700 of the students wrote a second letter and even organized a rally to protest her statements.
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How you analyze this situation depends upon which lens you’re using. They’re intolerant of any thought that doesn’t conform to the orthodoxy of their identity politics. A video captured Click yelling – “Who wants to help me get this reporter out of here?” The question is, can we find a way to make intellectual spaces and safe spaces one and the same? “By sending out that email, it goes against your position”. I continue to believe that. Christakis’ husband, Nicholas Christakis, is master of Silliman, and is responsible for establishing the tone of residential life there. It’s about creating a home here. It explains what students can expect at the university, as in “Yale’s commitment to freedom of expression means that when you agree to matriculate, you join a community where the provocative, the disturbing, and the unorthodox must be tolerated”.
The fraternity denied turning away students based on their race or ethnicity, with SAE President Grant Mueller telling the Yale Daily News that he was “shocked and flabbergasted” because the chapter tries “to be so incredibly accepting and take pride in our diversity”. Part of learning how to be a community is to develop sensitivity to the needs and perspectives of others.
“It is painful for me – as someone who has a vested interest in supporting you – to hear what you have just told me, but I am glad you did…” .
This is why the IAC’s original email was also flawed. PjMedia recently noted that – “the University of Missouri recently saw student protests oust a president for… well, it’s not entirely clear what he did, but it had something to do with not being sensitive enough to students’ feelings”. Students demanding safe spaces will always feel oppressed in a few way, especially if those in charge indulge their whims. The letter didn’t make any demands of students. It was a legitimate pedagogical tool. We were told to meet the offensive parties head on, without suggesting any modes or means to facilitate these discussions to promote understanding.
But it turns out Luther is well aware of who hired Christakis, since she was of nine students on the Silliman search committee, Yale said in announcing Christakis as the new master in February 2015.
The events at Yale over the past weeks have provoked a great deal of conversation, but little effort to understand or acknowledge the cultural and institutional biases at play. The “March of Resilience” comes after several incidents where students of color said they faced discrimination. In the abstract, this seems like a reasonable concern. This year students were advised to avoid “culturally unaware and insensitive” costumes, with examples. I’m just saying, are you going to-are you-NICHOLAS CHRISTAKIS: What if I said-STUDENT: Can I finish? A sign reading “No Media – Safe Space” was displayed prominently. After a student posted Lukianoff’s quote to the Facebook group “Overheard at Yale” on Friday afternoon, “over 100 students gathered around Linsly-Chittenden Hall to voice their anger”, reported the Yale Daily News. Because that’s what this is about.
These students were offended by one person’s words, and were free to offer their own words in turn. And – following the Ferguson riots, and the silent racism that has dogged Obama’s presidencies – of their country’s ongoing struggle with racial equality.
Erika Christakis wrote to her students, “The censure and prohibition come from above, not from yourselves!” “Are we all okay with this transfer of power?”
“It shows administrations that this is something that they need to take seriously”, said Eshe Sherley, a senior at Yale University, where over 1,000 people marched this week in solidarity with minorities, according to CBS NY.
Along with the money for cultural centers, students also call for Yale to create a new “ethnic studies” distributional requirement for all Yale students, to be accompanied by the elevation of the school’s “Ethnicity, Race, and Migration” program to a full department, on par with traditional departments such as history and physics. Never. But, to paraphrase a well-known biographer of Voltaire, although I may disagree with your offensive outfit, I nonetheless support your right to be offensive.
As it is, the exchange became the latest low-hanging fruit for a commentariat obsessed with campus political correctness. “It’s bad that something like this would happen at a time when students are already so fragile”. I hope that Erika is able to apologize for the hurt that she caused, even if she feels like she was making a legitimate point.
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Last December, Phi Delta Theta came under fire for a holiday photo featuring a black blow-up sex doll among the mostly white members in the photo.
