But I do want the experience of like game days, partying. … I don’t really care about school, as you guys all know.”

Well, we all now know.

187 thoughts on “Bribery Scandal Rocks Higher Education”

  1. Kinda strange that an argument about a bribery scandal involving a skeevy broker, a few dozen crooked parents, and a scatter of officials at a half dozen institutions morphs into a tangentially relevant discussion of Jared Kushner and morphs again into a discussion of slavery (which is completely irrelevant to the matter at hand).

    1. This is absurdX2………..Actually it’s not that much of a stretch.
      I think many people think of Affirmative Action as cheating, and in the same league with white rich people cheating the system.
      When Jared Kushner was compared to the sleazy college cheats, I spoke up. If the descendants of black slaves are to be treated “special”, then why not afford the same to descendants of the holocaust.

      1. PS. I’m descendants of holocaust………As you know, during WW2, FDR turned away the ship “St. Louis” which was carrying over a thousand Jewish refugees from Europe. After.being turned away, many ended up back in Europe, in the death camps. FDR and other Allied leaders knew about the camps.

        1. I’m sure that horror – and lost relatives you’ll never know – is therefore of special concern for you. My wife is Jewish, but both sets of grandparents came over around 1900, so while she certainly has lost relatives, none were close or direct ancestors.

          1. Anon…..that was a misprint…I’m very sorry! Don’t know why the word “I’m” appeared!!!
            But you are very kind. Also, the turn of the last century brought so many immigrants, especially Jews, whose positive contribution to the American culture is immeasurable. I just did a program about the Jews’ influence on American music…..Wonderful history! Being raised in Houston, with a large, vital Jewish community, my father always held-up to us as role models, the Jewish teenagers and their incredible discipline and behavior.
            And our Baptist church had a “sister Synogogue”.
            Sorry again for the misprint!

              1. Anon…….Just found the culprit, “Predictive Text” setting on the keyboard of this ipad. It is now turned off!
                Paul C. Schulte would always implore me to fix it, but I never could find where it was! In my defense I’m in my 70’s.
                😶

    2. not strange. typical. everything is devolving into an excuse to squeeze the American and European white working and middle classes, and the excuses are generally racism, to wit:
      a) the holocaust and b) slavery.

      You get an assortment of rich people bribing officials to get into university….. and somehow the first thing that jumps into some people’s minds is reparations. IE how they can dip their beak. And then somebody’s chirping one moralistic thing after another. I had enough virtue signalling in other circles and then I found this little niche where for a while people talked sense and had dialogue but now there’s an abundance of the usual phony virtue signalling all over again.

  2. BFD The government does it by the billions of dollars and does it too all but two institutions What’s special about this one?

  3. The sad part of this scandal concerns the very hard working, ethical, hopeful applicants. Lower-Middle-Upper class students, who are encouraged to apply to the Ivys and not to worry about the cost. It is a pricey thing to apply. Worse, to hope for some scholarship funding. Plus, all the paperwork for the students, that teachers friends and supporters spend their time to provide on the student’s behalf. It is beginning to sound like the game is rigged before they every attempt their goal. Truth would be so meaningful to these students. If the quotas are already set- the super affluent first, legacy children next, and a handful of extraordinary poor fill the allotment then I suggest these universities deal in good faith and fair dealing. Tell the students, it would be very unusual that they could possibly get accepted and if they did they would have to foot the bill.

    1. “It is a pricey thing to apply.”
      ******************

      Most Ivy’s charge $75.00 to apply or you can apply for a waiver that is liberally granted. Poor and rich students have it made. Being non-Latino white or Asian and middle class is a colossal impediment as the recent case testimony shows. Unless, of course, you can prove Leftist social activism.

  4. Leftist agitator David Hogg received a score of 1270 out of 1600 on the SAT, and was admitted to Harvard when the bottom 25% of students admitted had an average score of 1460. Hogg also a a mediocre academic record. Furthermore, nobody paid anyone to help get Hogg admitted. Nor does Hogg possess any known athletic, artistic, or any other talents or special abilities whatsoever. See? Who says you need money, talent, or academic excellence to get into one the most prestigious universities in the world.

  5. i know a guy whose dad made a $XX,XXX,XXX donation to top tier law school where he was admitted….. a hard school to get into, not Ivy, but close. I’m fairly certain it was a stretch for him to get into it, based on his grades and lsat, minus the big legacy….. but with the legacy, ah, not so much.

    guess what? however he got in, he finished. he passed the bar, rather than flunking it….. Today the guy is a GOOD LAWYER doing a workmanlike job in boring stuff.

    I know different guy who stretch to get into the same top tier law school, and he had some pretty strong inside assistance. he was below on grades, lsat, etc. but he went to class, studied, passed, and took bar exam. flunked it. tried again,. passed. now he’s a good lawyer helping his clients and making ok money.

    This is really not a big concern.

  6. I think the oversized interest in this story is fueled more by envy and fascination with the foibles of the rich than anything else. The FBI arrested 33 parents nationwide. Presumably that means 33 students bought their way into elite and not-so-elite colleges nationwide over a roughly five year period. It’s statistically insignificant. And there are all kinds of non-merit ways to get into the college of one’s choice. Foreign students are admitted with less than compelling stats because their parents can pay cash upfront for their tuition. And up to 20% of every class is set aside for “under represented minorities” who are otherwise not competitive. Meaning rich kids “of color” have a distinct advantage over white working class kids. Some bozo who can throw a ball has a clear advantage over an academically gifted student. So all in all, there’s nothing fair in college admissions. And an Ivy League degree in social sciences provides zero earning power. It does provide social status to have graduated from an Ivy or Georgetown, and if your daughter is cute and studies literature or social studies at Yale maybe she’ll snag a husband who studied finance and lands a job on Wall Street. Because otherwise she’ll work at Starbucks. An engineering or computer science degree from a state college will reap big bucks. A party degree from an elite school means moving back to Mom’s basement.

        2. There are undoubtedly a litany of crimes that rich people don’t go to jail fo when caught.

          Well, Enigma’s read William Ryan. To bad he didn’t figure out the man was a poseur.

        3. Enigma….Rich people….you mean like the Obama’s? Estimated worth: $40 million.
          How did those Obama girls get into Sidwell Friends? Grades?

          1. While no doubt the school bent over backwards to get the first daughters into their progam, I have no reason to believe the Obama’s paid anything more that the normal tuition to get them in, do you?
            While I said “rich people,” it goes without saying there’s another word that should have been added to make it more accurate. I’ve yet to see any of the people here that rail against affirmative action, speak a negative word about the people buying their way into programs at the expense of deserving students. Why is that?

            1. enigma….That’s untrue. Maybe you don’t pay attention because you take that literally. You know you don’t really have to pay.
              Enjoy your decades old privilege.

