The latest target of President Donald Trump's ire, Harvard has long been viewed as among the world's best universities, producing future presidents, Nobel laureates, tech stars -- and Trump allies.
The famed seat of learning in Massachusetts is "a JOKE, teaches Hate and Stupidity, and should no longer receive Federal Funds," Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform Wednesday, after it defied his administration's lists of demands.
- Trump's world -
Harvard University has long been considered by US conservatives as being a left-wing bastion, but has nevertheless educated some of Trump's closest allies.
They include his son-in-law Jared Kushner, who reportedly gained admittance to the university thanks to his family's fortune.
Kushner was a top aide throughout Trump's first term but -- like his wife Ivanka -- has not returned this time around.
Ivanka Trump and her father both attended another Ivy League institution, the University of Pennsylvania.
Stephen Miran, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers and an alleged mastermind of Trump's current trade offensive, also graduated from Harvard, as did Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Conservative political pundit Ben Shapiro, a staunch Trump supporter, graduated from Harvard's law school.
In Congress, according to an AFP count, 15 Republican lawmakers have Harvard on their CVs -- which is about a third of the Democratic contingent.
- Tech geniuses and stars -
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, who has courted the president with frequent visits and notable changes to corporate policies since his re-election, famously dropped out of Harvard before graduating -- as did Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates decades earlier.
Both tech giants were given honorary degrees after their companies saw skyrocketing success.
Some powerful women in the American tech sector also passed through Harvard, including former YouTube chief Susan Wojcicki, who died in mid-2024, and the former number two of Facebook Sheryl Sandberg.
Harvard's alumni also includes several stars, including actress Natalie Portman, novelist Margaret Atwood and film director Terrence Malick.
- Presidents and Nobel laureates -
Top of the Academic Ranking of World Universities in Shanghai for years, Harvard has churned out 162 Nobel laureates, of all kinds.
According to an AFP count, 38 of them were still linked with the university when they received the award, including 14 in medicine.
The 2009 Nobel Peace Prize winner, Barack Obama, received his law degree from Harvard several years after wife Michelle, and was the eighth US president to have come from the university.
Others include Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy and George W. Bush.
Several foreign heads of state also attended Harvard, including a number from Latin America, notably Colombians Juan Manuel Santos and Alvaro Uribe, along with Chile's Sebastian Pinera.
The Liberian economist Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who went on to become Africa's first woman president, and the Empress of Japan, Masako Owada, also studied there.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
