(Hoax??) Harvard corrected the grammar in Secretary of Education Linda McMahon's threat letter

[Demovictory9]

Last edited Wed May 7, 2025, 08:32 AM - Edit history (1)

[LearnedHand]

1. Now that's some graduate-level trolling

[SheltieLover]

20. ...

[highplainsdem]

28. See reply 25. It was done by a grad student at MIT who never claimed it was Harvard's reply.

[riversedge]

2. Here are 2 pages of the corrections.......

Sec’y of Education A-1 McMahon sent a letter to the President of Harvard.
The superb educator kindly corrected her grammatical & many other errors.
Bravo Harvard 👊👊🏻👊🏼👊🏽👊🏾👊🏿

#DemsUnited

Link to tweet

[highplainsdem]

29. Done by a grad student at MIT who didn't pretend it was Harvard's response. See reply 25.

[sop]

3. I love this.

Should have used a red pen.

[yardwork]

4. These grammatical corrections don't come close to fixing this document.

I would have sent this back for a complete rewrite.

[LymphocyteLover]

14. Indeed-- the main problems were the ridiculous lies and hyperbole and it read just like a

dumb Trump tweet, but longer and dumber.

[yardwork]

33. I thought the same.

Written by the same person who writes Trump's tweets.

I doubt that anybody at Harvard made these corrections. It's an internet joke, but the truth is worse. It's dark and grim.

[LymphocyteLover]

40. Yes, agreed. This whole admin is deeply evil and deeply embarrassing at the same time

[FSogol]

37. True, but MIT grads don't have the power to impeach Trumpy.

[brush]

54. Sheesh! The moron hired moron staffers to help her too.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

56. This letter is going to be used in the lawsuit with Harvard and should had been reviewed before sending

Litigation had already been filed and so this letter should have been reviewed. This letter will be used in the litigation

[mercuryblues]

5. According to the biography on TV (Suits)

Harvard graduates some of the best lawyers in th country.

Linda holds a trophy belt.

[orangecrush]

13. A fake trophy belt at that

[mdbl]

6. As much as I would like to think it was Harvard that did this

I heard it was done by others.

[Demovictory9]

8. Did the interenet lie to me AGAIN!!!

[demmiblue]

9. Honestly, I don't know how you fell for it in the first place. Lol! n/t

[mdbl]

10. I put this under the "They didn't but should have" category

[highplainsdem]

15. Please delete your OP before it fools more people into reccing it (making DU look silly) or copying it

elsewhere (making themselves look bad).

At least edit it - including the thread title - to say it's a hoax, even though it's funny. A lot of DUers apparently don't read replies and will rec and copy hoaxes no matter how many replies point out it's a hoax.

[mopinko]

41. i wish we had a rule against shit that just isnt true.

i also wish du’er wd take down stuff that gets debunked. i agree it makes us look deranged.

[highplainsdem]

46. I wouldn't want people alerted on and possibly having posts removed simply because they believed

something that wasn't true. But the person who posted the OP should delete or clearly correct it when it's debunked.

There's so much garbage floating around on the internet.

I just discovered there are sites specifically for generating memes with fake quotes.

[mopinko]

53. not every post removed counts against u.

copyright, for instance, dont.

[demmiblue]

7. Harvard did not do this. n/t

14 recs when I replied.

[highplainsdem]

17. 33 now. Embarrassing for DU and anyone who copies it elsewhere.

[demmiblue]

30. It looks like the admins took it off the front page, at least.

There are OP’s under Trending Discussions that were posted before this thread, so it did not fall off naturally.

[highplainsdem]

36. Good. I wish people would check out memes before posting them here.

[demmiblue]

60. No kidding!

Another one from that same Twitter account:

https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=20300785

[orangecrush]

11. Comedy gold

In any case.

[highplainsdem]

12. Very unlikely any Harvard administrator or professor did this. A student, possibly.

[Brainfodder]

16. Can they work on his inability to comprehend the concept of defending the constitution also?

[DFW]

18. Consider the origin of the letter. You can't expect correct English from someone who wasn't even writing in English.

English has been largely discarded as the official language of the country, and has been replaced, in many instances, by Republicanese. Now, there are, granted, several dialects of Republicanese, but the main ones used by Republican members of Congress, Cabinet Secretaries, and their rank and file who post on blogs, are accepted as a general umbrella language, much like Swahili in Eastern Africa or Tagalog in the many islands of the Philippines. Regional dialects will always contain local differences.

For a brief overview, I offer the following, taken from a copy donated by Senator Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, when he finally became aware that it is possible to be illiterate in both English and Republicanese at the same time:

EXCERPTS FROM THE OFFICIAL DICTIONARY OF REPUBLICANESE

In Republicanese, many words that sound alike may be spelled differently at random. A few prominent examples:

In Republicanese, the following words may be spelled at random using any of the three ways given:

A.) Two, Too, To
B.) Their, They're, There
c.) Your, Yore, You're

The Republicanese version of Robin Hood therefore starts with "In days of you're...."

The only rule is that the correct use of them as in English is never permitted twice in a row.

