Donald Trump's main defense of Trump University, in the face of several fraud lawsuits and campaign attacks, has been the positive, "beautiful" reviews former students gave his real estate courses. Those reviews, it seems, appear to have always been "a central component of a business model that, according to lawsuits and investigators, deceived consumers into handing over thousands of dollars with tantalizing promises of riches," The New York Times reports, citing "hundreds of pages of legal documents, as well as interviews with former students and instructors." And, many former students and instructors say, the glowing reviews were coerced.
Instructors say their income depended on getting high reviews, and, in an usual arrangement for academic courses, students filled out the evaluation forms in front of instructors and were not told they could leave off their names. "I think it's much better when a student puts their name on it," Trump said in a January deposition. Otherwise, "they don't mean anything, actually." Many of the students were supposed to continue working and getting guidance from the instructors and mentors after turning in their signed evaluations, and according to documents made public during litigation, the students were asked to turn in evaluations to get their graduation certificates.
Normally in academic settings, evaluations are anonymous, so students can be frank about their experience, former Trump University consultant Howard E. Haller tells The Times. "No one knows if you even filled it out. The professor sure doesn't know." In interviews, Trump U alumni said that instructors had pleaded for high scores, refused to leave the room until receiving a 5 out of 5 rating, and hounded students until they recanted their low ratings and gave the course top marks.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
A lawyer for Trump, Daniel M. Petrocelli, dismissed the complaints. "Folks were not coerced," he said. "They gave overwhelmingly positive reviews because they were being honest about their assessment." Read more at The New York Times.
-
Political cartoons for November 1Cartoons Saturday's political cartoons include insurance premiums, early voting in NYC, and more
-
Salted caramel and chocolate tart recipeThe Week Recommends Delicious dessert can be made with any biscuits you fancy
-
Meet Ireland’s new socialist presidentIn the Spotlight Landslide victory of former barrister and ‘outsider’ Catherine Connolly could ‘mark a turning point’ in anti-establishment politics
-
Senate votes to kill Trump’s Brazil tariffSpeed Read Five Senate Republicans joined the Democrats in rebuking Trump’s import tax
-
Border Patrol gets scrutiny in court, gains power in ICESpeed Read Half of the new ICE directors are reportedly from DHS’s more aggressive Customs and Border Protection branch
-
Shutdown stalemate nears key pain pointsSpeed Read A federal employee union called for the Democrats to to stand down four weeks into the government standoff
-
Trump vows new tariffs on Canada over Reagan adspeed read The ad that offended the president has Ronald Reagan explaining why import taxes hurt the economy
-
NY attorney general asks public for ICE raid footageSpeed Read Rep. Dan Goldman claims ICE wrongly detained four US citizens in the Canal Street raid and held them for a whole day without charges
-
Trump’s huge ballroom to replace razed East WingSpeed Read The White House’s east wing is being torn down amid ballroom construction
-
Trump expands boat strikes to Pacific, killing 5 moreSpeed Read The US military destroyed two more alleged drug smuggling boats in international waters
-
Trump demands millions from his administrationSpeed Read The president has requested $230 million in compensation from the Justice Department for previous federal investigations
