Harvard University — one of the more distinguished schools in the world — has been making headlines lately for its decision to reject demands from President Donald Trump’s administration to make policy changes. Cutting diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs are among the demands the university is refusing to go along with.
The decision is expected to have significant financial implications for Harvard, as the Trump administration recently announced a freeze on a whopping $2.2 billion in multi-year grants and $60 million in multi-year contract value at the institution.
Longtime Golden State Warriors head coach Steve Kerr is seemingly among those who are glad that Harvard is standing up to Trump and his administration, as he was recently seen rocking a Harvard shirt in a press conference and commended the school.
However, former Warriors minority owner Chamath Palihapitiya didn’t approve of Kerr’s comments, as he dissed the coach with a post on X by calling him a “hapless rube.”
“Steve Kerr is a hapless rube,” Palihapitiya wrote on X.
“He is blindly defending an institution that:
“1) Is a Corporation with a $53B balance sheet masquerading as a non profit.
“2) Has the absolute worst scores for freedom of speech amongst ALL colleges in America.
“3) Was admonished and defeated by the Supreme Court because they were discriminating in their admissions process and violated the Constitution.
“4) Has allowed anti Semitism to fester unchecked on campus to such a degree that it led to the ouster of their President because of her incompetence in dealing with it.
“Normally, when an executive at a company where I own equity speaks on topics beyond their knowledge and reveals themselves to be an idiot I usually just fire them or sell my equity.
“Fortunately, I already sold all my equity in the Warriors last year at the-then all time high so this isn’t my problem but the total ignorance of his comments still stands.”
Palihapitiya also asserted that his four-year-old child could have coached the Warriors to titles like Kerr did.
Joe Lacob, Steph, KD, Dray and Klay deserve 100% of the credit. my 4 yo could have won as many championships with the talent Joe assembled.
— Chamath Palihapitiya (@chamath) April 18, 2025
It is indeed true that Kerr has been fortunate to coach plenty of extremely talented players during his time leading the Warriors from the sidelines. In addition to Stephen Curry, he’s also coached stars like Kevin Durant, Draymond Green and Klay Thompson. Even now, he’s coaching an elite forward in the NBA in Jimmy Butler.
But it’s also worth mentioning that more than talent is needed to win championships in the NBA, and Kerr has done a great job of managing personalities over the years, including this season.
For example, Green has seemingly been on his best behavior this season after his mercurialness led to some questionable decisions in the past. He finished the 2024-25 regular season with 13 technical fouls, one of his lowest marks in that category over the past decade or so, and was ejected just once.
Kerr will try to win his fifth title as the head coach of the Warriors in June. Golden State will take on the No. 2 seed Houston Rockets in the first round of the 2025 NBA Playoffs, and Game 1 is scheduled for Sunday.
