DOE to investigate Yale for "hostile sexual environment"

<p>My comment about the waitlist was not directed at any particular person, certainly not CoolRunning’s daughter. I trust that she will choose the school with the best fit for her, as should every other admitted student.</p>

<p>I do think that the negative publicity at this time might cause a decline in the yield this year. I would expect that to be particularly true for those who can’t make it out to campus to see for themselves. </p>

<p>But it is absolutely true that there will be plenty of highly qualified applicants on the waitlist who will be thrilled to take available spots if Yale needs to do that.</p>

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<p>And you have enough information about “most schools” to write that last sentence? I hope you see the irony of indicting a group of people for their ignorance and following it with a baseless claim of your own.</p>

<p>Well they say there is no such thing as bad publicity (Yale must be freakin p*ssed that this is coming out now before kids decide in a month) We’ll have to see if this will affect yield- I suspect it will…</p>

<p>[Naomi</a> Wolf: Yale Has Been Systematically Covering Up Crimes For Decades](<a href=“HuffPost - Breaking News, U.S. and World News | HuffPost”>Naomi Wolf: Yale Has Been Systematically Covering Up Crimes For Decades | HuffPost College)</p>

<p>Naomi Wolf graduated in 1984, and she has made (very credible) claims that her own sexual harassment claims were mishandled. But that’s not exactly the same as saying that Yale has been covering up claims “for decades.”</p>

<p>Speaking as a dad of daughters at Harvard and Dartmouth, I don’t have any emotional attachment to Yale here one way or the other. I find the reported incidents to be terrible if true and should be dealt with appropriately. However, I suspect that Yale isn’t really any worse (or better) than other peer colleges in this respect. Every college that I have exprience with has had a small minority of louts, jerks, and drunks who manage to generate a few very unfortunate incidents more or less every year.</p>

<p>I think it’s healthy for Yale to engage in a little self-examination over this, but other schools and their boosters would be very unwise to cast the first stone.</p>

<p>coureur, that is a great post and I could not agree more. </p>

<p>That is exactly what I’ve been trying to say here- as a parent of a daughter attending Yale, I welcome any scrutiny that Yale gets over such incidents. If there is a cost in terms of negative media coverage and if that causes a decline in yield, so be it.</p>

<p>Based on my daughter’s current experience I feel it is absurd to suggest that Yale has an overall ‘hostile sexual environment’. But it is only to be expected that every college including Yale has some hostile sexual microenvironments, and colleges need to be vigilant about identifying and battling those microenvironments.</p>

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<p>Not at all, Hunt. I included another link with a photo to put some faces to the story. My comments were directed along a particular vein, mindful of last weekend’s now closed thread on Ivy acceptances, which sprang foremost to mind when I saw this story on TV yesterday.</p>

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<p>Um, that was kind of the point of the sentence. Guess the ridiculousness of my statement was a little too real.</p>

<p>The more things change . . . .</p>

<p><a href=“Welcome | Women Faculty Forum”>Welcome | Women Faculty Forum;
[Alexander</a> v. Yale - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_v._Yale]Alexander”>Alexander v. Yale - Wikipedia)</p>

<p>It may be relevant that Ann Olivarius, one of the Alexander named plaintiffs, and the editor-in-chief of the report, has one daughter who graduated from Yale last year and another who I believe is a junior there now. It would surprise me not at all if one or both of them were among the complainants in the current case.</p>

<p>I knew a large number of the women who wrote the report personally, and I know that almost all of them loved their time at Yale, and are as prone now (in our declining years) to get misty-eyed with nostalgia for the Yale of our youth as any Bonesman (which is all there were, then) or other dominant-culture type. The constant, passionate, but respectful debate over these things was one of the real charms of 1970s Yale. It was completely possible for women (and men) to believe that the university was not doing enough to support and encourage female students, and at the same time to be head-over-heels in love with Yale. And in fact it was the people who loved Yale most (like Ann) who were most engaged in trying to get it to respond better to the vestiges of institutional sexism.</p>

<p>the dke “incident” was not that bad. people need to chill.</p>

<p>No, the DKE incident was really bad. DKE needs to reexamine what it’s all about. What they did wasn’t funny. Not at all.</p>

<p>But DKE has had a bad reputation for at least 30 years, probably longer.</p>

<p>It was people I knew who revived DKE at Yale in the late '70s. I thought it was a bad idea then, and recent events have confirmed that judgment. One of the great things about Yale in the past was that it didn’t have any group doing stupid, snotty stuff like this; one of the great things about it today is that is doesn’t have lots of them. But it could still aim for none.</p>

<p>Advice to accepted women: walk away- if you got into Yale you probably have other excellent options; why tolerate any semblance of organized mysogyny?</p>

<p>Realy?!?! Walk away? From an absolutely AMAZING university? Over ONE heavily publicized incient that wouldn’t have even made the student paper somewhere else? The DKE incident was an isolated one, and the way it was greetyed on campus was either indignation that this could happen or a shrug because it doesn’t even begin to define what Yale is.</p>

<p>Tje exact complaint on Title IX gorunds hasn’t been really released yet, so until then, suppose we let the smart young women capable enough to get into Yale to make their own opinions. (preferrably with more resources than what they’d get from an anonymous forum…as in, VISIT, and talk to current students…)</p>

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I think they did them, but they did them secretly and silently inside a tomb, where it didn’t bother the rest of us.</p>

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<p>If this were your standard, you might as well advise women not to attend to college.</p>

<p>Or life…</p>

<p>I thought this was a well-written article on the topic:</p>

<p>[Peter</a> Berkowitz: Is Yale University Sexist? - WSJ.com](<a href=“http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704529204576257121944716258.html?mod=googlenews_wsj]Peter”>http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704529204576257121944716258.html?mod=googlenews_wsj)</p>

<p>About DKE:</p>

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<p>About the rape allegations:</p>

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<p>For those worried about title 9, here are some other universities with the same problems:</p>

<p>Duke has 3 cases currently open
HLS has one
UVA has one</p>

<p>I forget the rest, but there were at least 5. This is by no means a ‘Yale specific’ problem. We just hear more about it:

  1. Because it’s Yale
  2. because it is happening at the same time as the DKE problem</p>

<p>I liked this part from the wsj article:</p>

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<p>I am a huge proponent of free speech and support its protection in just about every arena. At the same time, I’d like to see our nation’s colleges and universities put a little effort into not just academics, but cultivating “fine young men (and women).” Producing graduates of good character should be one of their goals. As it is, the “anything goes and is valid” current mentality breeds incidents like DKE’s offensive behavior. The teachable moment comes after the damage is done.</p>