By John F. Di Leo
January 19, 2020 A.D.
Concerned about the many rumors and press reports swirling around the former Prince Harry and Duchess Meghan Markle’s plan to “go a different way,” the leadership of Duchess Meghan’s alma mater, Northwestern University of Evanston, Illinois, held an emergency meeting on January 18, 2020.
Unable to convince this 2003 graduate of the self-proclaimed “Midwest Ivy” to “see reason” and “shut her sniping pie-hole already,” the leaders of the most highly respected university between Chicago and Wilmette, Illinois finally decided, after a rancorous meeting lasting over fifteen minutes (counting the muffin break), to strip her of the right to refer to Northwestern as her alma mater.
Asked at the following press conference how the marriage and career choice of a co-ed who graduated almost 17 years ago, after all, could matter to these academic professionals, the Dean of the Communications School replied “Don’t these fool kids understand that the real goal of a pretend-Ivy school is to attract princes and princesses?”
The Dean of the Theater School joined in responding: “MIT got a princess from Thailand. Harvard got a princess from Japan.”
The Dean of the Communications School jumped in, adding “Prince Saud from Saudi Arabia went to Princeton; Sweden’s Princess Victoria went to Yale.” Then he shook his head and scowled, continuing, “Northwestern has been trying to join that club for over a hundred years. And we finally got it. This worthless ingrate gets married into British royalty, we reprint all our advertising materials to capitalize on it, and she goes and talks her husband into chucking it all!”
“I ask you,” said the University President, solemnly, “Is that fair? Is it sensible? To finally get yourself the gig of a lifetime, the one that every student seeking an MRS degree prays for, and then destroying it on purpose? Is it what a Northwestern education stands for?”
In the end, after numerous proposals, votes and revotes at the school’s iconic University Hall, the leadership of Northwestern finalized their agreement, which was immediately sent to Ms. Merkle via Instagram and Twitter, as follows:
“It is hereby decreed that Ms. Meghan Merkle, having thoughtlessly squandered a royal position that was already on track to returning to NU a huge amount of the respect that the school jettisoned in the 1970s when it selected Bob Eisner, Jimmy Carter’s chief economic advisor to chair its economic department, is hereby and forthwith required to comply with the following points of retaliation:
- Ms. Merkle can no longer refer to herself in public as a ‘Northwestern Grad,’ “Northwestern alumna,’ ‘Evanston girl,’ or ‘Megan Mullally to be.’ (Even before this action, she never was allowed to refer to herself as an “Ann-Margret-to-be,” which we’ve been meaning to talk to her about for some time).
- Ms. Merkle can no longer attend Northwestern’s official homecoming weekends or the Waa-Mu Show.
- Ms. Merkle may attend her class reunions, but only on the fives, not on the tens.
- Ms. Merkle may, however continue to list the years she spent here on her personal resume, in our generous hopes that they do more for her than she did for us.
- Ms. Merkle may no more wear the colors purple and white together, or within a half hour of each other.
- And lastly, Ms. Merkle may retain and continue to use all of the knowledge that she learned while studying at NU (unless of course the reports are correct, and she never actually learned anything here at all).
Following the vote and the tweeting out of the agreement to Ms. Merkle, the university board adjourned to attend a football game, and headed out, spending the next two hours looking to see if their school does indeed have a football field.
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copyright 2020 John F Di Leo
This article is satire. If you couldn’t figure that out by now, perhaps you went to Northwestern too?