            2. Duh, do the math, Enigma. Affirmative Action over the past 54 years has benefitted MILLIONS of blacks and Hispanics and cost the taxpayers TRILLIONS to administer, in comparison to 33, repeat 33, parents caught up in the bribery scandal. 🤯

              1. Kitty – Trying not to generalize here, SOME white people view affirmative action as a program that gave undeserving blacks and other minorities, access to jobs and schooling that they were unqualified for and awarded at the expense of white people. Ask George the next time he makes a similar claim which no one here ever objects to.
                I think it would be more accurate to say it was forced compliance to allow entry into fields and institutions that minorities were previously barred from entry without regard of their ability and qualifications. Further, the percentage, quota if you like, was always lower that their representation in the population and actually served as a cap on entry. This much and no more. It’s true that millions of people have gained limited entry in some areas as a result of affirmative action. It’s also true that without it, most of those millions would have been literally blacklisted and denied that entry, or perhaps waited on that “all deliberate speed” to finally get here. Your view and others as to how black people and others are greatly benefitting from affirmative action is highly skewed. The biggest beneficiaries of affirmative action are white women.
                Regarding the bribery scandal, it you think this scheme involving multiple colleges and universities across the nation involved only 33 people, you’re fooling yourself.

                1. enigma, don’t measure us by our non response to George. When someone makes the same darn comment hundreds of times, as he does, we just lose interest.

                  1. That same non-response applies to the President who couldn’t denounce David Duke, took an even-handed approach in Charlottesville and can’t acknowledge the rise of White Supremacy that has reached New Zealand. Maybe losing interest is part of the problem?

            3. Enimga is avoiding using the word “white.” Wonderful! How nice of you. I am ok if you say what you mean.

              But to your question, i’ll tell you why. because we accept that there will always be rich and poor, like Jesus said, and rich people will always play games….so we adjust our expectations accordingly

              but the racial game supposedly is different. supposedly, we can all be considered equals. supposedly, programs like affirmative action can eradicate invidious systemic discrimination, with a little systemic discrimination of their own

              here is where that leads in the short term. deserving Harvard applicants of the Asian race, get shortchanged in favor of less deserving applicants of the black and other assorted racial groups which are “more equal than others” to use Orwell’s phrase from Animal Farm

              Did you read that in school? I did

              https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/04/us/harvard-asian-admission.html

              1. where does it lead in the long term?

                well, we all know the answer to that.

                Historically, in a conflict between groups, over centuries, the stronger, smarter, and more fecund groups will win out.

                Unless they get butchered first.

                It’s a dangerous game to play, but some people want to keep on coming back to the table to see if they can win again and again and again against the odds!

              2. Mr Kurtz…….good comment. Historically the ghetto blacks have hated, harassed and robbed Asians in their neighborhoods. And any other minority, too. They are big effing bullies!

                1. I think you meant to say “some blacks are big effing bullies”, just like I would say “some whites are ignorant racists”, right?

                  1. Anon………the implied message is that the ghetto blacks who hate, harass, and rob other minorities in their neighborhoods are bullies.

                    2. Anon………you are welcome! . Complete thoughts are often truncated when written on a blog.
                      It’s frustrating, but sometimes understandable, that messages received are not the messages sent.
                      And it is especially frustrating to spend your life respecting all races all people….not having a racist bone in your body, and not keeping company with those who do, only to be repeatedly accused of being a bigot because of the color of your skin.
                      I have HAD it with race-baiters. They are vile people and deserving of nothing.

                    3. Thanks Cindy, but a bigger problem for me – though not huge – is being in the company of those who are the same race as I am making racist observations which it is expected I will share. I don’t remember anyone calling me a racist.

                  2. The defense strategy of appealing to individualism is used to deflect off the group in question. That is a clever and well worn American political strategy. Defensively, to refocus from the group onto the individual.The mark of such propaganda, is supposed to be confused from thinking about a problem group, into thinking just about “bad seeds” and “bad apples” etc. But sometimes group focus is needed…..

                    For example, on a battlefield, really the ones you have to worry about among the adversary’s whole group, are those who have the skills and opportunity to harm you.

                    But you can’t know who in that group, is actually the one with the skills to put you away. So, you have to exercise “prejudice” against the entire group.

                    When we implement social schemes that benefit an “entire group” at the expense of a different “entire group” then you are basically setting up a situation where people will be forced by circumstances NOT to judge people as individuals, but as members of the adversarial group.

                    Certain political parties, are great at mobilizing the offense to think in group terms, but defensively, to put off their adversaries with individualistic linguistic frames. That’s what Anon did up there. Deflect and defend the group racket, from victims who may get mad and begin to resent the groups opposed to them. but both parties do it from time to time. In America, it’s a well worn strategy, attack the other group as a whole politically, but then rhetorically, defend your group with individualism.

                    They go even farther and tell the victims that they themselves, are often the abuser. This is classical narcissistic manipulation strategy. Blame the victim is a key strategy in a narcissist controlling a codependent.

                    Oftentimes, members of competing social groups all see themselves in terms of rival historical grievances. this is an essential quality of human conflict and politics. There is really no way around it. And no way out of it either.

                    Jean Paul Sartre took the concept of the joke and made it into a play called Huis Clos, or, No Exit. A lesbian, a communist, and a gold-digger are all in a room together…..

                    1. Then I’m sure Mr Kurtz approaches white counterparts with a similar “prejudice” as to the likelihood of their achieving their present position through legacy admittance, parents buying somebody off, or just simple hiring by relatives and close family friends, and bankrolling by same.

                2. and when i call that a strategy, or propaganda, i do not mean to say, that it is a lie. people genuinely do believe in “judging each person according to his or her merits” etc etc. But it’s often just a shibboleth, even for those who hold it dear!

                  Individualist is upheld, is until they get a chance to be a recipient of some social scheme imposed on group belonging, in which case, they take the soup! they get what they can. The individualism stuff goes out the door, fast.

                  Today, the group thing is always in play. It’s not just race. Heteros are often just one wrong word from being called homophobes; and a homosexual who does not outwardly parade their sexual preferences is derided as “closeted” ….. men are all lumped together by the feminists …

                  Sometimes it is religion. The Jews are all considered closet zionists now by the left, just as the average decent Muslim sometimes gets lumped in with the zealots. So individualism only goes so far.

                  And sometimes it is ethnicity. People also find “group identity” when they are in difficult and precarious social positions. Such as immigrants who need to stick together in neighborhoods for mutual aid. Or, racial gangs in jail. So, let’s not all pretend that individualism is the supreme moral social idea. It is the exception in politics rather than the rule.

              3. You are accepting the premise that qualified Asians are denied entry because of unqualified blacks. The truth is the overally limitation as to how many minorities will be admitted makes all minorities crabs in a barrel. “White” spots are reserved by legacy preferences in schools that were once all-white, making continued white majorities a self-fulfilling prophecy.

                1. i was talking about harvard. according to harvard’s head counters, more than half are either non-white or hispanic.

                  https://www.wbur.org/edify/2018/10/24/harvard-diverse-wealth

                  not exactly crabs in a barrel.

                  legacies don’t mean that much. I have a friend who went to harvard and his first 3 didn’t stand a chance at getting in, even one that was near tops in his class, went to a midwestern state U instead.. money is a big factor any way you cut it, however.

  9. Turley pointed out Jared Kushner’s buy-in to Harvard. Had he been so inclined, he could have mentioned Donald Trump’s “charitable donations” to Penn, right when it was time for Donald Jr and Ivanka to go to college.

