President Obama Pushes Harvard to Reverse Malia Obama’s Suspension-Fiction!
Summary of eRumor:
President Obama urged Harvard to reverse its decision to suspend Malia Obama because of her recent “drug escapades.”
The Truth:
A satirical website is behind false claims that President Obama ordered Harvard to reverse its decision to suspend Malia Obama pending drug charges.
The website, Our Land of the Free, first reported on August 12, 2017, that Harvard suspended Malia Obama in light of her “recent drug escapades” because she would be too much of a distraction to other students.
Then, on August 14, the site reported a follow-up story under the headline, “Obama PERSONALLY Called Harvard and Ordered Them to Reverse Malia’s Suspension.” That post reports that Malia Obama faces “a good bit of prison time” on drug charges, but “the regular course of justice is not acceptable to the Obama family,” which led Barack to intervene:
According to sources within Harvard, Barack Obama called school president Harmon Finklestein and angrily demanded that his daughter be allowed to attend the university. Of course, he caved.
“It has been brought to our attention that the young Miss Obama has not been found guilty of a crime and therefore we acted hastily in suspending her,” Finklestein said in a statement late Sunday night. “We sincerely apologize to the Obama family and specifically to Malia for any harm we caused.”
The lifting of Obama’s suspension means she can move into the dorms with other students, perhaps with drugs she obtained elsewhere.
A disclaimer that appears in the footer of the website makes no guarantees that its reporting is truthful, adding that the site is “here to entertain you with the kind of whimsical satire conservatives enjoy.” That means reports of Malia Obama suspension, and President Obama demanding that the suspension be reversed, are nonsense.
If the rumor sounds familiar, that’s probably because a different website started a false rumor in April 2017 that Malia Obama had been expelled from Harvard due to drug charges. That one was easy to disprove since Malia wasn’t even enrolled at Harvard at the time.
Both of these allegations are based on reports and photos that appear to show Malia Obama smoking marijuana at Lollapalooza in 2016. Malia has never been charged for possessing or using drugs.