Caving in to Bullies

Not all Yale students agree with the tactics employed by the bullies. Freshman Connor Wood said, “The acceptance or rejection of coercive tactics is a choice that will literally decide the fate of our democracy. Our republic will not survive without a culture of robust public debate. And the far more immediate threat is to academia: how can we expect to learn when people are afraid to speak out?”

Related: What the President of Yale Should Have Said

Nevertheless, it appears that the loudest voices are indeed influencing President Salovey. He has given in to protesters by:

• Announcing a new center for the study of race, ethnicity, and social identity
• Creating four new faculty positions to study “unrepresented and under-represented communities”
• Launching “a five-year series of conferences on issues of race, gender, inequality, and inclusion”
• Spending $50 million over the next five years to enhance faculty diversity
• Doubling the budgets of cultural centers (Western culture not included)
• Increasing financial aid for low-income students

In addition, President Salovey volunteered, along with other members of the faculty and administration, to “receive training on recognizing and combating racism and other forms of discrimination.”

With an endowment of $24 billion, these expenses are a proverbial drop in the bucket for Yale. But it doesn’t mean that the administration should cave.

Isaac Cohen, a Yale senior, wrote in the student newspaper, “Our administrators, who ought to act with prudence and foresight, appear helpless in the face of these indictments. Consider President Salovey’s email to the Yale community this week. Without any fight or pushback — indeed, with no thought as to burdens versus benefits — he capitulated in most respects to the demands of a small faction of theatrically aggrieved students.”

This is an excerpt from “Student Bullies at Yale,” which was published originally at CAPX