    1. No, he repeated an accusation against Kushner which you’re treating as an established fact. Because ass.

      1. I read an article wherein the teachers from Jared’s secondary school were interviewed. They said his grades were mediocre and there’s no way in Hell a white person with his grades would have been admitted to Harvard. His father reportedly donated $2.5 million to Harvard to be used for scholarships. I don’t have a problem with that. What difference does one mediocre student make in the whole scheme of things, if the scholarship money provides funding for academically gifted low-income students? That’s a decision that Harvard made and they have every right to make that choice. Pretending Jared is something other than a mediocre rich kid doesn’t further the debate.

        1. I read an article wherein the teachers from Jared’s secondary school were interviewed. They said his grades were mediocre

          What kind of teacher would grass-up a former student to a reporter?

          1. most of them! if the former student is aligned with Trump. and the lilly livered “teachers” can expect anonymity. lol

        2. The source of the accusation is one Daniel Golden, who now works for ProPublica. He claims an administrator at the school told him this (not for attribution, of course). I’m remembering C.S. Lewis remark that people who fancied themselves savvy skeptics also treated what they read in newspapers as established without question. Lewis had no use for newspapers. I think we’re within bounds to distrust people who make their living from writing exposes. They have structural incentives. If there is no scandal, they’ve got no book. And, American libel law being what it is, Golden was pretty invulnerable.

      2. That Charles Kushner pledged $250 million to Harvard just before Jared’s admission is a fact. Charles Kushner was not a Harvard alumni. Here’s an article about the witer of the book that uncovered this information. We’ll note a spokespeson from Kushner Companies denied the claim, because they always tell the truth. What did Chris Christie put Charles Kushner in jail for?
        https://www.propublica.org/article/the-story-behind-jared-kushners-curious-acceptance-into-harvard

        3. Jared’s father went to jail for things that had nothing to do with Jared
          wiki says

          “In the summer of 2004, Kushner was fined $508,900 by the Federal Election Commission for contributing to Democratic political campaigns in the names of his partnerships when he lacked authorization to do so.[11] In 2005, following an investigation by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Jersey,[12] U.S. Attorney Chris Christie negotiated a plea agreement with him, under which he pleaded guilty to 18 counts of illegal campaign contributions, tax evasion, and witness tampering.[13] The witness-tampering charge arose from Kushner’s act of retaliation against William Schulder, his sister Esther’s husband, who was cooperating with federal investigators; Kushner hired a prostitute to seduce his brother-in-law, arranged to record an encounter between the two, and had the tape sent to his sister.[14][15][16][13] He was sentenced to two years in prison,[14] and served 14 months at Federal Prison Camp, Montgomery in Alabama[17][18] before being sent to a halfway house in Newark, New Jersey, to complete his sentence.[17][18][19] He was released from prison on August 25, 2006.[20]”

          As a result of his convictions, Kushner was disbarred, prohibited from practicing law in New Jersey,[21] New York,[22] and Pennsylvania.[23]

          this has NOTHING to do with Jared. Can you let a kid get past the faults of his parents please?

          I dont like Jared. but it’s unfair to smear him with his parent’s fault

          1. Charles Kushner’s convictions had nothing to do with Jared, agreed, I never claimed otherwise. I almost wrote crimes, but given Charles current involvement in the family business which may yet be found to have engaged in criminal behavior, the jury, figuratively speaking and possibly the grand jury literally speaking, is still out.
            My comments about Charles, relative to the college bribery story, was related to him buying Jared’s way into Harvard, a school Charles didn’t attend. $25 million goes a long way.

    2. enigma….Jared is a Democrst….his father is/was a MAJOR fundraiser for Democrats and went to prison for it. Jared’s grandfather and grandmother met in a concentration camp during WW2 and survived. The horror of Naxi concentration camps and treatment of the Jews trumps the slaves’ treatment in the united states any day.

      1. Charles Kushner went to prison for being a Democrat fundraiser? I have never belittled the experience of Jews in the Nazi concentration camps. What they endured was horrible, why would you dismiss slavery? Perhaps you are getting your history from Texas school books?
        Serious question, have you ever heard of the beeding farms in Richmond, VA and Maryland Eastern-Shore? I’d match that experience against anything.

        1. ” … have you ever heard of the beeding farms in Richmond, VA and Maryland Eastern-Shore?”
          **********************

          “A full equivalent being left in the place of the slave (the purchase-money), this emigration becomes an advantage to the state, and does not check the black population as much as at first view we might imagine; because it furnishes every inducement to the master to attend to the Negroes, to encourage breeding, and to cause the greatest number possible to be raised… Virginia is, in fact, a Negro-raising state for the other states.”

          ~Professor Thomas R. Dew, College of William & Mary (commenting on Virginia’s near successful attempt to free slaves in 1832)

          There is no question this insidious practice occurred, at least, in Richmond. Contemporaneous statements of Virginia politicians and academics confirm this fact. There’s no defending it except on the feeble argument that is was, at the time, legal.

          1. Not only did it occur, it existed fo the sole purpose of keeping the pices down on slaves. The United States banned the International Slave Trade over 50 years before it actually ended slavery. Not based on any opposition to the practice of slavery, but as a form of protectionism against the import of slaves from Africa. Female slaves in Richmond and other locations including Maryland Eastern-Shore were forced to copulate with either the largest and strongest of area slaves (or their masters). Then the slaves were sold to plantations throughout the South to stock them. Women were forced to bear children back to back to back until they were no longer able, and once their children were old enough to do labor, were sold off, almost always never to be seen again. Out of curiousity, which of you were taught that in school?

            1. enigma:
              I was taught that and in Virginia. We don’t run from the truth. Nor do we obsess over it. It was wrong. A great loss of life occurred to end the practice by mostly white men of both regions of the country. Many Virginians fought for the North. The Rock of Chickamauga? Not every Virginian supported slavery. In fact, 96% of Virginians owned no slaves. That’s the truth that is often omitted. Over 350,000 primarily white males died freeing black slaves. And to make it more interesting, they were overwhelmingly Republican voters.

              1. I’m glad to hear you were taught that. It wasn’t taught in Minnesota, I presently live 10 miles from the site of one of the largest election massacre in the history of the Country which is not taught in local schools.
                Certainly not every Virginian supported slavery, it could be argued that most benefited from slavery as at one time it was Virginia’s biggest export including tobacco. I’m not sure about your statistic that 96% of Virginians owned no slaves, unless you were counting the slaves among that number? I suppose statistics could vary by the dates. The Univesity of Virginia said in 1860, 26% of white families owned slaves. At a different point in time, 40% of all slaves were reportedly in Virginia. I’m not trying to pick on Virginia, just saying that people tell themselves the version of history that potrays themself in the best light. While many people died in the war, they had decidedly different reasons for fighting. The South mainly wanted to maintain slavery because of the economic benefits the cheap labor supply provided. Lincoln announced the Emancipation Proclamation, primarily to keep France and England from entering the war on the side of the South who was much stronger economically that the North who had yet to get that industrialization thing together yet. Lincoln would have been perfectly content to not free the slaves, and in fact didn’t free any slaves from states that didn’t secede from the Union.
                I would give great credit to the republican Party of the time which opposed slavery as one of its founding ideals. They let their greed get the best of them however in the Compromise of 1877 when they traded away keeping Federal troops in the South for the win in a contested Presidential election. That was effectively the end of Reconstruction and the beginning of Jim Crow. (At the hands of Democrats if that makes you feel better). When Democrats of a similar mind fled the Party in the 1960’s after passage of the Voting Rights and Civil Rights Acts of the time, Republicans gladly accepted them and later adopted the Southern Strategy to keep them. The widow of Lee Atwater was honored at the latest RNC Convention when Trump officially received the nomination.