Words with single letters that change meaning when that letter is doubled must never be used in correct English context. The classic example is “lose” vs. “loose.” In Republicanese, if you do not win an election, then you “loose” that election. Conversely, if your (Republicanese: you’re) belt is too tight, you need it more “lose” in order to be comfortable. Another example would be the Republicanese, “I met Donald Trump, and he was rudder than I imagined,” vs. “I grabbed the ruder and was able to steer the boat to shore.”

In English, the contraction for "it is" is written "it's." To show possession referring to something previously mentioned, one writes "its." In Republicanese, it is the other way around. Example:
English: “It's impractical for a building to have its solar panels in the basement.”
Republicanese: “Its impractical for a building to have it's solar panels in the basement.”


In Republicanese, idiomatic expressions that use words that are homonyms with animals in English must use the spelling that denotes the animal.
Three examples:
In English, when someone wins a race by a very small margin, one can say, “He won the race by a hair.” In Republicanese, one writes, “He won the race by a hare.”
In English, someone fleeing the law can be said to be on “on the lam.” In Republicanese, that is spelled “on the lamb.”
In English, when one starts to lose their voice after shouting for an extended time, one says, “he shouted himself hoarse.” In Republicanese, one writes, “He shouted himself horse.”


In Republicanese, an apostrophe is used to form a plural, whereas this is never correct in English. But it must be done at random, never systematically. For example, Bill and Hillary are "the Clinton's," but Bill, Chelsea and Hillary are "the Clintons." The other way around is also correct. In Republicanese, either form is correct as long as it is not spelled the same way twice in a row.
Example:
In English, one writes "The Clintons like dogs."
In Republicanese, this can be written as "The Clinton's like dogs," or "The Clintons like dog's" or "The Clinton's like dog's." The only version that would be incorrect in Republicanese would be to use no apostrophe at all. Only English is written that way.

In Republicanese, pronouns that are direct or indirect objects must never be used as in English when combined with another proper name, proper noun, or pronoun.
Example: in English, one says, e.g., “John went to dinner with me,” and not “John went to dinner with I.” Therefore, in English, one also says, “John went to dinner with my wife and me.” In Republicanese, while it is also correct to say, “John went to dinner with me,” it is only correct to say “John went to dinner with my wife and I.”

[raging moderate]

49. Also, Republicans write "day's" instead of "days."

Frequently, people in this cultural group insert apostrophes into plurals.

[FailureToCommunicate]

19. Even if this was not done by Harvard, it needed to be done. She is a nincompoop. (sp?)

[Scrivener7]

21. And it needs to be spread.

[highplainsdem]

23. No, it doesn't. Not unless it's labeled clearly as being done by a student at MIT.

[Scrivener7]

24. .

[highplainsdem]

27. See reply 25. It was done by an MIT student the night of the 5th. Someone either stupidly or deliberately

copied the corrected letter with a claim it was Harvard's response.

Which was a disservice to Harvard, to everyone duped into believing it was done by Harvard, and to the grad student at MIT who should have been credited.

[FailureToCommunicate]

26. Ha! Now that IS funny. Reminds me of the old joke about the student in the

"Ten items or fewer" checkout line:

Student (adds many more than ten items to the counter)

Cashier: "Are you from Harvard and can't count, or from MIT and can't read?"

Student: "No, ma'am, I'm from Yale...and don't give a damn."

[tishaLA]

22. A1!

Thanks for the laughs, Linda.

[highplainsdem]

25. FOUND THE SOURCE of this. A grad student at MIT who posted this on Twitter.

https://sites.google.com/u.northwestern.edu/daniel-luo/home

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

Notice he did NOT say that HARVARD sent this back to McMahon.

[Norbert]

31. Like they say the places I worked....

They bled all over this document.

[elocs]

32. Now THAT is ironically funny. Clever move. n/t

[highplainsdem]

34. Your thread title adding "(Hoax??)" is STILL misleading. You're leaving open the possibility the corrections

of McMahon's letter were done by Harvard, after I explained in reply 25 that it was done a couple of days ago by an MIT grad student who made no such fake claim.

Please delete your OP, which is misleading DUers, or make it clear that this was NOT done by Harvard.

[yardwork]

35. This OP is misleading in several ways.

First, it's not a "hoax" in the sense that the joking edits are fake. Apparently a real person did this and pushed it out on social media. They're at MIT. Maybe. I haven't bothered to verify the story.

It's not true that this is Harvard's official response. The person creating that hoax is you, I'm afraid.

Please edit your OP to correct the record with known facts.

[highplainsdem]

38. See reply 25 for the origin.

[yardwork]

39. I saw that but haven't verified it.

[Straw Man]

42. I hate to rain on this parade ...

... because McMahon is clearly unqualified for her job in many ways, but the "corrections" to this letter are mostly bullshit. I'm a retired professor of English, and in many instances the creators of this meme are flagging things as errors that are not errors at all, such as their incorrect flagging of complete sentences as incomplete. Furthermore, they have failed to identify some egregious errors, such as this one:

"It has invited foreign students, who engage in violent behavior and show contempt for the United States of America, to its campus."

