For Halloween, the administration at Yale issued dictates about Halloween costumes, lest anyone be offended. A lecturer, who along with her professor husband, is “master” of a residential college, responded with a learned e-mail pointing out that it might not be so bad for a little blonde girl to dress up as Mulan, Disney’s Asian princess (apparently one of the forbidden costumes) and that Yale college students should be able to dress up however they wish. For this, she and her husband are being accused of racism, among other thought crimes, and hundreds of students are rallying to get them fired. Those who disagree are getting harassed and spit upon.
Now Conor Fridersdorf of the Atlantic has published an in depth expose of the incident and the climate of bullying, intolerance, intimidation, and anti-intellectualism at Yale. It’s a must read. (I post the introduction and a link after the jump.)
From Conor Friedersdorf, The Halloween Costume Controversy at Yale’s Silliman College – The Atlantic:
Professor Nicholas Christakis lives at Yale, where he presides over one of its undergraduate colleges. His wife Erika, a lecturer in early childhood education, shares that duty. They reside among students and are responsible for shaping residential life. And before Halloween, some students complained to them that Yale administrators were offering heavy-handed advice on what Halloween costumes to avoid.
Erika Christakis reflected on the frustrations of the students, drew on her scholarship and career experience, and composed an email inviting the community to think about the controversy through an intellectual lens that few if any had considered. Her message was a model of relevant, thoughtful, civil engagement.
For her trouble, a faction of students are now trying to get the couple removed from their residential positions, which is to say, censured and ousted from their home on campus. Hundreds of Yale students are attacking them, some with hateful insults, shouted epithets, and a campaign of public shaming. In doing so, they have shown an illiberal streak that flows from flaws in their well-intentioned ideology.
[Keep reading. . .]
HT: tODD
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