                Mississippi: 49%
                South Carolina: 46%
                Georgia: 37%
                Alabama: 35%
                Florida: 34%
                Louisiana: 29%
                Texas: 28%
                North Carolina: 28%
                Virginia: 26%
                Tennessee: 25%
                Kentucky: 23%
                Arkansas: 20%
                Missouri: 13%
                Maryland: 12%
                Delaware: 3%

                1. None of what you said acknowledges the sacrifice of 350,000 white males who died freeing black slaves. That point is never raised in the reparations shake-down. What do you suppose the credit should be for 350,000 lives?

                  1. Reparations means different things to different people. There is no approved model of what reparations should look like. But many hopeful Blacks envision Reparations as checks in the mail for every family member; a scheme that would be totally unworkable.

                    One could argue that Reparations have been paid in the form of Great Society programs created by LBJ. And though it wasn’t LBJ’s program, Affirmative Action has been a national policy for almost 50 years. A ‘good’ policy, in my opinion. Affirmative Action completely changed the way government and private employers think in terms of hiring.

                    The Black middle class in America is largely employed by Federal, state and local governments. That too is a form of Reparations. Yet that fact goes unacknowledged when Reparations comes up in debate. But it should certainly be considered. In the past 50-60 years various levels of government have made truly sincere efforts to right past injustices.

                    1. Peter H:
                      My questions are multitudinous: what would be owed by persons whose families were not yet in the country when the war broke out? To whom would the payments be made? Is 1/32 blood relation to a former slave enough? How about 1/1024? Do we get credits for welfare paid? How do we define a slave? Is indentured servitude enough? What about freed slaves? Do their ancestors get pro-rata payments? How about affirmative action efforts? If we pay, do all affirmative action programs end and everyone goes back to an equal playing field? What other ethnic groups get reparations? To what credits are the payors entitled? How we account for the sacrifices of whites in the Civil War, the Civil Rights Movement and for those who ruled in favor of affirmative action? How would you finance the payments? Are there any strings attached? And on and on.

                    2. anon says

                      “The south seceded – an act which they very likely could expect would lead to war – to defend slavery. That is not arguable.”

                      I DID ARGUE IT AND YOU MISSED THE BOAT.

                      The south had a legitimate legal and constitutional argument. Slavery was a lawful institution at the time of the 1789 constitution and amendments. Slaves were lawful private property., And the fifth amendment said government may not take private property without public purpose and just compensation. That’s the fifth amendment “Takings clause” concerning “Eminent domain.” The northern states presumed to rhetoric about legislative action that would “take” private property of slaves by freeing them, without PAYING the owners. The southern states were not about to let that happen and basically yield all their advantages and lay down for yankee capitalist industrialists to impoverish their richest landowners and economic base and throw their own social situation into chaos just because moralizers insisted upon it. they had a legitimate legal constitutional and perhaps even social perspective and they seceded according to their perceived rights.

                      congress COULD HAVE OFFERED TO PAY SLAVEHOLDERS.
                      they DID NOT OFFER ONE DIME.

                      Lincoln COULD HAVE ENGAGED IN NEGOTIATIONS OVER THE ISSUE DIPLOMATICALLY.

                      He did not. He & his plutocrat backers wanted war and he attempted to resupply a federal fort located in a Southern STate. That was Ft Sumpter.

                      The state having seceeded, acted according to the prerogative of a sovereing and fired on Ft Sumpter and blocked the resupply. The Yankee union exercised its soverign prerogative and engaged a war in return. The Yankees won.

                      The purpose was not to “preserve the union” as a moral issue. Only a FOOL, A SUCKER, AND AN IDIOT IGNORANT OF HISTORY thinks that anymore.

                      IT WAS TO END SLAVERY FOR FREE, AT THE EXPENSE OF WORKING CLASS CANNON FODDER OF THE NORTH VERSUS WHOMEVER ELSE IN THE SOUTH. Pay the price in blood, essentially.

                      in the end, ALL RIGHTS ARE DECIDED, if not by the usual means of politics, then by other means of politics: BY WAR AND VIOLENCE.

                      Now, there WAS AN ALTERNATIVE FOR PEACEFUL NEGOTIATION.
                      They do not teach this in high school kids. Here is what they did in other coutnries like Brazil: they used taxes to buy the manumission of slaves en masse, peacefully.

                      The only place that did any such thing close to that was in tiny DC. NOWHERE ELSE.

                      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compensated_emancipation

                  2. Fo how many of those men was the freeing of the slaves a byproduct? The Emancipation Proclamation was a tactic, not a cause. The war was fought ove money. the South desirous of keeping the slave labor that it’s economy was based on, the North not willing to let the then more prospeous South depart. How many white men died because of thei desire to continue enslaving black slaves? You attribute a motivation that the vast majority didn’t ascribe to.

                    1. “You attribute a motivation that the vast majority didn’t ascribe to.”
                      ***********************
                      And you deny a benefit received and for which slaves could not procure themselves. Is your benefit lessened if your surgeon hates removing the bullet from your chest? You got the benefit regardless of the motivation of the actor. Now what is the appropriate credit against the reparation? Dithering won’t make it go away.

                    3. “If the surgeon shot me in the first place. How much credit is he owed?”
                      ******************
                      More deflection, obfuscation and intellectual dishonesty. Union soldiers didn’t own slaves. They just died for them. Then again your statement might show the inherent racism of the notion that “all white people are alike” when it comes to slavery.

                    4. mespo – You have made far more generlizations about white people than I have. Most soldiers in any war aren’t the major beneficiaries of the conflict, sometimes they are the ones that couldn’t get out of the way. While slavery is seen as an institution of the South, one of the largest ports where they entered this country was New York. Politicians (white men from every part of the country) reached accomodations like the 3/5ths of a man, the Electoral College which protected slave owning states and the Compromise of 1877, and of course slavery itself. Even the states where it wasn’t permitted did business with states that did, and often arranged to send escaped slaves back which is why the Underground Railroad ended in Canada. Certainly there were white people that recognized the inhumanity of slavery and did all that they could to stop it. Unfortunately, that label can’t be given to every Union soldier. Another aspect of history that is almost never discussed is the rape of women, black and white by Union soldiers. Of course the black women (and men) were already subject to rpe by their white owners and sometimes forced to rape each other. There may be some individual heroes in this conflict but they don’t include Lincoln who was quite willing to accept slavery and those he did free was a tactic (The record will reflect he was personally against slavery during the time he had no problem with its existence). Your version of history is self-serving and inaccurate. Which of us is guilty of intelectual dihonesty?

                    5. enigma brings up education in this debate and how he wasn’t taught the “correct” points. I wish too that my education about the civil war wasn’t entirely based on slavery. States rights was nowhere in the conversation.

                    7. I am not clear on what you and mespo are arguing over enigma, and I would not give one red cent for reparations to descendants of black slaves now 150 years after the fact.

