DeSantis dings Harvard in Iowa but doesn’t say he’s a graduate

WAUKEE, Iowa — Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) criticized Harvard University’s former President Claudine Gay during his first public stop in Iowa of 2024 without acknowledging he is a graduate of the Ivy League institution.

“Have you guys seen [the situation] with this Harvard president and all the nonsense that’s happened there?” DeSantis asked a crowd in Waukee, Iowa, on Wednesday. “It’s these places, I mean, are just nuts with what’s gone on there?”

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Gay resigned from her six-month tenure after a controversial appearance before House lawmakers last month on how elite universities are responding to college protests regarding the Israel-Hamas war. She has also been confronted with allegations of plagiarism, instances of which have since been corrected.

“What’s the response of these universities? You know, students out there protesting in favor of Hamas?” DeSantis said. “Some of it is, like, they have such ideological blinders on. Some of it is they’re just ignorant about a lot of this stuff. They don’t know their history. They don’t know what they’re talking about.”

DeSantis graduated in 2001 from Yale University, where he was captain of the baseball team. He went on to attend Harvard Law School, where he earned his Juris Doctor in 2005.

On Wednesday, DeSantis criticized Gay supporters who contend “conservatives are weaponizing plagiarism as a tool to [get her] out,” arguing there is “an intellectual and moral rot on America’s university campuses.”

“I’m like, ‘Wait a minute. Isn’t plagiarism just wrong?” the governor said. “I mean, if you are an eighth grader and you’re lifting passages, they would fail.”

“These universities have really indulged in ideological indoctrination, and it’s imposing a certain worldview and really even suffocating dissenting voices that has become kind of the common cause of these universities,” he added. “That is a dead end for this country. And so she loses her job finally. Should have happened a long time ago.”

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DeSantis is trailing former President Donald Trump in Iowa two weeks before the 2024 Republican primary’s opening nominating contest. He particularly scrutinized Trump’s budget, law enforcement, and immigration record on Wednesday, ignoring former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, who is surging in the state and in New Hampshire.

DeSantis is in Iowa until Saturday, attending nine events around the state in addition to appearing at a CNN town hall on Thursday.