Yale Awards Students Who Bullied Faculty Members into Leaving
The professors obviously made the right decision to leave. Students should follow suit.
5.29.2017
38
We've written about this outrageous incident before on TruthRevolt, and I regret to have to post this update. First, a reminder.
The story began in October 2015, when Yale's Intercultural Affairs Committee sent an email broadly outlining the kinds of Halloween costumes that were and weren't appropriate. In response, Professor Erika Christakis - the wife of Nicholas Christakis, head of Yale's Silliman college - penned a response, citing complaints from the students in the residential college that the list was arbitrary and restrictive. Pointing to other examples of adults long fostering overblown fears about Halloween, she suggested that open dialogue about costumes was a better way for students to learn than through restrictions imposed from administrators.
Students responded in days of protests -- culminating in the viral courtyard incident of Nicholas Christakis trying to engage students in conversation about the topic. Instead students insulted Christakis and yelled at him to apologize, resign, or cave to their demands. While other administrators were in the courtyard, nobody stood up for the ideals of academic freedom, free speech or open dialogue. A year later, Nick Christakis stepped down from being the head of Silliman and Erika had left Yale. The school created more administrative posts to placate students - yet nobody in the administration had vocally backed Yale's supposed core values of academic freedom and open dialogue outlined in its own Woodward Report, a gold standard of academic principle.
But what Mr. Christakis was doing was more than just being a great husband, defending his wife's honor. He was defending something pretty basic. Common sense, for one. Also, according to TabletMag, he was also standing for the idea "that the university should serve as a place of free inquiry where individuals can respectfully engage with one another in the pursuit of knowledge." The Tablet has more:
Of the 100 or so students who confronted Christakis that day, a young woman who called him “disgusting” and shouted “who the fuck hired you?” before storming off in tears became the most infamous, thanks to an 81-second YouTube clip that went viral. (The video also—thanks to its promotion by various right-wing websites—brought this student a torrent of anonymous harassment). The videos that Tablet exclusively posted last year, which showed a further 25 minutes of what was ultimately an hours-long confrontation, depicted a procession of students berating Christakis. In one clip, a male student strides up to Christakis and, standing mere inches from his face, orders the professor to “look at me.” Assuming this position of physical intimidation, the student then proceeds to declare that Christakis is incapable of understanding what he and his classmates are feeling because Christakis is white, and, ipso facto, cannot be a victim of racism. In another clip, a female student accuses Christakis of “strip[ping] people of their humanity” and “creat[ing] a space for violence to happen,” a line later mocked in an episode of The Simpsons. In the videos, Howard, the dean who wrote the costume provisions, can be seen lurking along the periphery of the mob.
So how does Yale respond to those two students? "Of Yale’s graduating class, it was these two students whom the Nakanishi Prize selection committee deemed most deserving of a prize for 'enhancing race and/or ethnic relations' on campus." I have no words, except that the Christakis couple is probably glad they got out while they could. If a mob had tarred and feathered them off, Yale probably would've tried to get them considered for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Watch more on the situation at Yale below:
Image Credit: Screen Cap
Posts