                      However, i agree with the assertions you made that the Emancipation proclamation was a tactic. and that the primary cause was North v south economic systems competition. Now, states rights was the proximate legal cause, but also the takings concept— the North was not offering to pay for the emancipated slaves, which was a constitutional right the Southernors justifiably were concerned about— why should they impoverish themselves willingly? Would Mississippi give a few billions away or write it down from their books just to please New York today, either?

                      Was the United States going to offer just compensation as required by the fifth amendment? No way! But it was possible political solution, that the Yankees would not pay for:
                      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compensated_emancipation

                      And so the underlying social and economic differences were the root cause.

                      I also agree that most of the huge numbers of white men who died in the war, did not die over black slaves. most were conscripts in the north so they just had no choice, that’s all, plain and simple, and the rich Yankees bought their way out.

                      i would credit the Southern planters with one thing, at least they were generally willing to fight in person for their own fortunes, unlike the Yankee plutocrats who sent others to fight for them. See, the NYC draft riots.

                    8. Mr Kurtz – mespo and I started out in agreement regarding the horrors of the breeding farms for which there is no excuse. Where things went astray was a difference of opinion as to whether I should be praising the Union soldiers who he first said died for a glorious cause, then no matter their motivation I should celebrate the end result, then I must hate all white people. He might tell the story differently.

                    9. Mr Kurtz is wrong. The south seceded not the north, and they based that act on defending slavery. A quick reading of the statements of southern governors, legislatures, and Congressional leaders at the time are perfectly clear on this matter. Absent that secession, the north would not have forcefully ended slavery for a probably long time, and therefore one can reasonably say the north entered the war to enforce the union, not to end slavery. The south seceded – an act which they very likely could expect would lead to war – to defend slavery. That is not arguable.

                    10. anon says the war was fought over slavery and whatever I said was wrong. I am not sure she understood what i said. I am not always clear.

                      i said it had a legal justification based on the fifth amendment takings clause, which concept is itself based on the legal (if dated, obsolete, evil etc, yet still legal) institution of slavery, which was a differential issue managed in the 1789 constitution in part via “states rights.” Under that legal justification was the reality of a deep social and economic difference and competing systems: essentially, capitalism, versus slavery which was a relic of feudalism.

                      In this way, we can understand the standard Marxist interpretation of the war, which is the fundamental one taught in university, and reconcile it with the legal and historical record of the war.

                      That explanation may not satisfy her, but I am not in the business of satisfying anonymous people anyways

                    11. most were conscripts in the north so they just had no choice, that’s all, plain and simple, and the rich Yankees bought their way out.

                      Actual conscripts into the Union Army were in the low five digits. You had a large population of volunteers. The vast majority who did not volunteer either paid a capitation or paid a bounty to someone willing to enlist in their place.

                    12. Mr Kurtz in his previous post said “…the primary cause was North v south economic systems competition.”
                      No, the south clearly voiced their reasons for seceding and it was defending slavery, not economic competition, which is a relatively antiseptic phrase lacking the core principle at stake.. The north’s reason for invading the south was the preservation of the Union.

                      I don’t know what the follow up post about “Marxist” history means to say or imply, but I think it’s irrelevant.

                      Why is it that at some point one can’t “reply” directly to the posts of others.

                    13. one of my friends told me when i was a teenager, that i was racist. i said, “no way!” he said “sure you are. you just dont understand how.” I said “how can I be racist if we are friends?” [he, black] He said “what does that matter? its not about you and me. It’s about society not you and me. And maybe I’m racist too, in my own way. Won’t stop us from being friends.” over time I figured out what he meant. It was a really powerful conversation.

                      White people are touchy about being called racist. Me, not so much. In the past I was of course, but now I’m old, and have been called racist too many times to care too much.

                      and the thing is, as some of the leftists say, it IS systemic. there IS a legacy of white racism. Lucky for white folks! They might have been done in already without it. I am aware of various incidents in history and different places and times when white groups, once deposed, were slaughtered. Haiti is such an example but I can give many others. Well, that is the logic of group warfare. Well, If I am an oppressor, that’s bad, but what’s worse for me is if I am a DEAD oppressor!

                      Rather than call this racism, I prefer to consider it something different: a propensity to stick together and organize socially which has been a multi-generational framework supporting the cultural success and patrimony of European peoples. yes, at times, that has entailed the brutal conquest of other nations. Just as the “racism” of other groups like the Mongol Golden horde, exterminated less successfully “Racist” groups that fell beneath their hooves and swords. So, group cohesion has its place.

                      This has been the usual logic of history. Yes we know for example about the conquest of the indigenous peoples of the Americas by Europeans. But was it some utopia before? Hell no. How many tribes did the Aztecs genocide, before the Spanish conquered them? Nobody knows– but a lot. And what is the history of tribal warfare in some other part of the nonwhite world? So racism, as a species of tribalism, like nationalism, is often a matter of perspective.

                      Anyhow, whatever you call it, I would agree, this “racism” has given me many advantages I did not earn, in a multitude of ways. Things that came down from my kind to me as a form of cultural inheritance, both material and invisible blessings.
                      Things that regular white folks can’t see because they are in denial. They have good hearts and dont want to associate themselves with the bitter conflict of ages past. But they take the soup! OK. I take the soup and know what went into making it. And I know if we lose this. lose any sense of cohesion, then it may be the end of us, and other peoples
                      may cut us to ribbons.

                      Of course all tribalisms can go too far and the ideal is for peoples to live in peace. Here, of course, we should try and respect others and live in peace, within the boundaries of American society, with equality under the law and due process for all. But likewise I would claim for white people the right to organize and explicitly advocate peacefully for our own interests. Just as other people do. Most white people are not willing to admit that, not because they don’t feel that way, but they are afraid to be called racist.

                      I liked Eric Holder’s idea that we would have a “frank discussion about race” unfortunately it was a fake invitation. No such thing happened.

                      On the plus side, the internet’s quasi-anonymity gives us an opportunity to have a frank conversation, in spite of the social risks. Over time through negotiation and peaceful coexistence we will be better off than if we descend into total bellicose victory on either side, most likely. That’s as peaceful a notion as I am wiling to venture.

                      Thanks for your time people and conversation, take care!

