The headline — which was written by top editors — drew significant consternation, both online and in my inbox, with readers describing it as unfair, slanted and “journalistically dishonest,” according to one reader. The main throughline of the criticism is that the headline expresses an opinion about McInnis’ governance, which is inappropriate for a news article.

When the News does something that prompts vocal criticism, I want to write about it, so I spoke with Tristan Hernandez ’26, the paper’s editor in chief, about the headline and coverage of McInnis more generally. 

Hernandez said he thought the headline was “absolutely correct” and captured the central focus of the article: McInnis’ admission that she does not yet have an academic vision that is “distinct” from her predecessor.

Hernandez explained that this headline was not written by the reporter and that he had selected the headline from several similar options, choosing this one because it was succinct, eye-catching and summarized the interview well. He also shared, perhaps revealingly, that he thinks a majority of readers, possibly upwards of 80 percent, read only an article’s headline, whether that’s scrolling through the newsletter or scanning the pages of the print issue. Which is to say that it’s certainly important to get headlines right.

Personally, I found the headline to be unnecessarily imprecise, detracting from an otherwise strong article. Headlines are absolutely a tricky business, as the writer has to balance concision with capturing the spirit of the article. In my time as both a reporter and an editor, I have spent several hours writing and rewriting them.

But the language here, removed from any modifiers for time — such as, “At start of tenure, McInnis lacks unique academic vision”  — or context — “McInnis lacks unique academic vision, promises continuity with Salovey” — is too totalizing and opinionated for the article that follows it. Even giving the headline a newsier slant — “McInnis says she lacks unique academic vision” — would be more faithful to the piece and likely address reader criticisms. 

To be clear, the News should not hesitate to criticize McInnis when she has earned it and I don’t even believe the headline is particularly critical when paired with the article. But the risk of a headline like this is turning off readers who find the language too opinionated and then don’t read the reporting that follows it.

It’s a shame that there has been so much focus on the headline, because the article that follows it, as Hernandez pointed out in our interview, does provide insight into Yale’s new president’s thinking.

The News doesn’t get to speak to McInnis often, typically once a month, but over three interviews during her tenure, it is notable that she has consistently refused to lay out a specific vision for her presidency that differs from her predecessor — in regards to administrative policy, personnel or academic philosophy.

Granted, the new president should listen to University stakeholders before upending things, but McInnis’ message of total continuity is a curious one, raising the question of what, if not her vision for Yale, the trustees were looking for when they selected her after a yearlong search.

Hernandez emphasized this last point in his interview, saying that identifying McInnis’ priorities, stated or otherwise, is a top focus for the News this year. He likened the reporting to the scrutiny that a new mayor of New Haven or even a new head football coach would, ideally, receive. 

“I think it’s a very valid question to ask someone who’s entering a job, especially someone who’s in charge of something like Yale,” Hernandez said. “What do you want to do academically? What do you want to do for student life? What are you doing this year?” 

In my view, those are the right questions to be asking the administration and I hope the News continues to ask them, albeit with different headlines on top of the strong reporting.

Please continue to send me your questions, complaints, comments, praise and anything else at public@yaledailynews.com.

The post PUBLIC EDITOR: Picking the right headline appeared first on Yale Daily News.

My vision for the job is quite simple. I want to be an editor working for you, the reader. 

The reality today is that the News — with its unparalleled reach and monopoly on daily coverage of Yale — is an essential institution on campus. The reporters and editors here have a platform to help shape the discussions we have about life at Yale and in New Haven. We have a responsibility to challenge the powerful, whether they are shady mega-landlords or an increasingly aloof and unresponsive administration. 

Far too often, the decisions the News makes — what we cover, who we source, when we add opposing viewpoints, what context we choose to include or omit — are inaccessible for the vast majority of readers who are not immersed in the inner workings of this paper and the larger world of journalism. 

This issue of access — and the need for an active public editor — became obvious to me last year, as the News faced a variety of criticisms from across the ideological spectrum for our coverage of Yale and New Haven’s reactions to the war in Gaza. Some of the critiques I found compelling; others not as much. But many deserved to be heard and responded to in the pages of the News. 

Externally, I will be writing a regular column on the News’ policies and coverage choices to examine the thinking of this paper’s editors and also offer my commentary on their decisions. Internally, I will work with editor-in-chief Tristan Hernandez to train every new reporter on standard journalistic ethics. 

This role was intentionally made independent of the rest of the News’ Managing Board and I have no interest in serving as a mouthpiece for the choices of the paper’s management. When our coverage is strong and I feel like the decisions made are sound, I will commend them. But I will not shy away from criticizing coverage or decision-making processes that fall short of the standards our readers deserve. 

