SHAKE HIM OFF

Yale Law School Snubs J.D. Vance–But Does Mention Taylor Swift

Donald Trump's running mate is a distinguished Ivy League graduate. But his alma mater is mum about it.

J.D. Vance, the junior senator from Ohio selected on Monday to be Donald Trump’s running mate, is a graduate of Yale Law School. But you wouldn’t know that from Yale. The Yale Law website makes no mention of the affiliation.

An item published on Tuesday afternoon describes “a reading group on Taylor Swift” organized by current students. A section titled “In the News” meticulously chronicles media appearances by alumni—but in recent weeks has not included a single mention of Vance, 49, who graduated from Yale Law in 2013 and is now just an election win and a heartbeat from the Oval Office.

The main Yale page also displays a telling lack of pride in one of the GOP’s most promising prospects. You can read a news item about how “routine violence shaped European empires,” but nothing at all about the man who may shape conservative politics for years to come.

A school-wide strategy seemed to be in the works, at least as of Tuesday morning. Yale Law’s account on X shared messages about Frank Jimenez ‘91, counsel for GE HealthCare, and Becca Heller, ‘10, chief executive of the International Refugee Assistance Project—but ignored how one of its own could one day sit in the Oval Office.

Vance entered Yale in 2010 after serving in the U.S. Marines and attending Ohio State. He went on to work in venture capital and gained prominence in 2016 with Hillbilly Elegy, his excoriating memoir of a childhood mired in cultural and financial poverty. The last time Yale Law school acknowledged him as one of its own was in a 2017 news item pegged to a book talk he was to give on campus.

His political career began shortly thereafter. Throughout his ascent, he has disappointed those who initially saw him as a principled answer to Trump-style populism. He would embrace that populism, and then some.

To earn Trump’s support as he ran for Senate, Vance tried to erase the memory of comparing him to Adolf Hitler, as his Yale roommate said.

“J.D. is kissing my ass he wants my support so bad,” Trump said in 2022—at a rally for Vance.

A communications representative for Yale Law did not respond to a request for an explanation, but plenty of Yale alumni—both of the law school and the undergraduate college—offered up thoughts of their own.

“Yale Law School should be embarrassed. It's now given us JD Vance, Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, Brett Kavanaugh, John Yoo, and Alan Dershowitz,” noted Michiko Kakutani, a 1976 graduate of Yale and New York Times book critic-turned-Trump critic, referencing some of the school’s other graduates who have become leading conservatives.

She pointed out that Ron DeSantis, the Trump-style governor of Florida who is scheduled to speak Tuesday at the GOP convention in Milwaukee, was a Yale College graduate.

One Republican openly lobbying to get Vance's Senate seat if it becomes vacant is Vivek Ramaswamy, another anti-elite crusader, who graduated from—you guessed it—Yale Law.

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Alexander Nazaryan

Mary Ann AkersEditor

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