Why does Trump keep saying Harvard teaches remedial math?

“Did you see that, where the students can’t add two and two and they go to Harvard?" President Trump said on May 23 during an Oval Office briefing.

It isn’t just Trump. The rumor that Harvard’s admission standards have slipped so far they are teaching “remedial math" has ricocheted across social media to Washington. Two federal agencies, in official correspondence, have echoed it, one even suggesting Harvard is teaching “middle school math."

Something doesn’t compute.

Harvard’s lowest math course is college-level calculus, and their students? Overall, they are something of arithmetic aficionados. Most undergraduates have taken four years of high-school math. The median math SAT score for incoming Harvard students has been 750 or higher over the past decade, in at least the 95th percentile for students nationwide.

“The narrative…it just is so disconnected from what’s happening in the classroom," said Brendan Kelly, Harvard’s director of introductory math.

How did this idea multiply? Tracing this requires a few twists and turns.

Last fall, Harvard expanded its entry-level math offerings, with a new version of its introductory calculus course that meets five days a week instead of the usual four. Students are given a skills test to determine whether they need the extended course, Kelly said.

The extra time each week is devoted to reviewing algebra skills to make the calculus more accessible, Kelly said. The No. 1 challenge for students in calculus is command of algebra because the knowledge has sometimes faded, he added. “The extra support will target foundational skills in algebra, geometry, and quantitative reasoning that will help you unlock success," the class description says.

The Harvard Crimson student newspaper wrote an article about the new offering in September, saying that it was “aimed at rectifying a lack of foundational algebra skills," without noting that it is a calculus course.

Fast forward to March 18, when Marc Porter Magee, the head of an educational advocacy organization, posted the Crimson article on X, writing: “Meanwhile, for the first time in its history Harvard has been forced to offer a remedial algebra course to its undergrads."

The post racked up 1.1 million views.

And thus, a new idea, that Harvard teaches remedial math, entered the equation. (Remedial math is generally thought of as basic instruction necessary before students can take college-level courses.)

The idea bounced around the internet and made its way to the Trump administration. The president has voiced it twice from the White House.

While signing education-related executive orders on April 23, Trump declared from the Oval Office: “I hear all about certain great schools and then we read where they’re going to teach people basic math, math that we could all do very easily, but they can’t do."

Why, he asked, are people getting into places such as Harvard without being able to do math, while some students who are at the top of their class can’t get into the best schools?

Education Secretary Linda McMahon, who was with him, replied that it comes down to meritocracy, and that “we have to look harder at those universities that aren’t enforcing that."

McMahon doubled down a few weeks later in a blistering letter sent to Harvard informing the university that it shouldn’t apply for any future federal grants because none would be forthcoming.

“This year Harvard was forced to adopt an embarrassing ‘remedial math’ program for undergraduates," McMahon wrote in the May 5 letter. “Why is it, we ask, that Harvard has to teach simple and basic mathematics, when it is supposedly so hard to get into this ‘acclaimed university’? Who is getting in under such a low standard when others, with fabulous grades and a great understanding of the highest levels of mathematics, are being rejected?"

Then, on Tuesday, Josh Gruenbaum, an official with the General Services Administration, circulated a letter to federal agencies telling them to review and potentially cancel any remaining Harvard contracts. The letter mentioned the 2023 U.S. Supreme Court case that banned affirmative action at Harvard and other universities.

“Harvard has shown no indication of reforming their admissions process—to the contrary, Harvard now has to offer a remedial math course, which has been described as ‘middle school math,’ for incoming freshmen," Gruenbaum wrote.

Harvard’s Kelly said that while the pandemic led to skills gaps among the university’s students—a phenomenon that occurred across the U.S., according to national benchmark tests—they still have high math knowledge. About 20 students enrolled in the five-day-a-week section this semester, Kelly said. The section requires the same exams as the standard introductory calculus.

“It is not remedial math. It is a college-level calculus class," he said.

Magee—who wrote the X post—suggested in an interview Friday that he was making a similar point, that the pandemic led to even universities with 3.6% acceptance rates seeing students with less solid math skills than in the past. Students who were freshmen at Harvard last fall would have been finishing eighth grade when the pandemic hit.

As for how the Trump administration ran with the “remedial math" concept he launched, Magee says: “You don’t get to choose what goes viral."

Write to Sara Randazzo at sara.randazzo@wsj.com