I do this because I have spent hundreds of hours over the last few years trying to make the News the best version of itself. I’ve covered both housing and homelessness and cops and courts on the City Desk, spent a year running our morning newsletter as an Audience Editor and served as last year’s City Editor. I believe that the News is at its best when it captures the diversity of life and experience at Yale and in New Haven and when it pushes for a more just world. 

A frustrating reality of the News is that student journalism is hard. Running daily coverage is a nonstop grind with a new deadline every night and a constant demand for more stories. The paper could always use more writers, photographers, podcasters and illustrators; many of its deficits in coverage can be traced to a lack of contributors.

But the challenges of student journalism do not exempt it from reproach. Some of the hardest working, most caring and integrity-driven people I know are working as editors and reporters at the News this year and I hope they run the best paper they can. I will try to fulfill my responsibility by providing an honest accounting of their work.

The last point that I want to make is the most important. None of this will work without you, the public, contributing. To platform reader complaints and answer reader questions, I need you to send me your thoughts. I will respond to everything I can; if you’re in New Haven, I’m happy to meet for coffee or a meal. This column will only work with your engagement. 

Please send me your questions, complaints, comments, praise and anything else at public@yaledailynews.com.

The post PUBLIC EDITOR: An introduction appeared first on Yale Daily News.

Four pro-Palestine protesters were violently arrested by Yale Police late Wednesday night on Alexander Walk.

All four protesters — including two students — were charged with trespassing and disorderly conduct, and one was charged with interfering with a police officer, a University spokesperson wrote to the News. The protesters were taken to New Haven Police headquarters for processing and have all been released as of 7:30 a.m. All the charges are misdemeanors, according to NHPD Sergeant Ameer Williams.

Photos and videos obtained by the News show Yale police officers tackling two of the four arrested protesters during a rally. Four Yale police officers — including Yale Police Chief Anthony Campbell ’95 DIV ’09 — tackled one arrestee and held them on the ground for at least 90 seconds, despite onlookers yelling concerns that the person could not breathe. A photograph taken after the arrest shows the protester with a cut and bleeding nose.

About 50 supporters of the arrested protesters, including many who attended the Wednesday night rally that preceded the arrests, gathered on the steps of NHPD headquarters in the early hours of Thursday morning. Six protest attendees described Yale Police as unnecessarily aggressive and violent while making arrests.

“YPD was abusive as fuck,” said Sun Queen, who attended the protest and co-founded Black Lives Matter New Haven.

Another arrestee was tackled by an officer who grabbed their neck before two other officers helped restrain them on the ground. Neither of the arrested protesters tackled by police were Yale students.

The News could not confirm the extent of any injuries that protesters suffered during their arrests. Campbell did not respond to multiple requests for comment on Wednesday night and Thursday morning.

“It was a melee,” Ala Ochumare, another co-founder of Black Lives Matter New Haven, said. “As those officers convened on our group, they became violent. They started grabbing folks, they started arresting them, they pinned folks in corners and were yelling at them and screaming at them.”

Craig Birckhead-Morton ’24, one of the two student protesters arrested, said that he was arrested immediately after asking a Yale police lieutenant whether protesters could disperse in front of Sterling Memorial Library.

“[The lieutenant] says to me, ‘You can do whatever you want. But now you are under arrest for disorderly conduct,” Birckhead-Mortion told the News. “This obviously was quite confusing to me, because he’s encouraging us to disperse, I’m showing my intention to disperse.”

A video obtained by the News shows Birckhead-Morton holding birthday cake — May 1 was his birthday — and then giving it up as police detained him. Another student protester wearing a marshal’s vest — often used at protests to identify individuals in charge of liaising with police and generally managing the demonstration — approached the officer arresting Birckhead-Morton to ask why he was being arrested. The video then shows police arresting the marshal while the student tried to tell officers that the protest was dispersing.

Wednesday’s demonstration began on Beinecke Plaza around 9 p.m. About 200 pro-Palestine protesters demanding that Yale disclose and divest from weapons manufacturers marched from the Plaza to University President Peter Salovey’s house on Hillhouse Avenue, where they sang and chanted messages including, “Salovey, Salovey you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide.”

Birckhead-Morton said that at Salovey’s house, he was approached by the same lieutenant who eventually arrested him. Birckhead-Morton said the lieutenant told him that the march had to leave Salovey’s house before 11 p.m. and could not disperse at Salovey’s house or the plaza, which is why protesters tried to disperse in front of Sterling.

