Is William T Kelley a credible source for information about Donald Trump?
Executive summary
William T. Kelley was a long‑time Wharton marketing professor and author whose close friend, Frank DiPrima, repeatedly reported that Kelley called Donald Trump “the dumbest goddamn student I ever had,” a claim widely reprinted in the press [1] [2] [3]. That provenance — consistent repetition by a friend after Kelley’s death — means Kelley is unquestionably a credible witness about having been Trump’s professor, but the incendiary quotation about Trump’s intelligence rests on secondhand testimony rather than a contemporaneous, attributable primary record, so it should be treated as suggestive rather than definitive [1] [2].
1. Who Kelley was: academic credentials give him standing, not infallibility
William T. Kelley taught marketing at Wharton for decades, retired in 1982, and authored a then‑widely used textbook on marketing intelligence, credentials that make him a potentially informed commentator on students’ classroom performance and demeanor [2] [1]. Those institutional and professional facts underpin any claim made in his name: a former professor is a plausible source about a former student’s classroom behavior and academic performance. However, credibility about classroom impressions does not automatically equate to verifiable, objective truth about a student’s overall intelligence or later accomplishments.
2. The provenance of the famous quote: hearsay repeated for decades
The now‑viral line about Trump being “the dumbest goddamn student I ever had” does not originate from a contemporaneous interview with Kelley in the public record but from Frank DiPrima, a close friend who said Kelley told him the line “100 times over three decades,” and who later published that recollection after Kelley’s death [1] [2]. Multiple outlets — Poets&Quants, Port Townsend Leader, Poets&Quants for Undergrads and others — have repeated DiPrima’s account, creating a chain of secondary sourcing rather than producing audio, written notes, or direct testimony from Kelley himself [1] [2] [3].
3. How reporting has amplified — and sometimes distorted — the account
The anecdote has been amplified across news and social platforms, sometimes accurately and sometimes inverted: for example, Donald Trump once shared a fabricated post that reversed Kelley’s alleged assessment, claiming Kelley said Trump was “the smartest,” a false attribution flagged by MeidasTouch in coverage of the incident [4]. This episode illustrates how the story has been weaponized on both sides of the political divide, increasing visibility while muddying the original evidentiary trail [4].
4. Assessing reliability: weight of repeated hearsay vs. lack of primary source
DiPrima’s long friendship with Kelley and his claim that Kelley repeated the line for decades lend the anecdote some credibility as a genuine recollection of Kelley’s private views; multiple independent outlets have cited the same friend’s account, creating consistency in reporting [1] [2] [3]. Still, the absence of primary documentation — classroom evaluations, contemporaneous quotes, recordings, or written notes from Kelley — means the specific incendiary phrasing and its implications rest on hearsay. In journalistic evidence terms, that places the claim at medium credibility: plausible, corroborated by pattern and witness testimony, but not conclusive.
5. Motives, biases and alternative explanations
DiPrima’s motive appears to be memorializing a friend’s repeated comment rather than conducting adversarial fact‑checking, which can shape how stories are framed [2]. Kelley’s reported phrasing — emphatic and pejorative — could reflect a private, theatrical way of expressing frustration that might have been exaggerated in retelling; conversely, it could also reflect a genuine, repeated personal assessment of a student. Reporting to date does not offer meaningful contemporaneous pushback from other Wharton colleagues or archival materials to settle the dispute definitively [1] [2].
6. Bottom line: when to treat Kelley as a credible source about Trump
Kelley is a credible source in the narrow, factual sense that he was Trump’s professor and had the standing to judge classroom behavior [2] [1]. The dramatic quote attributed to him through DiPrima is credible as a reported opinion Kelley likely expressed privately, but because it is preserved only through a single close friend’s repeated retelling rather than primary contemporaneous evidence, it should be used with caution as a factual basis for sweeping claims about Trump’s intellect or professional competence [1] [2]. Independent corroboration or archival material would be required to elevate the claim from credible anecdote to established fact.