Barron Trump Faces NYU Professors Who Signed Donald Trump ‘Threat’ Letter

Eighteen-year-old Barron Trump’s first day of college at New York University’s Stern School of Business allegedly began by meeting his school’s once outspoken anti-Trump dean.

Interim dean J.P. Eggers was one of 14 NYU Stern administrators to sign an October 2020 open letter warning business leaders of then president Donald Trump’s “threat” to “our republic.” The letter included over 1000 signatories from business schools across America, including from Harvard, Yale, Cornell and Columbia. Harvard University professor Professor Deepak Malhotra served as the letter’s main author.

“It is time for business leaders to follow suit and speak out against the threat Trump poses to our country,” the letter urged, referencing veterans, scientists, doctors, and other professional groups that spoke out against Trump leading up to the 2020 election won by President Biden.

“It is time for business leaders to declare publicly what so many have been saying privately: that President Trump is unfit to lead and is a threat to the Republic,” the letter read, adding, “And it is time for journalists to start asking America’s CEOs whether they believe four more years of Trump would be good for the country.”

The New York Post reported that Barron was flanked by bodyguards when he arrived to NYU before being hustled away to meet the dean and attend classes—where he is likely to have a run-in with one of the letter’s undersigned professors. The Daily Beast found via online records that more than half of the 14 NYU Stern administrators who signed the 2020 letter still work at Stern in some capacity.

“It’s a very high-quality place. He liked it. He liked the school,” Trump told the Daily Mail. “I went to Wharton, and that was certainly one that we were considering. We didn’t do that. We went for Stern.”

Trump also called on Stern in certify that his business accounting was sound in his $250 million accounting fraud case filed by New York Attorney General Letitia James. NYU’s student newspaper, Washington Square News, reported that Stern accounting professor Eli Bartov was paid $900,000 by Trump’s Save America PAC to testify.

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In his testimony, Bartov told the court that there was “no evidence of concealment” in Trump’s accounting.

“My analysis shows the statements of financial conditions for all the years were not materially misstated,” Bartov said in the testimony. “There is no evidence here of concealment.” Bartov is still listed as a professor of accounting under the school’s faculty.

In February, Trump was found guilty of fraud and ordered to fork over a $455 million judgement.

Justice Arthur Engoron rebuked Bartov’s testimony in denying Trump’s request for the case to be decided in his favor. “All that his testimony proves is that for a million or so dollars, some experts will say whatever you want them to say,” wrote Engoron, CNBC reported.

Eggers was appointed interim dean of Stern on July 1, 2024.

The New York University Stern School of Business did not reply to the Daily Beast’s emailed requests and calls for comment.