I pity the dean. He was probably thinking, “Hmm, a lot of racial tension on campuses these days. Maybe I’ll send out a nice e-mail warning the students to be thoughtful in choosing costumes. I’d hate for Yale to become the subject of some big national controversy over insensitive Halloween costumes!”
Oh,@Hunt, we just appointed you the Master of SIlliman College and you immediately started asking dubious questions
The associate master is always the spouse or partner of the master. You can’t get the job unless you are. The federal government provides the “First Lady” with a staff paid for by US taxpayers. Nevertheless, you get the “job” by being married to the president. There’s no other way. So it is with associate masters.
And, yes, I can read what the website says about the RC master’s role. But IRL he’s in charge of the social life of the RC, in Silliman and TD with helping homesick freshman (other frosh live on Old Campus), choosing FroCos and making sure they do their jobs, helping on the intellectual side by hosting master’s teas and, to a lesser extent, by develping college seminars. (A student committee is also involved.)
Now that we know she was on the search committee, I don’t think the student was being disingenuous in saying “Who the…hired you?” RUDE? Yes. But she was making a point, which we didn’t understand because we lacked context. The other students probably understood her. One young man said “You’re supposed to be our advocate.” Again, I am NOT condoning her conduct. However, I think she is expressing her view of the role of a master in making all students from all backgrounds feel welcome and her feeling that he should be held accountable to the students.
Lets say there’s a Yale faculty member, a brilliant scientist, who is Palestinian and says the state of Israel should be destroyed. I’m not going to advocate firing him for his views–but neither am I going to give him a position as master. Nor am I going to be surprised that students in the RC become upset if his wife sends out an email in response to a statement by the rabbi from the Slifka center criticizing the message.
@HarvestMoon1 says:
I predict right now that there will be some sort of demonstration, boycott, separate event at Silliman’s graduation this year if the master/associate master don’t apologize or step down. I cannot imagine this young woman or those who agree with her accepting a diploma from the master.
I have to say I was absolutely stunned when I heard the part of the video in which the master said there are 500 students in Silliman and he couldn’t be expected to know all their names. First, most RC masters DO know the names of every student. He has 125 to learn each year.(The others are returning students whose names he should already know.) Before the school year starts, he gets a file with the photo and info about each incoming student. Many masters have memorized names and important facts about each freshman before move in day. Plus, this student was a master’s aide and was on the search committee. That he doesn’t know her name is mind boggling.
One student commentator on YDN says he’s just a lousy master and has no interest in students. I suspect that may be right. Now, again, that does NOT excuse the student’s behavior. However, for a master to publicly say that he can’t be expected to know the names of all the students in the RC is tone deaf, to say the least. IMO, it’s his JOB to know all of them.
Again, @Pizzagirl and others are wrong when they say I think only one point of view should be allowed. Far from it. However, I don’t think an associate master criticizing an email from an African-American dean urging sensitivity to others and voicing support for students who disliked by sending he own email to RC residents is in her job description either.
Do you think this is comparable? I was thinking about an e-mail from University Health urging everyone to get a flu shot, and an e-mail from the master saying while flu shots are a good thing, students are adults and should make their own health care decisions without being nagged.
“Lets say there’s a Yale faculty member, a brilliant scientist, who is Palestinian and says the state of Israel should be destroyed. I’m not going to advocate firing him for his views–but neither am I going to give him a position as master. Nor am I going to be surprised that students in the RC become upset if his wife sends out an email in response to a statement by the rabbi from the Slifka center criticizing the message”
This comparison would be germane if the associate master’s email had said anything about what the content of costumes ought to be one way or the other. But that isn’t so – the email was 100% about the theory of who ought to be in charge of deciding/guiding costume choice. There was no wading into the substance of some controversial topic as you posit here. You’re making it out as though the first email said “Blackface bad” and the associate master responded with “Blackface good.” Not even close.
I have to say that I’d be pretty interested in hearing what black students at Yale today have experienced of this kind at Yale. I wouldn’t be surprised if they are frequently questioned about whether they are really Yale students. But are they treated unequally in class, in ECs, by other students in social settings? I don’t know this one way or the other. If this is a situation of some students finally popping their corks after years of frustration, then I can understand that the triggering event may not seem like much in isolation. Is that what’s happening here?
