Who is William T. Kelley and what is his connection to Donald Trump?
Executive summary
William T. Kelley was a longtime Wharton marketing professor and consultant whose posthumous anecdote — relayed repeatedly by his friend Frank DiPrima — cast Donald J. Trump as “the dumbest goddamn student I ever had,” a line that has circulated widely in media and social commentary [1] [2] [3]. The connection is personal and anecdotal rather than documentary: Kelley taught Trump at Wharton in the late 1960s and, according to multiple second‑hand accounts, expressed contempt for Trump’s classroom performance and arrogance, but no contemporaneous primary quote from Kelley himself is provided in the reporting [4] [5].
1. The man in the classroom: Who William T. Kelley was
William T. Kelley was a Wharton School marketing professor who taught marketing management to undergraduate and graduate students for decades, authored a textbook called Marketing Intelligence, and retired in the early 1980s after a lengthy academic and consulting career; his colleagues and friends remembered him as a long‑time fixture of the school and an experienced business consultant [1] [4] [3]. Multiple obituaries and reminiscences describe him as “Dr. Bill,” a professor who taught at Wharton for 31 years and was well known to students and fellow faculty [1] [4].
2. The anecdote: Kelley’s reported remark about Trump
The widely circulated line — “Donald Trump was the dumbest goddamn student I ever had” — appears in several outlets not as a direct contemporary quotation but as a claim repeated by Frank DiPrima, a close friend of Kelley’s, who said Kelley told him that phrase “100 times over three decades” [2] [5]. Fact‑checking outlets and subsequent reports have treated the remark as second‑hand memory rather than a documented on‑the‑record quote from Kelley himself, noting the claim’s diffusion through social media and partisan channels [3] [6].
3. The classroom context: Trump at Wharton
Reporting confirms Donald Trump attended Wharton for his last two undergraduate years and graduated in 1968, and some stories connect Kelley to Trump as one of his marketing professors during that period [4] [2]. Beyond the anecdote, other lines of inquiry about Trump’s academic record — such as questions about dean’s list placement and admissions connections — have been raised by journalists, but those are separate threads from Kelley’s personal recollection about Trump’s classroom prowess [7] [2].
4. How the story spread and its reliability limits
The phrase has become a meme and a rhetorical cudgel used in political and media debates; sources show it circulated on social platforms and was repeated in later articles and summaries, sometimes without clarifying that it was relayed by a friend after Kelley’s death [3] [6]. Reporting cautions that the claim rests on a friend’s memory and repeated retelling rather than on contemporaneous notes, recordings, or on‑the‑record statements from Kelley, placing limits on how definitively one can attribute the sentiment directly to Kelley [3].
5. Alternative readings and implicit agendas
Supporters of the anecdote treat it as corroboration of long‑standing critiques of Trump’s intellect and demeanor, while critics note how second‑hand anecdotes can be weaponized in partisan debate; outlets that amplified the line sometimes had explicit or implicit political motivations in highlighting a professor’s alleged disdain for a prominent political figure [2] [6] [5]. At the same time, outlets documenting the line often also reported contextual facts about Trump’s Wharton attendance and the provenance of the anecdote, which suggests the dominant agenda has been to use Kelley’s supposed assessment to color public perceptions of Trump rather than to advance an archival academic correction [7] [5].
6. Bottom line: Connection, not documentary proof
The verifiable connection is straightforward: William T. Kelley was a Wharton marketing professor who reportedly taught Donald Trump in the late 1960s [1] [4]. The more dramatic claim — that Kelley repeatedly called Trump “the dumbest goddamn student I ever had” — comes through the testimony of Kelley’s friend Frank DiPrima and has been widely republished, but it remains second‑hand and not corroborated by direct, contemporaneous documentation from Kelley himself [2] [3]. Reporters note the anecdote’s popularity and political utility while also flagging the evidentiary limits of relying on a posthumous recollection [3] [6].