                  3. here is a good lesson in political alternatives that would have saved a lot of our ancestors’ kin from bleeding to death on the field of battle, typhus, and the rest of it. 620,000 Americans died in the war.

                    but the Yankees were too cheap to even offer it. wiki: ********************************
                    Compensated emancipation was a method of ending slavery in countries where slavery was legal. This involved the person who was recognized as the owner of a slave being compensated monetarily or by a period of labor (an “apprenticeship”) for releasing the slave.[1]

                    The latter was chosen as a compromise between slavery and outright emancipation, the former slaves receiving a nominal salary, while still being bound in their labors for a period of time. This succeeded in many countries and the U.S. District of Columbia, but proved unpopular in the pre-Civil-War Southern United States, as for the slaves it amounted to little more than continued mandatory servitude, while it placed an added burden of wages on the former owner.[1]

                    Transition away from slavery
                    Compensated emancipation was typically enacted as part of an act that outlawed slavery outright or established a scheme whereby slavery would eventually be phased out. It frequently was accompanied or preceded by laws which approached gradual emancipation by granting freedom to those born to slaves after a given date. Among the European powers, slavery was primarily an issue with their overseas colonies. The British Empire enacted a policy of compensated Emancipation for its colonies in 1833, followed by Denmark, France in 1848, and the Netherlands in 1863. Most South American and Caribbean nations emancipated slavery through compensated schemes in the 1850s and 1860s, while Brazil passed a plan for gradual, compensated emancipation in 1871, and Cuba followed in 1880 after having enacted freedom at birth a decade earlier.[1]

                    United States
                    In the United States, the regulation of slavery was predominantly a state function. Northern states followed a course of gradual emancipation. During the Civil War, in 1861, President Lincoln drafted an act to be introduced before the legislature of Delaware, one of the four non-free states that remained loyal[citation needed] (the others being Kentucky, Maryland, and Missouri), for compensated emancipation. However this was narrowly defeated. Lincoln also was behind national legislation towards the same end, but the southern states, now in full rebellion, ignored the proposals.[2][3]

                    Only in the District of Columbia, which fell under direct Federal auspices, was compensated emancipation enacted. On April 16, 1862, President Lincoln signed the District of Columbia Compensated Emancipation Act. This law prohibited slavery in the District, forcing its 900-odd slaveholders to free their slaves, with the government paying owners an average of about $300 for each. In 1863, state legislation towards compensated emancipation in Maryland failed to pass, as did an attempt to include it in a newly written Missouri constitution.[1][4][5][6]

                    Nations and empires that ended slavery through some form of compensated emancipation
                    Argentina[7]
                    Bolivia
                    Brazil[8]
                    British Empire[1][9]
                    Chile
                    Colombia[7]
                    Danish colonies[1]
                    Netherlands[1]
                    Ecuador
                    French colonial empire[1]
                    Mexico and Central America
                    Paraguay[7]
                    Peru
                    Spanish Empire
                    Sweden[10]
                    Uruguay
                    Venezuela[7]
                    United States (Washington, DC only)[11][12]

                    1. Indeed, it must be the north’s fault for not appropriately coddling their slave mongering brothers to the south. They were obviously of a lower evolutionary order and required this kind of handling and certainly can not be held accountable for their actions. In a similar way Democrats virtually forced people to vote for Trump and his election is their fault.

                    2. obviously anon you missed my point and the point that compensated emancipation was a viable social and legal strategy that brought about the end of the institution of slavery in much of the world without the massive violence of the civil war. That is abstract however let me make it particular.

                      I had an ancestor who lost 3 brothers to the war on the Union side. I relate to my ancestors and don’t apologize for it. I would prefer that the war had not happened, and my family people had lived to have many cousins that I might have known today. For us, a peaceful compensated emancipation, would have been a better outcome. But you celebrate their loss? 620 000 Americans dead, you are unconcerned.

                      So, where were your people back then? Do you even know? Most ignorant selfish white people don’t even know their great grandparents first names let alone the preceding generation.

                      In that generation I had half my ancestors in Europe, the other half in America, but all in the North. Upon information and belief, they were mostly not poor and they were not rich, just normal people. And thankfully in that generation my lineal ancestor was too young to serve!

                      On my children’s maternal side, there were plenty of Confederate veterans however, and I respect their patriotism and can honor them too. I will never be one of those pathetic self hating white people who always has to spit on Confederates to assuage their painful white guilt. Probably a whole lot of trust fund babies with some kind of inferiority complex!

                      White people who are always wringing their hands and crying and boo hooing and currying favor by denouncing the old days are the sort of people who have no loyalty, no sense of their own kind, no appreciation for their inherited advantages, and probably lacking all the self-interested instincts with which evolution has blessed us as survivors of the miseries of the past. I hope that such like as these fully avail themselves of our regime of legal contraception and abortion for that kind, so they don’t pass their defective genes on to our next generation as a whole. Now, you can call me a eugenicist too!

                    3. Mr Kurtz, you apparently have a problems with a lot of people, which you then try to turn into self justifying causes. I can only say that I have never been called a racist, I have no resentment toward women, except for the toilet seat thing, and 3/4s of my family tree was in Europe in 1860 with the other 1/4 New Amsterdam based Dutch – I don’t know what they did in the civil war, but it would have been on the side of the North if anything (you can insert whatever disparaging imaginary life they lived, much as you did below for other imaginary foes). I did grow up for most of my formative years in the segregated South and came to my senses later when at University where pre-Selma I worked for integration. No great hero, I never was thrown in jail or risked my life, but I have the satisfaction of being on the right side of the most important moral and legal issue of that time and the right side of history.

                      You seem like a decent, not rigid, and intelligent person but I really don’t get your constant nursing of grudges to other “tribes” and even sexes. We are not going back to racial tribalism, even if some will try it briefly, and good riddance. I’m sure you know of the research showing us to be only insignificantly different beneath the skin and the melting pot is heating up, not cooling down. Good! The cultural gumbo is a great benefit as well.

                      Pretty soon we’ll have to invent something else besides race and religion – both on the way out – to choose sides over, like Mets and Yankee fans or Cubs and Sox.. In America we have 24/7 news and talk radio doing a pretty good job of dividing us over pretty small disagreements – virtually no one in America favors segregation, true fascism, communism, forced religious or forced non-religious behavior, so we can fight endlessly over a few % points of separation.

                      Anyway, peace out. I start out wanting to like what you post, but I can’t go where you’re going.

            2. Maybe you should visit the Slave Auction Blocks going today in North African. Hell, you might even see if they’d even bid on you? I know all Africans are Racist… some things never seem to change. LOL:)

              1. Should white people get reparations for suffering the extraordinary levels of crime unleashed upon us by Africans in the U.S.? It seems only fair that if an American African is to get a check in the mail for something that happened to his great-great-great-great grandfather, then white Americans should be compensated for the crime and violence that they are experiencing in the present.

                1. Reparations – which I don’t yet have an opinion about – would be based on the wrongful actions of governments, not ofindividuals, as crimes are.

                  If that was the measuring stick, blacks might be able to seek further reparations for Pat Boone, Justin Beiber, and Brian “the Boz” Bosworth.

        2. enigma………..Dismiss slavery? Another untrue remark. Slavery was horrific…..but the holocaust was worse.
          When I hear you decry and denounce your fellow black Africans for SELLING your black brothers into slavery,
          then I’ll know you’re serious about this discussion.

          1. Africans captured and sold Africans from other tribes. Arabs were the brokers. And whites (primarily Portuguese and Dutch) did the transport. The British, under Oliver Cromwell, sold thousands of poor Irish as slaves for Caribbean plantations. I read a book about them. They were known as Red Legs in Bermuda because their fair skin burned in the sun. Colonies of their descendants exist to this very day, living in abject poverty in Bermuda, but no effort has been made to compensate them or return them to Ireland.

            1. TIN………thanks for telling us…….never heard about that! Makes you wonder what else we don’t know about!

            2. So what?

              Are you advocating that the Irish seek reparations from the British, or just using that as an excuse why the US should not grant them to African Americans?

              1. Hey the Irish won’t shut up about how the British abused them, And they did; but i am sick of hearing from the Irish about this as well.

