Penn Professor Renews Call To Investigate Trump Admission To Ivy League School

President Donald Trump speaks during a news conference at the White House, Wednesday, Aug. 19, 2020, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
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A professor at the University of Pennsylvania has renewed a call to investigate how President Trump was admitted to the ivy-league institution in 1966, citing “new evidence” based on secretly recorded tapes in which Trump’s sister says the President paid a friend to take his SATs.

The Washington Post reports that professor Eric Orts was one of the six faculty members who in early July had asked the university’s provost to initiate a formal probe into how Trump transferred into the school 54 years ago. At the time, Orts and his cohort referred to a claim made in Mary Trump’s recently published book that her uncle had paid someone to take the SATs for him.

The provost, Wendell E. Pritchett replied to Orts in July, sharing his concerns about the allegations but said — barring “new evidence” —  that Trump’s admission to the school occurred “too far in the past to make a useful or probative factual inquiry possible.”

Orts is now seizing on a story in the Post published on Saturday that included audio of conversations Mary Trump recorded in 2018 and 2019 with Maryanne Trump Barry, the president’s sister. He has told Penn’s provost that the recordings should qualify as new evidence.

In one tape, Barry said Donald Trump “went to Fordham for one year [actually two years] and then he got into University of Pennsylvania because he had somebody take the exams.”

In their first letter obtained by the Post, the six professors wrote that a failure to investigate an allegation of fraud “broadcasts to prospective students and the world at large that the playing field is not equal, that our degrees can be bought, and that subsequent fame, wealth, and political status will excuse past misconduct.” 

After the Post published the recording online last weekend, Orts said he emailed Pritchett pressing again for an investigation.

Orts’ fresh request comes as high profile Hollywood star Lori Loughlin was sentenced two months behind bars last week for her role in an elite college admissions bribery scandal.

Orts told the Post that he had not heard back from the provost regarding his most recent request which he made separately from the initial group that was pushing for the probe.

Orts who is a professor of  legal studies and business ethics at the Wharton School, said he not seeking the investigation as a matter of politics but on moral grounds.

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  1. Avatar for nycabj nycabj says:

    Perhaps we could start with a release of his transcripts showing that he deserved to be there, accompanied by a record of any donations around that time by his daddy.

  2. Nothing will happen from this. We already know Trump’s cheated his way into everything he has. He certainly did it here. The value in this is contrasting it with his claims that Obama was admitted into collage because he was Black and not otherwise qualified. Trump demanded to see Obama’s transcripts to prove this. He’s the kind of man that has paying someone to take his SAT’s in his past yet rags on man ( always with a racial taint ) for doing something similar when he knows damn well it was not done. That’s Trump.

  3. President paid a friend to take his SATs.

    instant thought:
    I have no doubt

  4. Avatar for jmacaz jmacaz says:

    This is where we are now. The ROT fed to the GOP by Reagan has been digested and incorporated into the body of the GOP to the extent that this won’t even register as an issue to your basic Elected/Selected GOP member. SADLY, a good portion of the party members will also not care.

  5. ‘In one tape, Barry said Donald Trump “went to Fordham for one year [actually two years] and then he got into University of Pennsylvania because he had somebody take the exams.”‘

    Of course I’d love Trump to get exposed for cheating his way into college but I have to say that this story doesn’t make total sense to me. Wouldn’t he already have taken the SATs if he was at Fordham? And if he hadn’t for some reason would UPenn have required that he take them as a transfer student? I sort of doubt it—especially at that time. Also, SATs are weighted much less heavily for transfer students since you already have an academic transcript. It seems much more likely his cheating would have been with regard to that transcript than to his SATs.

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