Ben Wulf ’29
Contributing Writer
As I logged into my admissions portal on April 28, 2025 to accept my offer of admission to Trinity College, there was one niggling doubt in the back of my mind. It was not the price — exorbitantly high even after generous financial and merit aid. Neither was it the apocalyptic reviews of Mather meals — complaints that turned out to be unfounded. Rather, it was the alumni page on Wikipedia. Most of the alumni on that list were perfectly fine, the blue hyperlinks leading to Wikipedia articles thankfully devoid of controversy. Some of the names I even recognized: Jane Swift ’87, the first woman to be governor of Massachusetts; George Will ’62, famed Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist; Edward Albee H’74, playwright of “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” (technically expelled, but given an honorary degree in 1974); Rachel Platten ‘03, the singer-songwriter behind 2015’s hit “Fight Song.” But one alumnus stuck out to me and I could not get him off of my mind: Tucker Carlson ‘91.
Fast-forward exactly 6 months later to Oct. 28, 2025. Carlson, Trinity College’s most infamous graduate, interviewed neo-Nazi Nick Fuentes. Their conversation, over an hour long, was ridden with hate-filled diatribes against immigrants both legal and illegal, “organized Jewry” and women.
I present to you just some of the many arguments set forth by Nick Fuentes, which saw no pushback from Carlson.
“Arrest the mayor of Chicago. Arrest the governor.”
“Utterly confront [the left] and remove hope from the equation.”
“[Women] are too, I think, assertive, always giving their opinions, always critiquing, always… You know, I think that they’re very bold right now and I think… And sarcastic. I think that’s a big reason why they’re not very attractive.”
“Men have a deep connection to things like math and space and they want to conquer the world, things like this. And women, I feel like, are actually very primal and instinctual.”
“I think that your wife ultimately is subordinate to you. She’s your help-mate. And ultimately, as the man in the marriage and as the father, you have authority, the final say over the household.”
“I would say, though, that the main challenge to that, a big challenge to that, is organized Jewry in America.”
“[Jews] have this international community across borders, extremely organized, that is putting the interests of themselves before the interests of their home country.”
For many familiar with either Carlson or our school, he is the face of Trinity College. They do not see Trinity for the countless illustrious graduates we have produced. When they hear our name, our contributions to our community, country and world are muted. Nobody thinks of our alumni who have won Emmys, Pulitzers, Grammys and more, nor do they think of our outsized impact on academia; our reputation is stained by one academically unremarkable, personally repulsive graduate from 1991.
There is no simple solution to this problem. Trinity has undeniably made an enormous amount of progress and is no longer the same institution that produced Carlson in the early ‘90s. Even those who argue that we are more conservative compared to our NESCAC peers can’t honestly claim that Trinity is the same as it was 30+ years ago. Yet, his impact on our legacy remains. Why would Jews, Latinos, Muslims, immigrants, members of the LGBTQ+ community or women apply to an institution whose most famous graduate has spun a career out of hating everyone who isn’t a straight, cisgender, white, Christian, male, natural-born citizen? Instead of the diverse, selective, thriving community that we have here in Frog Hollow, they see the insular, conservative school whence Carlson came.
The administration must make a conscious, concerted effort to preserve Trinity’s conscience. I call on President Lugo and the Board of Trustees to immediately release a statement condemning Carlson.
Whatever you think of Mr. Carlson, the college making this kind of political statement simply doesn’t make much sense at this time. With more than 70 percent of the newest admissions class on financial aid, the college wading into the endless political war and issuing a formal condemnation of Mr. Carlson would only ensure the Education secretary would make an example in her own back yard and pull Title IV, Pell, and other federal funds. The GOP majorities on SCOTUS and both ends of Capitol Hill would not object. Mr. Carlson would simply revel in it and the only real losers would be hundreds of Trinity students and their families who would have to cough up more money to match the college’s $372,960 price tag. Many of them would go elsewhere and we’d see massive layoffs. But yeah. We showed him!
I am not sure what makes Mr. Carlson “academically unremarkable.” Mr. Wulf offers no evidence of this and Mr. Carlson graduated from Trinity. We should not be so quick to write off Trinity graduates as “academically unremarkable,” and I can only hope that Mr. Carlson’s GPA, class standing, etc. was not leaked to Mr. Wulf. That would be a serious FERPA violation and would warrant a federal investigation. Assuming Mr. Wulf is just insulting Mr. Carlson–and does not have any actual evidence to back that insult–I hope the Tripod editorial team does a better job of cracking down on this kind of rhetoric.
For what it’s worth, I largely agree with Mr. Wulf on several matters–from Mr. Carlson’s rhetoric to Trinity’s cost. But Mr. Wulf’s proposal isn’t feasible and would frankly blow up in Trinity’s face and hurt many members of the Trinity family while not impacting Mr. Carlson one way or the other.
Your critiques of my article are largely fair, and if given the opportunity to rewrite it, I would do so and forgo many of the more insulting remarks that I made about Mr. Carlson. I also do think that my initial proposal has some flaws, many of which you brought up in your response.
However, I do believe that my description of Carlson as “academically unremarkable” can be substantiated. My wording there was very deliberate. I did not insinuate that Carlson was a poor student, merely that he was not a particularly impressive or distinguished one in comparison to his Trinity peers. As part of my research for this article, I read through the 1991 Ivy, and Carlson’s profile did not mention any academic honors, nor was he a member of any honors societies. To me, that indicates that Carlson was not a remarkable student. He did not stand out from his peers during his time at Trinity. I don’t have enough time tonight to further elaborate on my arguments, as I have some readings for classes that I haven’t done yet, but I stand by my statement that Carlson was not academically remarkable compared to his peers.