In light of the current stand-off between US President Donald Trump and Harvard over the institution’s refusal to adopt the Trump administration’s fresh federal guidelines to it, a picture of former US President Barack Obama‘s conversation, an alumni of Harvard University, from a 1991 rally in support of a law doctor, has emerged.
Trump retaliated by halting Harvard’s over$ 2 billion federal funding. 2 billion. Obama criticized the US President for his alleged “ham-handed try to stifle educational liberty,” calling out the president for his support of his alma mater, where he studied rules. “
Barack Obama’s speech went viral.
Derrick Bell, an African American and a pioneer of the so-called” critical race theory,” had launched a hunger strike over the institute’s refusal to grant tenure to Regina Austin, a black woman professor, according to a report from 2022. When only three of the professors at the law school were black and only five of the others were women, this occurred.
“… and professor Bell was one of the speakers at that orientation. And I can recall him sauntering up to the prop, engaging us in a conversation instead of giving us a lecture. And telling the truth,” Obama, the first African-American to hold that position and Harvard’s then president of the Law Review, said.
How was this accomplished by a single man? How did he manage to accomplish all of this? He has both good looks and easy charm, but he hasn’t done it just by looking good, he continued, laughing at the audience, including Bell himself.
Obama, who was 30 years old at the time, added that” This scholarship has opened up new visitors and new horizons… open your thoughts and feelings to professor Derrick Bell. “