Birckhead-Morton had already been arrested, along with 47 other protesters, by Yale police on Beinecke Plaza on April 22.

After approximately an hour at Salovey’s house, another marshal — who requested anonymity due to safety concerns — told the News that protesters marched to Yale Police headquarters at 101 Ashmun St., where they arrived around 11:15 p.m. The protesters chanted outside until Lieutenant Chris Halstead used his car radio to issue a dispersal warning, telling them they had ten minutes to clear the area in front of police headquarters or face arrest.

Three protesters with whom the News spoke as well as Halstead all said that within three minutes of that warning, protesters left the front of the building and began walking down Ashmun Street toward York Street. Halstead said that he issued the warning to get protesters to leave the area in front of the YPD building but declined to specify what prompted him to issue a dispersal warning.

Ochumare and the marshal both said that a large number of Yale police officers who had not previously been around the march began following them once they left the YPD building.

Protesters then marched to Alexander Walk and down to the intersection with Rose Walk, adjacent to the Sterling Law Building. Ochumare estimated at least 30 officers were present. The marshal said they planned to do some final chants near Beinecke Plaza and then disperse.

“Tonight was not supposed to escalate like this at all,” the marshal said. “The plan was not at all to get arrested.”

Yale’s spokesperson claimed that the protesters did not disperse after receiving “repeated warnings” from YPD. A video obtained by the News on Thursday morning shows Yale Police issuing an additional warning to protesters at 11:42 p.m. at the intersection of Alexander Walk and Rose Walk. “If you do not disperse, you will be arrested,” police said over a speaker.

Four protesters told the News that the only dispersal warning they heard was in front of YPD headquarters and that the march remained peaceful the entire time.

Earlier in the week, Dean of Yale College Pericles Lewis and Secretary and Vice President for University Life Kimberly Goff-Crews sent two emails to students reminding them that quiet hours on campus begin at 10 p.m. and that groups are prohibited from using outdoor spaces on campus after 11 p.m.

Around 11:45 p.m., protesters said that police split the crowd in half at the intersection before making the arrests.

Ochumare said that the rally was coming to a peaceful end when police began making arrests.

“We were not agitating, the organizers were actually giving orders as to how to disperse and where to go,” Ochumare said.

After being arrested, Birckhead-Morton said he was held in the back of a police car for more than an hour before being taken to NHPD headquarters, where he was kept alone in a cell until he was processed and released around 6:45 a.m. on Thursday.

Birckhead-Morton set his summons for May 8, the same date as his summons for the April 22 arrest.

The post Yale police violently arrest four pro-Palestine protesters appeared first on Yale Daily News.

The screenshots show negotiations breaking down over the question of whether the University would disclose its investments, a demand protesters had been calling for throughout the encampment on Beinecke Plaza and that Yale did not meet. 

In a post on the Occupy Yale Instagram titled “RELEASING THE RECEIPTS” organizers wrote that they were publishing this information to “reaffirm our commitment to transparency.”

Unlike on Instagram, where organizers wrote their post as if it was a direct conversation between them and Lewis, all texts obtained by the News show organizers negotiating through a Yale administrator — who the News was not able to identify — who responded with Lewis’ messages.

The first screenshot, timestamped at 6:15 p.m. on Sunday, April 21, shows Lewis offering a meeting with two trustees to five protesters if the organizers got the crowd to disband by 11:00 p.m. on Sunday and not erect other encampments. One of the trustees would have been Catherine Bond Hill GRD ’85, who chairs the Corporation Committee on Investor Responsibility, which recommends investment policy to the Corporation.

According to the posts, the encampment organizers countered, asking Lewis for the University to disclose all of Yale’s investments. Currently, around 0.3 percent of Yale’s investments are publicly available. Organizers also asked for an “open, transparent and public” meeting with trustees and amnesty from all Yale disciplinary action for participating in the encampment. The organizers also told Lewis that while they could announce the terms of an agreement, they “cannot enforce” whether students would end the encampment.

Sometime between 8:30 p.m. and 9:00 p.m., Lewis responded with another offer, where administrators did not agree to disclose Yale’s investments, citing “a number of legal and contractual obligations.” Lewis again offered a “transparent” meeting but reiterated only five people could attend. He also offered amnesty from disciplinary action for all who had been protesting peacefully and left the plaza by midnight Sunday but included a caveat for a number of behaviors, including violence and harassment. 

Lewis wrote to the News on Sunday the 21st and Monday the 22nd, confirming most of the details of the negotiations, including his offer of a meeting with trustees and amnesty for peaceful protesters who left the plaza before midnight.

