Social media users are spreading a false story about the origins of Stanford University.
A Facebook post shared Jan. 31 shows a black and white image of a man in a chair and a woman standing next to him.
The poster claims a "homespun" couple tried to persuade the president of Harvard to erect a memorial for their son, who had passed away after attending the university for a year, but were denied.
"Mr. and Mrs. Leland Stanford got up and walked away, traveling to Palo Alto, California where they established the university that bears their name, Stanford University, a memorial to a son that Harvard no longer cared about," reads the caption of the post.
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The post, one of several in this vein, accumulated more than 80 shares. A recently deleted version of the same claim generated close to 1,200 interactions and 2,900 shares in less than a week.
But the claim is false, as other independent fact-checking organizations have reported.
The Stanfords did found Stanford University after their son died. But he was not enrolled in Harvard at the time, and the couple did not ask the Harvard president to erect a memorial for him.
USA TODAY reached out to the social media user who shared the claim for comment.
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