"[Ron] DeSantis, 44, is not the first Republican politician of his generation to rail against his own Ivy League degrees while milking them for access and campaign cash."

"But now, as he seeks the Republican presidential nomination, he is molding his entire campaign and political persona around a vengeful war against what he calls the country’s 'ruling class': an incompetent, unaccountable elite of bureaucrats, journalists, educators and other supposed 'experts' whose pernicious and unearned authority the governor has vowed to vanquish...."

From "How Ron DeSantis Joined the ‘Ruling Class’ — and Turned Against It/Over the years, Mr. DeSantis embraced and exploited his Ivy League credentials. Now he is reframing his experiences at Yale and Harvard to wage a vengeful political war" (NYT).

I see no problem with a young person taking advantage of elite education and then rejecting its values. Who better to challenge the "ruling class" than someone who's had a direct experience with it? If education is any good it equips you to go on to pursue your own goals. Does the NYT think the students are supposed to absorb indoctrination and then go on to be loyal to the elite?

I remember when students who rebelled against authority were praised. They weren't denigrated as "vengeful." They were filled with righteous indignation and admirable commitment to their own values. But I'm remembering when the rebelling students were to the left of their professors. 

Going back a little further, to 1951, there was a 25-year-old William F. Buckley Jr., writing "God and Man at Yale: The Superstitions of 'Academic Freedom.'" Buckley "criticized Yale for forcing collectivist, Keynesian, and secularist ideology on students, criticizing several professors by name, arguing that they tried to break down students' religious beliefs through their hostility to religion and that Yale was denying its students any sense of individualism by forcing them to embrace the ideas of liberalism."

Again, what's bad about criticizing your alma mater?

Back to the DeSantis article, we're told some grisly details from his fraternity hazing days:

After entering one at a time, each [pledge] was blindfolded and ordered to drop his pants, with Mr. DeSantis, other brothers, and at least one female guest on hand to mock their genitalia. One of the pledges recalled that a blender was placed between his legs and abruptly turned on to scare him, splashing water on his groin. During the fraternity’s “hell week,” pledges wore costumes smeared with rotten food and condiments. They might be ordered to simulate sex with one another or do outdoor calisthenics in the winter air. According to four former pledges and brothers, Mr. DeSantis required one pledge, for whom he served as “father,” to wear a pair of baseball pants with the back and thighs cut out, exposing his buttocks and genitals. 

And I was interested in the NYT's portrayal of Harvard Law School as not left-wing at all by the time DeSantis arrived (in 2002):

Faculty battles over critical legal studies had unfolded vividly at Harvard Law in the 1970s and 1980s, but by the time Mr. DeSantis arrived a quarter-century later, the approach had reached a nadir. Harvard students of his era were more drawn to the discipline of law and economics, advanced by conservative legal scholars.... In interviews, some of his conservative classmates recalled being reluctant to express their political views in class. But far more described Harvard as intellectually open and committed to ideological diversity. 

“The picture DeSantis gives is just not right — it’s kind of a cliché about Harvard, and it’s simply not true,” said Charles Fried, a longtime Harvard Law professor and a faculty sponsor of Harvard’s chapter of the Federalist Society, the influential conservative legal organization. “He must have known it, because everyone knew it.”