Organizers responded by reiterating their demand for Yale to disclose its investments, and Lewis again responded by offering a meeting with trustees on “the ethical principles” underlying Yale’s investment strategy, but did not agree to disclosure. 

Lewis also offered to give organizers annual reports from the investment office on asset allocations, which organizers confirmed were already publicly available. He wrote that this was the protesters’ “final opportunity” to end the encampment and that they needed to respond by 10:30 p.m. on Sunday, April 21. 

Organizers wrote in their Instagram post that after this message, negotiations continued in person from 10:30 p.m. to 11:30 p.m. before breaking down. Organizers wrote that a request for multiple meetings with trustees was rejected, which the News could not independently verify.

“I am told that most students wanted to accept the trustee’s offer but some of the leaders felt it was better to have people arrested,” Lewis wrote to the News on the 21st. Organizers disputed the claim at the time, saying they had negotiated in good faith. 

On Monday, April 22, Yale police arrested 48 protesters, including 44 students, on Beinecke Plaza.

Last Tuesday, organizers of the original Occupy Beinecke coalition announced on Instagram that they were handing off leadership to a “broader coalition” of organizers who renamed the group Occupy Yale.

Sarah Cook contributed reporting.

The post Encampment organizers post texts of administrator negotiations appeared first on Yale Daily News.

By 9 a.m. Tuesday morning, dozens of protesters remained on Cross Campus after sleeping there overnight, with one Yale police officer also present. Throughout the day, protesters remained on Cross Campus, and the crowd grew to over 100 people around 5:30 p.m. Protesters also marched into Sterling in the afternoon in an unsuccessful attempt to confront Yale College Dean Pericles Lewis. 

Around midday, organizers of the past week of protests on Beinecke Plaza — including the three-night encampment — announced a leadership transition on their Instagram.  

Occupy Beinecke leadership transitions, re-labels as “Occupy Yale”

Lead organizers of the Occupy Beinecke coalition — which is the group that set up the three-night encampment on Beinecke Plaza that prompted the arrests — have transferred leadership to a “broader coalition” of organizers from Yale, New Haven and Connecticut, the group announced via a statement released on Instagram on Tuesday afternoon. The group’s name, they wrote, has shifted from “Occupy Beinecke” to “Occupy Yale” following the leadership change.

“While acknowledging the success of this mobilization, it is important to broaden it –– especially in light of the prejudice Yale administration has demonstrated toward New Haven and Connecticut community members,” organizers wrote in a statement. “Our movement is bigger than Beinecke Plaza now. On the heels of President Salovey and Dean Lewis’s racist and classist lies, it is important to address Yale’s fundamentally extractive and exploitative role in New Haven and all over the world, while still continuing to center Palestine and Gaza.”

According to the statement, the new leadership is continuing to demand Yale disclose and divest from weapons manufacturing, while also demanding increased investments by the University into the New Haven community and calling for “Palestinian liberation.”

Organizers declined to comment on what the reason was for the transition in leadership.

Protests in Sterling Memorial Library

A group of approximately 40 pro-Palestine protesters marched through the Sterling Memorial Library at 5 p.m. on Tuesday evening, carrying signs and quietly chanting “We shall not be moved.” 

Gabriel Colburn ’24, a marshal at the protest, told the News that protesters entered the library to confront Lewis, who was in a meeting with departmental directors of undergraduate studies — faculty members who serve as liaisons between undergraduate students, departmental faculty and Yale College administrators. 

“People just got excited to go in and sort of spontaneously express their feelings about the war in Gaza and the issue of divestment,” Colburn said. “The administration has consistently avoided and dismissed our calls to meet with them and discuss this issue. So I think this is just an expression of students’ desire for the administration to take us seriously.”

The protesters marched through the main entrance of the library, known as the Nave, and continued down the hallway past the Periodical Reading Room and Selin Courtyard. They lined the walls at the end of the hallway, in front of the Memorabilia Room, where the meeting was being held.

Lewis did not leave the meeting while the protesters were there and later told the News that he had left the building around 5 p.m., only learning of the protesters after the fact.

Protesters adapted their chants as faculty walked out of the meeting, encouraging them to join the group.

At least five YPD officers arrived on the scene at around 5:15 p.m. Officer Matt Franco told the News that the protesters were not breaking any University regulations and that they did not ask them to leave. Franco added police just reminded protesters not to block exits.  

The protesters remained in the library for approximately 20 minutes before exiting through the entrance onto Cross Campus at 5:23 p.m. After exiting Sterling protesters gathered on the steps outside the library where they sang “Down by the Riverside” for several minutes. Three protesters went to Cross Campus to retrieve the missile that reads “Books not bombs” from last night’s demonstration, as one protester led chants with a megaphone. 

