2016 June 4^th

Muhammed Ali is dead and all of the various news media are focusing their attention on his career. This is a lucky thing for Donald J. Trump as it means that for at least a full day (maybe longer) he can’t embarrass himself.

His latest snit concerns Judge Gonzalo Curiel whose Mexican immigrant parentage means, ipso facto, that Judge Curiel is biased in favor of Trump’s opponents in the Trump University lawsuit. Trump’s unassailable logic is that because he plans to build a wall to keep illegal Mexican immigrants out of the country, that Judge Curiel will surely be biased against his case, and, indeed, should disqualify himself from hearing it.

No one has suggested that Trump is stupid and this charge against the judge, before things get well underway, is a smart move. Now, if Trump loses his case, and he probably will, he can say, “I told you that judge was biased.” The Trumpian ego can remain intact.

Trump has evaluations from former students who gave Trump U. courses very favorable reviews. These are all suspect because they were obtained while a Trump employee was looking over the student’s shoulder. That’s not how it’s done if the evaluations are expected to have any validity. In most college courses, the students evaluate the course and the instructor while the instructor is out of the classroom.  The evaluations are unsigned, and then a student collects the forms and takes them to the dean’s office. There was obviously no intent in this case to really evaluate the courses.

There is also the fact that several of the sales people simply quit Trump U. because of the up selling, that is the constant push to get students to sign up for ever more expensive courses than they could afford. When it was obvious that people with modest incomes were pushed to max out their credit cards to buy more expensive Trump courses, these sales people could not, in good conscious, support these efforts.

There is ample evidence in the Trump U.’s literature that the lecturers and curriculum were advertised as being under the direct supervision of Donald Trump. That was a lie, and Trump has admitted as much. His representatives claim that this was the same kind of sales push as the used car salesman’s claim that, “This is the best used Chevy you’ll find anywhere.” No one should have taken it seriously, and besides it was not a part of any sales contract.

Trump might not really want to be President. If he doesn’t want to win the Presidency he is doing exactly the right things.