          2. Uh, how is comparing the terribleness of different historical atrocities a thing?

            Also, other’s being a…h…s like slave dealers in Africa does not absolve the US Government of it’s responsibility to it’s African American citizens.

            As fas as I’ve noticed enigma has not slabdered whites a race, which is what you are trying to do with the African slave traders.

      2. but jared was neither a holocaust survivor nor a black slave nor a convicted felon like his parent. folks need to get past the victim game!

  10. PYRRHIC AMERICAN EDUCATION BORN OF EXTRAVAGANT “CURRICULUM CREEP”

    The corruption of teachers strikes is self-evident demonstrating the saturation point of “curriculum creep” and excess. The primary workforce of every nation is its military which may never unionize or strike. Why are there Range Rovers and Mercedes Benzes in the teachers’ parking lots at public schools? If greedy teachers need to strike, districts don’t need those greedy teachers. In public school, there cannot be enough students who can understand teachers so superior they must be made wealthy by a position in public school.

    Ivy League universities sell the credentials to the American Communist Party functionaries who administer the communist programs.
    Corporations demand degrees of employees simply because Pyrrhic American education grinds them out. These ain’t your grandfather’s degrees. Are gangstas from Compton and East St. Louis really “student”-athletes? Why is there a Student Loan Crisis as corrupt as the Subprime Mortgage Crisis? Corruption of the education system and tuition inflation begin with the lazy, greedy, thug, teachers unions which strike simply because taxpayers have “deep pockets.”

    Public education reform must begin with de-certification of all teachers unions and immediate removal of teachers who strike. Educational requirements for public school teachers must be rational and commensurate with the abilities of public school students. Laws must allow the hiring of replacement workers.

  11. You know, Jon, I’ve known for years that people who attend these “prestigious” schools are not academically superior nor outstandingly talented at all. I’ve seen them perform in court. Some of the most-talented lawyers I’ve seen did not come from Harvard or any of the other so-called “top tier” schools. The better lawyers I’ve seen had raw talent for getting to the core facts, applying the law and arguing persuasively to the fact-finder. They have an inclusive and global way of thinking and an innate and tenacious way of working that gets them to their goal. Harvard can’t give you that. This kind of talent is either something you either have or you don’t have. A school can help you develop your talent, but it can’t imbue you with abilities you didn’t have in the first place.

    But, let’s fact it: that’s not why these people want to get into these schools. It’s for the connections: the alumni connections. Job opportunities, networking. It’s for the bragging rights, the perceived superiority in talent and intellect that supposedly goes along with a degree from a top-tier school. These top-tier graduates always want everyone to know where they went to one of these schools, especially judges. And, this isn’t just for lawyers. Where have you heard: “I went to Wharton. I was at the top of my class.” Sound familiar?

    Well, the shine is off the academic stars now, that’s for sure. Not only should those students who cheated or purchased their way into these schools be expelled, but their predecessors should have their diplomas revoked. That’s only fair. They don’t deserve to be called a Harvard or Yale graduate. They didn’t earn it. After all, if there was ever a place where things should be made right after a cheating scandal is uncovered, it is academia. I’m not holding my breath.

    One other thing: I have to wonder how these mediocre students could even pass courses in one of these “top tier” schools, if they had to cheat on their SAT scores to even get in. The curriculum must not be that challenging, which is yet another reason their stars do not shine so brightly any more.

    1. You know, Jon, I’ve known for years that people who attend these “prestigious” schools are not academically superior nor outstandingly talented at all.

      Well, we know whose application got rejected.

      I’ve seen them perform in court.

      When you were waiting for a hearing on your appearance ticket for harassment.

      1. I’ve never had any application rejected. And, no, one example where I’ve seen Harvard braggarts perform was in a products liability case. They made sure the judge knew they attended Harvard. In another case, I saw east-coast elites perform in an FDCPA case. Neither group was outstanding.

        1. one example where I’ve seen Harvard braggarts perform was in a products liability case.

          You signed on to a class-action suit for some payola? I luuhv it. Hope the ‘public interest lawyers’ sent you your $40 check after they were finished with their shakedown.

          1. No. I represented the husband and children of a woman who died from a defective product.

            1. No. I represented the husband and children of a woman who died from a defective product.

              Laying it on rather thick today, Natacha.

              2. Oh stop it, Tabby! You’re just mad because your parents had to pay a $75,000 bribe to get you into Strayer!

  12. AFTER QUESTIONING OBAMA’S ACADEMIC RECORD..

    TRUMP ORDERED MILITARY ACADEMY TO BURY HIS TRANSCRIPTS

    In 2011, days after Donald Trump challenged President Barack Obama to “show his records” to prove that he hadn’t been a “terrible student,” the headmaster at New York Military Academy got an order from his boss: Find Trump’s academic records and help bury them.

    The superintendent of the private school “came to me in a panic because he had been accosted by prominent, wealthy alumni of the school who were Mr. Trump’s friends” and who wanted to keep his records secret, recalled Evan Jones, the headmaster at the time. “He said, ‘You need to go grab that record and deliver it to me because I need to deliver it to them.’ ”

    The superintendent, Jeffrey Coverdale, confirmed Monday that members of the school’s board of trustees initially wanted him to hand over President Trump’s records to them, but Coverdale said he refused.

    “I was given directives, part of which I could follow but part of which I could not, and that was handing them over to the trustees,” he said. “I moved them elsewhere on campus where they could not be released. It’s the only time I ever moved an alumnus’s records.”

    The former NYMA officials’ recollections add new details to one of the allegations that Michael Cohen, the president’s longtime personal lawyer and fixer, made before Congress last week. Cohen, who told the House Oversight and Reform Committee that part of his job was to attack Trump’s critics and defend his reputation, said that Trump ordered him “to threaten his high school, his colleges and the College Board to never release his grades or SAT scores.”

    Trump has frequently boasted that he was a stellar student, but he declined throughout the 2016 campaign to release any of his academic records, telling The Washington Post then, “I’m not letting you look at anything.”

    Last year, he said he “heard I was first in my class” at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton business program, where he finished his undergraduate degree, but Trump’s name does not appear on the school’s dean’s list or on the list of students who received academic honors in his class of 1968.

    Trump spent five years at the military academy, starting in the fall of 1959, after his father — having concluded that his son, then in the seventh grade, needed a more discipline-focused setting — removed him from his Queens private school and sent him Upstate to NYMA.

    At the academy, which modeled its strict code of conduct after the nearby U.S. Military Academy at West Point, Trump loved competing to win contests for cleanest room or best-made bed. Although not known as an academic standout, he was a prominent baseball player and was well known on campus for bringing women there and showing them around. Despite getting a series of Vietnam War medical deferments for bone spurs in his feet, Trump has said that his military academy background provided “more training militarily than a lot of the guys that go into the military.”

    Trump told The Post during the 2016 campaign that he “did very well under the military system. I became one of the top guys at the whole school.”

    He said his parents originally sent him there because “I was a wise guy, and they wanted to get me in line.”

    Jones and Coverdale declined to disclose the contents of his transcript.

    Those who were aware of the 2011 effort to conceal Trump’s records said the request set off a frenzy at the military academy.