Any grammarian worth his/her/their salt should have picked this one up right away. The commas indicate a non-restrictive clause, indicating that all foreign students engage in these behaviors. Surely even the current administration doesn't believe this.

Actually, I sincerely doubt that Linda McMahon wrote this letter; I doubt that she has even this much skill with the English language. In any case, if I were attacking it, I would focus on the content, which is laughable. To the person who created this meme, I would suggest a remedial course in grammar and copyediting.

[yardwork]

43. Same.

Except that I disagree with your assumption that the Trump administration doesn't think that all foreign students are violent criminals. They indicate this belief over and over.

Apparently an MIT grad student studying Econ did this as a joke.

[Ocelot II]

52. The writing is mediocre at best while the content is appalling.

I doubt McMahon herself wrote it; that task would have been delegated to a loyal, semi-literate minion who certainly has a dictionary of propaganda terms to be inserted into the word-porridge. What's stylistically wrong with this letter isn't so much the grammatical sloppiness as it is the grandiose, hyperbolic bloat. The writer's point, which is both stupid and fascist, could have been made in a couple of paragraphs, but as is typical of Trumpworld pronouncements, it's word cancer that's metastasized into a tumor of incoherence. I still can't really tell why McMahon hates Harvard.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

57. Do you think that a lawyer reviewed this letter?

I hope not. This matter is in litigation and this letter will be used in such litigation. Normally when you are in litigation mode, everything should go before a lawyer. I hope that no lawyer drafted this letter.

[Ocelot II]

59. If a lawyer did draft or review it, they would have been a typical Trump admin lawyer -

an incompetent loyalist who produces nothing but propaganda. The ethical, competent lawyers have quit if they haven't been fired for being Democrats, Black, female, LGBTQ, ethical, honest, competent, and/or woke.

[Mysterian]

44. Dangerous incompetence and malignant evil

The best description I've seen of the corrupt rump regime.

[malaise]

45. Effin perfect

She outdid her Aone for AI comment - that’s a wonderful thing 😂😂😂

[highplainsdem]

47. Harvard didn't correct her letter. See reply 25.

[malaise]

48. Someone did

Good - still love it 😀

[highplainsdem]

50. The correction is funny. Misattributing it to Harvard isn't.

[Buns_of_Fire]

51. "D+ - C-. See me after class." nt

[LetMyPeopleVote]

55. Linda McMahon's unhinged letter should only strengthen Harvard's resistance

For me it does not matter who corrected McMahon's letter. What matters is the substance of McMahon's letter and the fact that somehow this letter was allowed to be sent to Harvard. Normally this type of letter will be used in the pending litigation and should have been carefully drafted and reviewed before being sent. I will be shocked if any attorney reviewed this letter.

Link to tweet

https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/harvard-trump-grants-doe-mcmahon-letter-rcna205180

On Monday, Secretary of Education Linda McMahon sent Harvard University an unhinged letter, which she also posted to X, decreeing that the higher education institution could no longer apply for government grants, presumably to do things like find cures for cancer and other diseases.

Opening the letter with the statement that the federal government “has a sacred responsibility to be a wise and important steward of American taxpayer dollars,” McMahon claims the university is being run poorly and engages in race-based preferences in admissions and hiring. She also asserts that the university has rejected “common-sense reforms” urged by the administration, including committing to “a return to merit-based admission and hiring.” .....

Before the decision, President Donald Trump claimed his administration would rescind the tax-exempt status of Harvard, a move that would clearly be illegal. Instead of scaling back its attacks on Harvard in light of the Perkins Coie decision, however, the administration has doubled down.

But the attack on Harvard is on even shakier legal and constitutional ground than the administration’s attacks on law firms. American universities enjoy strong First Amendment rights that protect what they teach, who they hire and how they operate. The McMahon letter — which purports to operate as notice to the university that Harvard need not apply for federal research grants — is meant to deter the university from seeking federal funding. I doubt that it will.

At the same time, it sends a clear message to federal agencies, like the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health, that they should reject any application coming from Harvard. And it does so under the banner of purporting to further merit-based admissions and hiring practices. But even the administration’s supposed cure involves what? Decision-making that is not based on merit.

Indeed, according to McMahon’s letter, Harvard should not bother applying for federal grants because none will be forthcoming. Such decisions would not be based on the merit of those applications or the research teams behind them, but on the administration’s grudge against the university. .....

Harvard should continue to resist such efforts and can fully expect to have not just its day in court, but a victorious one at that. In the meantime, what will be lost should federal agencies actually follow McMahon’s directive? What public health projects will go unfunded? What new research on life-saving cures will end because of the administration’s most recent fit?

Harvard should challenge, and courts should review, this most recent attack on Harvard to not just stem a further erosion of First Amendment freedoms, but to preserve the national interest in having the best researchers working on our most important public health challenges.

This poorly drafted letter will be used to prove Harvard's case. Given the typos and incoherent claims, I hope that no attorney reviewed this letter.

[Bettie]

58. I figured it wasn't really Harvard

but it WAS a good redlining.

And a pointed jab at the less-than-brilliant people in the current 'government'.