Help Working-Class Harvard Student Finish His Journey

Hi. My name is William. I'm a doctoral candidate at Harvard University.

But, first and foremost, I'm the son of hardworking working-class, parents who came to this great country (legally), and sacrificed everything to get me this far.

Here's the thing: I need your help to finish what I came here to do, to get--or, better put, not lose--my hard-earned piece of the American Dream.

I need your financial support to help pay for my final year (for reasons you'll learn below) toward completing this important accomplishment--for me, my family, and for others who are like me. For people whose parents worked double shifts, broke their backs, and even took (literally) the food from their plate to see us do better than they had.

But you can help in other ways--not just dollars. Get the message out. Share this page. Follow and share our social media accounts: Twitter/X, Facebook, Threads, and Instagram.

Over my time here, Harvard has engaged in long list of unfair, harmful, costly, and unmerited and undeserved actions against me. I tell those stories in updates and future videos. You'll be appalled.

And, now, after putting up with years of that, they're trying to get rid of me. Give me the boot. Push me out the back door.

Here's the best part: it's because of their own mistakes.

And they've done, and are doing, everything they can to keep it (and me) quiet about it.

Also: because Harvard won't lend me the money (or, better put, the United States' Government's) to do it. That is, after bankrupting me first--literally. After years of lavishly and readily loaning me--literally--hundreds of thousands of dollars, when it was convenient and was to their benefit.

I return to that topic below and in future updates.

They've used every flimsy, made-up excuse in the book--for several years in row--to gradually "starve me out." Deny me funding I'm entitled too, literally, under federal law. In the process: slowing me down, hampering my progress, distracting me from the task I came here to do--and extending my time at Harvard (and therefore cost) while I continue to fight one phony, made-up problem, or extra hoop to jump through, after another.

I've been merely surviving, rather than thriving--as I once did here--because of....your guesses are as good as mine.

If the goal to humiliate me into leaving or giving up, it has had the opposite effect.

I'm not above being poor. I'm proud of my working-class roots and work ethic. Sure, this is much poorer than I ever was growing up, but I know how to survive when not only do people not believe in you, but are actively trying to stop you from improving yourself.

And, trust me, I'm not above working a job either. But they've even made that harder--by allowing, even facilitating, the destruction of my professional, academic, and personal reputation by siding with false accusers and outright liars (proven so, by video and audio and written evidence, and even in a court of law).

Not once, but twice, Harvard has blamed the victim (me) for being violently attacked by others--without provocation (again proven). But those are longer stories, upcoming.

Your generous support will also help protect me from Harvard's "wrath."

Believe me. They, and their team of fancy lawyers, countless administrators, and even its own private police department, WILL find a way (in other words, an excuse) to shut me up as soon as they can. Or do even worse.

"Keep it in the family." Hush-hush.

Help me prevent that from happening. Yes, for me. But also so many others that are like me. Other children of working-class, hard-working families who--with the work ethic, and commitment to bettering yourself through hard work, they instilled--have earned their way into the "Harvards" of the world.

Don't get me wrong: this is more than just another hard-luck story.

I was taught that when things are bad, you might as well make the best of it. So this is going to be an on-going project--not just a fundraising campaign for me.

For now, I'm calling it: A Tale of Two Harvards. And you'll soon know why that's a perfect name for it.

I want to tell you the stories--good, bad, and ugly about my experience at Harvard--that led to this (as you'll soon agree) unacceptable and shameful treatment and situation, in any kind of organization or company, for me (and others).

All kept quiet. Pushed into the shadows. To keep up appearances at the (arguably) best university in the world.

I love my university, even if I can't be sure that it "loves" me back (anymore). Sure, there's definitely a bad side to Harvard, but there's also a good side.

So with each video or written update, I will try to tell a good and maybe not-so-good part of the Harvard I've come to know in my 13 whopping years here. To tell each one of you something maybe you didn't know about this place. About what I've dedicated the better part of my life to studying, learning, and teaching (history). About my experience as a regular, working-class kid from Los Angeles making his way through life.

I'm going to do my best to make and keep this interesting--and make your generosity worthwhile.

Please put your suggestions in the comments--or our social media--and I'll do my best to incorporate them into this campaign.

Because Harvard is more than, and better, than these shameful, hidden actions and stories.

But what I can definitely guarantee are some good stories--about my experiences at Harvard and my journey. I also guarantee you my eternal gratitude for your support--at whatever level or amount or manner you can extend it.

I need, and appreciate, everything and anything you can give.

But don't get me wrong. I'm not here to "expose" or embarrass individual people. I'm not here to "name names"--even if those "names" have engaged in the very unfairness or dishonesty or biases that put me in a place to so urgently need your help here today.

What did Harvard do in the process of all this?

Literally bankrupted me. I wasn't exaggerating. Wasted away the savings I work so hard to gather after, responsibly, paying off all of my undergraduate debt so I could return to finish this "dream." Turning my once stellar credit into nothing. Loading me up with massive amounts in student loans, with every extra year they created, to pay for the mistakes of others. Postponed important life milestones, like having children or buying a real home--even a simple used car, for goodness's sake, as I had back home.

The list goes on and on.

Meanwhile, I've watched countless of my classmates and former students graduate and move on with life. One by one. And, guess what: they deserve it. Everyone of them has been brilliant in their own way.

But, William, why would they do this?

Maybe because I "forgot my place" by being too vocal about unfairness--not just toward me, but toward others here (and who should be here).

Maybe because I wore out my usefulness as a "token" for them to dangle around to show off to others that they're not a certain way.

Maybe because I didn't accept being blamed for other's mistakes--which they repeatedly did--or pay for me them anymore.

Maybe because I pointed out that they might be breaking some rules by playing "creative accounting" with my federal-loan eligibility.

"Gaslighting me," as they call it, into believing that I was the problem. And it worked. For a time. They're quite good at it. And that's part of why I stuck around so long, put up with so much--they dangled an unreachable carrot, while time and life has continued to pass me by.

I'm not proud of having believed in their smiley-faced promises--never kept, or with strings attached.

But there was a time, not a long ago in fact, when I was a celebrated member of the graduate-student community and of my department. I even won multiple prestigious awards, for my teaching and for my "scholarship."

So help me prevent their silencing of me--which I can guarantee they will stop at almost nothing to do. Not just with me. But because they do it repeatedly, to a lot of people.

I've witnessed it, and spoken up against it.

They do it because they know they can get away with it. Let's make it impossible for them to be able to do that, together.

Help me make Harvard be better--again.

The great American jurist and Supreme Court Justice, Louis Brandeis, once said "sunlight is the best disinfectant."

Let's shine some sun on this beautiful, historical, and amazing--truth be told--institution, in order to root out the "infection" brought into it by a handful of dishonest, self-interested, and outright cruel characters.

People who care more about getting a bigger office--and going home from work early on Fridays--than about the university's students literally starving, going broke, wasting away their lives because of them.

So they may be only a handful of bad apples. But they're very powerful bad apples. For now.

Join me. Speak up with me. Let's do the right thing together.

Please donate as generously as you can. Every dollar counts. So does any other way you are able to contribute. Get the word out.

Thank you all. I'm humbled by you hearing me out and your generous hearts and minds.

-William

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