Yale Deal - Part 12

From the Yale Daily News: For the first time, first-year students were mandated to attend an orientation event that asked them to consider the interplay between higher education and democracy. The conversation — led by Yale College Dean Pericles Lewis and History professor Beverly Gage ’94 — took place in two sessions... The conversations, which centered on the relationship between higher education and American democracy, touched on topics including campus protests and free speech — which were also discussed at a teach-in marketed as an alternative to the panels themselves...

Hours before the first session began, over 300 alumni, students, professors and local union members gathered on Cross Campus in a teach-in, headlined “Democratize Yale,” to demand the protection of student free speech and assembly, the democratization of the University board of trustees, the codification of academic freedom and that Yale not settle in negotiations with the Trump administration.

...Lewis said during the later session that protest regulations were necessary to “ensure the ability of each student to get an education, the ability to back them, and to teach.” He noted Yale has “rules regarding the time and place and manner, not content related rules,” and that protesters can protest an issue from both sides...

Full story at https://yaledailynews.com/articles/first-years-attend-panel-on-protests-and-yale-s-place-in-democracy.

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From the Chronicle of Higher Education: ...There were... indications that at least one national organization is interested in the fight. Indivisible, an anti-Trump advocacy group founded during President Trump’s first term, previously bought billboards on Interstate 95 to urge Yale not to settle. It provided signs and T-shirts for this rally. The event seemed to go off without a hitch, although [Alex Chen, Yale’s undergraduate student-body president] said later that “free expression facilitators,” staff members trained in Yale’s free-expression policies, had approached him to ask what was going on. “It’s a little bit chilling,” he said, “to have them watching your every move.”

In addition, two people identifying themselves as staffers from the Office of Public Affairs told reporters that they could not be on Yale’s grounds. Instead, journalists had to stand on a public sidewalk, about 250 feet away from the protest. “It’s to protect the privacy of the students and faculty,” one of the staff members said.

Full story at https://www.chronicle.com/article/yale-activists-defy-rules-to-warn-against-deal-with-trump.