@Hunt The unfortunate reality is that your analogy fails because it doesn’t involve a situation in which the sender of the first email is known to be a member of a specific group and is asking on behalf of that group to consider the feelings of group members.
Re Hunt’s question about whether this was a situation where students were reacting to a host of experiences rather than an isolated event.
Sure sounds like it. And “you’re over-sensitive” or “you misunderstood” or “that wasn’t the intent” are the kind of responses that students who point out casual or institutional racism or sexism typically get, which adds insult to injury because it basically denies their experience of reality. “Look at it from the other person’s POV” starts to seem like a one-way street – why doesn’t he have to look at it from mine? Which is often why the concept of privilege gets invoked – just because you don’t see it, that doesn’t mean it isn’t there. Privilege just insulates some people from experiencing it.
News coverage alludes to meetings in which students shared their experiences and the official responses (letters from Holloway and Salovey) suggest that their testimony was compelling, but the media doesn’t seem to be covering this aspect of the story.
There are degrees of offensiveness. Wearing a KKK costume or a prominent swastika is so highly offensive that I could understand how the very appearance of someone dressed that way could feel physically threatening to a person and make them feel unsafe.
However, I agree with the general proposition that if someone has done something that offends you mildly, just ignore it. If someone has done something that offense you greatly, the most effective course of acton is to confront the person civilly and explain your feelings, one on one.
When people feel they have been “banned” from doing something, they can get angry or dismissive and feel hostility toward the person or group doing the banning. This does not enhance anybody’s cause. Conversely, when people talk to each other one on one, civilly, there is a personal connection and the offender is typically much more receptive and understanding, and is much more likely to actually learn something, and not offend again.
RE: the Yale students, they appear to be perfectly capable of confronting their offenders.
Hunt, I think, these grievances will soon be delineated and made public, but suffice it to say, they are numerous.
Along those lines-The New Haven Register reports President Peter Salovey and Yale College Dean Jonathan Holloway sent university-wide emails Friday addressing students’ concerns about a pattern of discrimination on campus.
University officials spent four hours with students who voiced their grievances Thursday at a forum in Woodbridge Hall.
Following the meeting, Salovey said in his email that he was “deeply troubled” by the conversation and that the entire school community must join together to create greater “inclusion, healing, mutual respect and understanding” at Yale.
The Washington Post reports Salovey told students “we failed you” at the forum.
It seems pretty clear to me that many students in fact read something approximating “Blackface good” into the second email. I did my best to read the email closely and I think this is very unfair to Christakises, but I’m sure these students are bringing other context to the table than I am. However, at the end of the day, the facts of what was actually said in the email have to matter when members of an intellectual community are deciding what to think about the Christakises. This is what separates mob rule from reasoned discourse.
There is another aspect of this issue that has been missing from this discussion. In its code of conduct for students, Yale already states that harassment on the basis of race, ethnic origin, gender, or sexual orientation are subject to disciplinary action (BTW, so is belligerence towards a faculty member 
). For example, this would apply if a student wore a Halloween costume that intentionally mocked African-Americans. I believe this is why members of the infamous fraternity that shouted “No means Yes, etc” were punished.
So it seems to me that the original email from Dean Howard is attempting to address costumes which fall into the intermediate zone of “insensitive but not rising to the level of harassment”. As far as I know, costumes in this intermediate zone were what Christakis’s email applied to, not costumes that rise to the level of harassment. I think everyone is in agreement that harassing costumes (however defined) are against the code of conduct.
Seems like this would make a difference, but it’s also clear that the complaining students aren’t in a mood to debate the fine points of this.
@jonri: you may well be right about some students refusing to accept their diplomas from Nicholas Christakis. I would support their right to take that stand. Perhaps that will be anticipated and addressed before graduation. But there will be students who will accept diplomas from him if he has not been forced to resign “Mizzou style”.
Dean Howard’s email was an invitation for thought and dialogue. The Christakises responded with an email that represented the views of some Silliman students and presumably their own. Certainly that should be acceptable if open dialogue on contentious issues is what we are truly encouraging. It seems some are pre-emptively assuming what the consensus will be before the discussion has even gotten underway. I would change my view of things if the initial email was a directive stating that an administrative consensus had been reached relative to costumes.
