Yale students release new list of demands for racial equality
They want two faculty members fired and a $2 million infusion for cultural centers, among other demands.
NextYale, the organization of students of color and their allies who are speaking out against racial injustices at Yale University, released a new list of demands Friday.
In an open letter addressed to Yale’s President Peter Salovey and senior members of the administration, the students demanded that the university implement what they describe as “immediate and lasting policies that will reduce the intolerable racism that students of color experience on campus every day.’’
Racial inequities on college campuses have made headlines nationwide this week after student protests at the University of Missouri and a boycott by the football team led to the resignation of the school’s president and chancellor on Monday.
Yale students held public demonstrations after several racially charged incidents occurred in the past few weeks on their campus, including allegations that a fraternity member told a young woman their party was for “white girls only,’’ and a controversial email from a professor about Halloween costumes.
The letter from NextYale said these incidents reflect how the long history of racism at Yale –which they say has disproportionately harmed women of color — has escalated recently.
In response, the students want the university to remove Nicholas and Erika Christakis, the Yale faculty members whose emails about Halloween costumes angered much of the New Haven campus. They also want the university to implement an ethnic studies requirement for all undergraduate students.
The list of demands covers everything from the university’s budgeting to its hiring of diverse faculty.
They want an increase of $2 million in the annual operational budget for each of the four cultural centers, as well as five full-time staff members working in each. They want mental health professionals established in each of the centers, with a special emphasis on mental health professionals of color.
The students are also demanding that the administration rename Calhoun College after a person of color and acknowledge that “Yale University was founded on stolen indigenous land’’ by building a monument designed by a Native artist. (Calhoun College is a a residential college at Yale named after presidential candidate John C. Calhoun, who was vehemently pro-slavery).
Rounding out the list of demands is their call for the university to support “the physical well-being of international, first-generation, low-income, and undocumented students’’ by giving them stipends for food, dental and optometry services implemented as part of their health plan, and access to eight financial aid consultants trained specifically to help international and undocumented students.
Salovey sent an email to the Yale community Tuesday, affirming the university’s commitment to diversity and to free speech. He said the university will take further actions to improve the climate on campus and support and enhance diversity, and will share those steps before Thanksgiving.
But in the letter published Friday, the students said they expect Salovey to announce his intention to implement their demands by Wednesday, Nov. 18.
