A lawsuit filed Saturday by New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman alleges that Donald Trump defrauded more than 5,000 people of $40 million, handed over for what was supposed to be the opportunity to learn Trump’s real estate investment magic at his for-profit training program, Trump University. The suit also names The Trump Entrepreneur Institute—previously known as Trump University LLC—and Michael Sexton, former president of the institution.
Beginning in 2005, Trump University offered a program that began with a free introductory 90-minute presentation promising to teach the secrets that helped build his real estate empire. This was, according to the suit, no more than a lengthy promotion for a three-day, $1,500 seminar. The three-day program, in turn, was used to plug “elite” courses that cost anywhere from $10,000 to $35,000.
Schneiderman takes particular aim at Trump U.’s ads, which featured the mogul’s picture and signature, and some of which appeared as personal letters. Marketing materials frequently referenced the “handpicked instructor” who would impart Trump’s wisdom, but the attorney general maintains that Trump was uninvolved in developing or teaching curriculum, and was not responsible for choosing instructors—by hand or otherwise.
The suit also claims the organization was warned by the New York State Education Department (NYSED) up to eight years ago to stop presenting itself as a university, though Trump representatives George Sorial and Michael Cohen say the organization had no formal communication with the NYSED until 2010. Trump University was issued a cease and indoor Tracking, after which its name was changed to The Trump Entrepreneur Institute. Sorial and Cohen say the program suspended live seminars several weeks later as a result of the developing conflict with Schneiderman’s office.
“Mr. Trump used his celebrity status and personally appeared in commercials making false promises to convince people to spend tens of thousands of dollars they couldn’t afford for lessons they never got,” said Schneiderman, in a statement. “No one, no matter how rich or popular they are, has a right to scam hard working New Yorkers. Anyone who does should expect to be held accountable.”
The suit claims that many students at Trump University—referred to in the complaint as “consumers”—were promised the opportunity to practice actual real estate transactions with access to private funds, personal appearances by Trump himself, and year-long access to “apprenticeship support.” Instead, according to the lawsuit, participants were provided with a list of funding sources culled from a newsstand publication, and many mentors did not respond to contact from students or provided no ongoing guidance at all.
Instead of the chance to shake hands with The Donald, a life-sized cutout of Trump was made available for photos with students, alleges the attorney general’s complaint.
Sorial and Cohen insist that Schneiderman’s actions are personally-motivated attacks against Trump, and claim that before the lawsuit was filed, the attorney general “repeatedly” rejected the offer of in-person meetings with Trump, while suggesting through a representative that the matter could be settled out of court.
“98% of Trump University students rated the program ‘excellent,’” claims the site, “while only 4% of New York State registered voters rated Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s performance as “excellent” and Schneiderman thinks he could be the next governor? He must be joking.”
Beyond the belligerent typeface, the site actually makes thousands of pages of handwritten survey responses, apparently from Trump University participants, available in PDF. Remarks in comment form are largely positive, and numerical responses tend to be the highest available scores or blank. Names of participants are redacted.
It is neither my business or concern as to how many sexual partners anyone has at any one time, and I genuinely could not care less how folk organise their relationships. But the co-opting and rebranding of polygamy, so that it loses its nasty association with the oppression of the most disadvantaged women, is as irresponsible as suggesting that because some women chose to enter high-end prostitution as a social experiment, all prostitution is radical and harmless.
Caroline Humphrey, a professor of collaborative anthropology at Cambridge University, has argued in favour of the legalisation of polygamy because, according to a number of women in polygamous marriages in Russia, "half a good man is better than none at all". While polyamory is not the same as traditional polygamy – which has been practised for centuries under a strict code of patriarchy in communities where women and children have few if any rights – the co-opting of the sanitised version will further normalise a practice that is anything but liberating for women in this Hands free access.
There is also the assumption that polyamory is an invention of a set of too-cool-for-school hipsters, who have recently discovered that exclusive couple-type relationships are so last season. However, it was radical feminists in the 1970s onwards that developed the notion of non-monogamy as a way to challenge patriarchal heterosexuality. The definition of polyamory as "ethical non-monogamy" currently doing the rounds sticks in my craw. Non-monogamy was deeply ethical. One could have as many sexual partners as desired but everything was honest and above board, with no one being deceived.
The type of non-monogamy radical feminists developed and practised involved no men. We were all lesbians starting off on a fairly equal playing field. Some of us involved with leftwing politics had previously been witness to or victims of men who had sexual access to as many women as they wanted, while women waited for her one partner to get round to paying her attention. In the meantime, women were pitted against each other while the men played a subtle game of divide and rule, and there were plenty of women to do the washing, childcare and provide emotional and sexual support for these oh-so alternative men.
The women were not necessarily any more sexually liberated than their married, monogamous sisters; in fact they would quite often complain of being treated far worse than a wife. It not only gave men permission to sleep around, but left women experiencing dreadful feelings of anxiety, low self-esteem and lack of confidence.
Elisabeth Sheff, a US-based sociologist who has studied polyamorous families since the mid-1990s, found that "despite the pronounced importance of gender equality to polyamorists", it is not unusual for men to be drawn to it because they believe that it will lead to sex with lots of women. The modern proponents of polyamory tend to ignore gender dynamics as if patriarchy and the sexual inequality that it produces has disappeared. Many also forget that its practice today, unlike polygamy, is the choice of overwhelmingly white, affluent, university educated and privileged folk, with too much time on their hands.
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