    “I know for a fact that in 2011, the decision was made by the superintendent to remove those records and secure them so no one on the staff could get to them,” said Richard Pezzullo, a graduate who worked closely with school officials in a drive to save the school, which was then in financial distress. “People had been making inquiries, and there was a paramount interest in securing those records.”

    Edited from: “Grab That Record: “How Trump’s High School Transcript Was Hidden”

    THE WASHINGTON POST, 3/5/19

    1. Peter, you realize some dean in the apparat at Occidental, Columbia, and Harvard signed out the microtext with Barack Obama’s transcripts on them and locked it in his safe? The records of John Kerry, George Bush, and Al Gore were all purloined and given to checkbook journalists. Any conscientious official would have locked Trump’s records away at this point. The slimeballs at the Bezos Birdcage Liner are butt-hurt they cannot get the stuff, so they’re making up stories.

      1. Well Tabby if that’s the case, Trump himself should release his transcripts to clear up any misunderstandings.

        1. Wait, it’s not like Trump demanded Obama release his academic records. The aptly named This is absurd is all over unprincipled behavior by democrats and I’m sure he would not lower his standards to protect the President.

          1. Wait, it’s not like Trump demanded Obama release his academic records.

            When did Trump demand anything?

            1. Well, you could Google it, but then you’d have to read a newspaper or some other organ of the deep state.

              Nevermind

              1. It was reported in The Guardian seven years ago

                “Trump announced on Wednesday that he would donate $5m to a charity of Obama’s choosing, if the president handed over his “college records and applications, and passport application and records”.”

                That’s what is known as a ‘challenge’, not a ‘demand’, JanF.

                1. Since you are apparently using the Google, see how many other times Trump has raised this issue about Obama over the 10 years let’s say – more than once – and see if whatever verb you want to use changes the following sentence:

                  “Trump is a phony lying sack of ….. who, after (demanding/challenging/begging/ cajoling/mocking) Obama for not releasing his academic records has been found to have been purposefully hiding his own academic records”

                  Which verb would you want to use in this true statement?

                  Are you new at this arguing thing? My 8 year old grandson comes up with better stuff.

        2. Misunderstandings of what? Your puerile curiosity is not anyone’s ‘misunderstanding’.

          1. Let me interpret for our challenged poster – he doesn’t read much and doesn’t know WTH is going on:

            Trump ridiculed his imaginary nemesis Obama for not releasing his academic records, and then has gone on to regularly tell us how smart he is and how great he did in school. Still with me? Meanwhile, we found out that he has been threatening his old schools to keep his records secret. You may ask “who cares”, and i agree. He’s obviously an ignorant liar, so how well he did in school will never save his reputation.

            See, that was easy. You should try reading a newspaper sometime.

            1. Trump ridiculed his imaginary nemesis Obama for not releasing his academic records,

              Trump has been contending for nearly three years with scams run by Obama-era appointees in the intelligence services and the Department of Justice. I’m sure it has nothing at all to do with the objects and dispositions of the man who ran the administration.

      2. But, but, but, did Obama, Kerry, Bush, or Gore falsely claim that they graduated at the top of their class? Did any of them claim that Trump was stupid or poorly educated, like Trump claimed about President Obama? Well, publicly, anyway? This is why people want to see Trump’s transcripts. He put his grades and academic performance in issue.

  13. I’m still trying to find out how Trump’s kids got out of grade school, I would like to see the money Daddy put out for his kids learning their 3 R’s. That’s the one thing maybe Trump did legally, he bought them in.

  14. No more Harvard and no more Yale!
    Put the weasels all in jail!
    I got married to a widow next door.
    She’s been married seven times before.
    And everyone was Harvard dude.
    He wouildn’t be a willy or a Fred.
    There ain’t no dork like Harvard dudes.
    Harvard The 8th I am!

  15. TRUMP NEVER MADE DEAN’S LIST AT WHARTON

    For years, President Donald Trump has said it’s clear that he is “a very smart guy” since he attended Wharton — a school he describes as “super genius stuff.”

    Trump, who graduated from Wharton in 1968, has also never challenged the fact that he “graduated first in his class,” which various publishers and news agencies such as The New York Times have reported.

    Penn records and Trump’s classmates dispute this claim.

    In 1968, The Daily Pennsylvanian published a list of the 56 students who were on the Wharton Dean’s List that year — Trump’s name is not among them.

    “I recognize virtually all the names on that list, ” 1968 Wharton graduate Stephen Foxman said, “and Trump just wasn’t one of them.”

    1968 Wharton graduate Jon Hillsberg added that there was no indication on the 1968 Commencement Program that Trump graduated with any honors. A copy of the program acquired from the Penn Archives lists 20 Wharton award and prize recipients, 15 cum laude recipients, four magna cum laude recipients and two summa cum laude recipients for the Class of 1968. Trump’s name appears nowhere on those lists.

    “If he had done well, his name would have shown up,” Foxman said.

    Given that there are 366 listed 1968 Wharton graduates on QuakerNet, Penn’s alumni database, the Dean’s List of 56 students represents approximately the top 15 percent of the class. The omission of Trump’s name suggests that his academic record at Penn was not as outstanding as he has claimed.

    Edited from: “Was Donald Trump Really A Top Student At Wharton? His Classmates Say Not So Much”

    THE DAILY PENNSYLVANIAN, 2/16/17
    …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

    The second paragraph above refers to erroneous reports that Trump had “graduated first in his class” at Wharton. The New York Times is cited as one of “various publishers” to have carried that report. The Times indeed reported that back in the 1970’s. One has to wonder now where The New York Times got that information.

    During Barrack Obama’s presidency, Donald Trump led a misinformation campaign that not only claimed Obama was born in Kenya, but questioned Obama’s college academic record. The implication was that Obama had been academically-challenged (and really not smart enough to serve as president). Obama, Trump implied, had only filled a racial quota in terms of student admissions.

    1. Peter, Trump’s been out of school for 50 years. His experiences in school are irrelevant to the matter at hand. (And really don’t explain why you didn’t get in to the college of your choice).

      1. Tabby, ‘who’ told The New York Times, decades ago, that Trump graduated ‘first in his class’ at Wharton? The question is interesting because it is known that Trump inflated his net worth to Forbes Magazine at one point. Could Trump himself have planted that report in The New York Times..?

        1. Tabby, ‘who’ told The New York Times, decades ago, that Trump graduated ‘first in his class’ at Wharton?

          No clue, Peter. You could ask the reporter under whose byline it appeared.

          The question is interesting because it is known that Trump inflated his net worth to Forbes Magazine at one point.

          That’s not ‘known’, Peter. It’s a contention of someone who once worked at Forbes (about 25 years ago, IIRC). Since Trump’s been on the Forbes list fairly consistently for 35 years (and is one of a half dozen real estate developers to have that distinction), he’d have to have been conning several generations of their research staff all this time.

          1. Given his practice of calling reporters and pretending to be someone else while praising that “Donald” guy, I think he has worked pretty hard at conning several generations of reporters and research staff.

            That’s his job.,

            1. A reporter contended that he did that. Since it wasn’t an admission against interest by the reporter, we have no reason to take it seriously.

              1. That Reporter, Tabby, was one those charged with compiling The Forbes 400.

                1. It’s highly unlikely that a project that large was ‘charged’ to a particular reporter.

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