Also I think you may be confusing two female students. I don’t believe the student who exploded was the same student who accused him of not knowing her name. These were 2 different students and 2 different arguments unless I misunderstood what was taking place in the video.
"But there is no climate in which it is deemed OK for a student to dress in blackface. Such a climate does not exist at Yale.
How do you know this? Apparently there was such a climate eight years ago, and you didn’t know it."
That’s nonsense. Did the student body at Yale rise up and clap when some stupid yahoo apparently dressed in blackface in 2007? Did they appoint him student body president and ask him to speak at graduation?
You’re confusing “something happened” with “this is a climate in which that something is completely acceptable and no big deal.” The very fact that there’s a story about it on the Internet is precisely because it wasn’t seen as acceptable.
And if Jonri’s description of the role of the college Master at Yale is on point, the mere fact Christakis sent out an email which even gave an appearance of siding with one faction of students…especially one the other side felt facilitated a campus environment hostile to marginalized groups they are a part of or sympathetically allied is seriously problematic.
By taking a side or even giving an appearance in doing so, she’s effectively communicated that she cannot be trusted to be an honest broker in the issue by the faction which disagrees with the side she appeared to favor in her email.
By the same token, I’d have serious issues with any ombudsman, mediator, or judge who publicly exhibited favoritism for one party’s position prior to or during the case and yet, failed to recuse him/herself from the case or if necessary, resign.
"Wow! This reaction is exactly the type of reaction a HS classmate who was a " blah blah blah.
“Your position reminds me of someone who has nothing to do with anything” is not a cogent argument.
"At the head of each college is a Master, the chief executive officer of the college. Working with each Master is the Residential College Dean, who serves as the college’s chief academic adviser. The Master is responsible for setting the moral and intellectual tone of the college while the Dean is charged with maintaining university regulations. "
@Hanna I did not read EC’s email as “blackface good.” I DID read it as it may not be good but if students want to be provocative and offensive, well…that’s part of being young. To draw a “feminist” analogy, her statement is like “boys will be boys.” Oh, we agree that some of the things boys being boys do aren’t very nice, but that’s just part of being boys, isn’t it?
@HarvestMoon1 I may be wrong and not understood which young woman’s name the master didn’t know.
I did not see Howard’s email as step one in creating a "“dialogue.” I don’t think it was intended to be that. As far as I know, no other faculty member at Yale felt the need to respond to his email.
Moderator’s Note
I have removed a number of posts that were pure sniping only tangentially related to the thread. If you can’t keep it on topic then this will be closed soon.
It’s also communicating her feeling that Yale shouldn’t use its power to set the institutional tone of the campus culture/life to ask students to be considerate of others regarding wearing of racially/culturally insensitive Halloween costumes. Ironic considering Yale’s admins do shape the tone of the campus through their actions/inactions regardless.
Ironic considering by doing so, she’s effectively endorsing the status quo which many students especially those who are members of marginalized groups find problematic in light of recent incidents on campus and other college campuses around the nation.
Including its peer Harvard judging by the holding of the Conquistabros and Navajo theme party in 2010 by one of their fraternities and administrative inaction for a long period despite outrage from Native-American groups and sympathetic allies within the Harvard student body.
I find it interesting folks like Hunt insist students at colleges…including elite ones like Yale or Harvard can settle and decide this for themselves. Judging by the rash of recent incidents on many campuses…including elite ones…I can understand the perspectives of those who disagree.
A similar argument can and has been made by some to argue that the Federal government shouldn’t be regulating how employers train or discipline workers who harass or otherwise discriminate against some employees on the basis of being a member of a marginalized protected class.
And yet, the Federal government does regulate that including issuing mandates on training, reporting procedures, due process, and handling perpetrators in order to attempt to minimize the encouragement of a hostile work environment.
But…but employees, HR, senior executives, and supervisors are adults and should be able to work all this out themselves without the involvement of the Federal government…
My Yale son send me this last night and I loved it!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kizOjQ-XD7U