Brenda Cronin:

According to Northfield Mount Hermon, Mitchell arrived as a scholarship student from “an unheated house in a small town” on Cape Cod. He thrived academically, rising to class valedictorian. Athletically unremarkable, he honed an acumen for logistics by serving as student manager of the football team. (For one away game, he forgot to bring balls. At the apoplectic coach’s behest, Mitchell resorted to “borrowing” some from the opponent’s sidelines.)

Like all students—on scholarship or not—he was required to work 10 hours a week in the dining hall, cleaning dormitories or doing other jobs around campus. He earned degrees at Yale and New York University. During a long career at Pfizer, he became president of global manufacturing.

Mitchell credited the school with casting the template for his life. Would his exceptional talents have germinated anywhere? Would his story have been different had the scholarship been contingent on his race or sex?

Mr. Trump signed an executive order ending “diversity, equity and inclusion” in government hiring. Such preferences, he wrote, diminish “individual merit, aptitude, hard work, and determination.”

That roster sums up Mitchell, whom I met briefly in New York in 2022. He was courtly and modest, exhibiting no hint of his accomplishments. Mr. Trump could learn something from his self-effacing approach.

Between 2006 and 2016, he served on Northfield Mount Hermon’s board of trustees. No school building is named for him.

He donated his time and expertise behind the scenes and parachuted in anonymously with money to help with building and maintenance emergencies. In keeping with his wishes, much of his bequest will go to scholarships for students and support for teachers.