Commons reopens

By Tuesday morning, the Schwarzman Center reopened for Yale affiliates, though entrance to the building was restricted to the College Street entrance. The building’s Beinecke Plaza entrance — and the plaza at large — remained closed and taped off by Yale police officers. 

Police initially closed the plaza on Monday morning preceding the arrest of encamped pro-Palestine student protesters calling on the University to disclose endowment investments and divest from military weapons manufacturers. 

Commons, The Elm and the Bow Wow were open during the day, though signs on the College Street door to the Schwarzman Center indicated that the building was only open to individuals with Yale IDs.

Overnight protesters on Cross Campus

The Occupy Yale Instagram account urged recommended to pro-Palestine protesters on Tuesday evening that they “be prepared to spend the night.” The post asked protesters to bring or donate supplies including sleeping bags, pillows, power banks and blankets.

At 10:06 p.m., the News counted approximately 60 individuals on Cross Campus, though several departed as the night progressed. Organizers were cleaning up and distributing food to protesters. One of the organizers urged more protesters to stay overnight or to return in the morning to increase protester turnout.

“We want to call on Yale to disclose their investments to divest and to reinvest in the New Haven community,” said Chisato Kimura LAW ’25, a pro-Palestine protester on Cross Campus who had been arrested the previous morning, told the News. “We also are in solidarity with the nearly 50 students who were arrested just yesterday morning for peacefully protesting yells role in the genocide in Gaza and reclaim our space as students and as community members.”

From 7 to 10 p.m, Yalies4Palestine and Mecha de Yale held “Baila Por Un Sueño” on Cross Campus. The annual event raises money for Mecha’s college scholarship Sueños Scholarship, which helps local undocumented high school seniors pay for college. This year, Mecha split the donations with the event with Y4P, who was directing the money to Palestinian mutual aid.

As of 10:52 p.m., the News also counted approximately 20 individuals with sleeping bags who intend to stay overnight on Cross Campus. Police on Monday night notified protesters that they were not allowed to put up tents, organizers told the News. 

Protesters complied — they intended to use sleeping bags and tarps, instead — and told the News that they were not anticipating any arrests or issues with police on Tuesday night. 

Sterling Memorial Library is located at 120 High Street.

Adam McPhail, Evan Gorelick, Sarah Cook and Carlos Salcerio contributed reporting.

The post Smaller divestment protests continue on Cross Campus, in Sterling Memorial Library as organizers undergo leadership transition appeared first on Yale Daily News.

Before and after Salovey’s email, Yale Police Chief Anthony Campbell ’95 DIV ’09, along with encampment organizers, told the News on Monday that either 47 or 48 people were arrested. On Tuesday, New Haven Police Department Public Information Officer Christian Bruckhart and a University spokesperson confirmed to the News that 48 people had been arrested.

Minali Aggarwal, a third-year graduate student and member of the jail support team for the encampment organizers, also told the News on Tuesday that 48 protesters had been arrested.

Various reporting outlets used Salovey’s inaccurate count in their initial reporting, including the New York Times, New Haven Register and Fox News. As of 3 a.m. on April 24, there is at least one New York Times article, “Universities Struggle as Pro-Palestinian Demonstrations Grow,” that contains the incorrect count, though the Times has corrected another story on the arrests. 

The online text of Salovey’s Monday email posted on the Office of the President page of the Yale website still says that “Yale Police arrested sixty people” as of 3 a.m. on Wednesday.

A University spokesperson told the News on Tuesday that Salovey’s Monday count of 60 arrested people came from the YPD. 

“Information available at the time of the Monday afternoon message differed from the figures shared by Yale Police Department late Monday night after final processing and after the message had gone out,” the spokesperson wrote in an email to the News, relaying this information on behalf of the University and Salovey.

However, YPD Chief Campbell told the News at 8:18 a.m. on Monday that somewhere between 40 and 45  protestors had been arrested, a figure much closer to the final number than what Salovey wrote in his email. Later that day, at 9:40 a.m., a University spokesperson told the News on behalf of Campbell that YPD had arrested 47 students, and did not mention any other arrests. At 8:16 a.m. on Monday, a protest organizer announced to the crowd at the intersection of College and Grove Streets that 48 people had been arrested.

It is unclear why the YPD would have allegedly told Salovey a higher number of arrests around midday Monday than what Campbell told the News twice in the morning and what YPD told the University on Monday night.

There are also discrepancies between the counts the University and organizers provided on the breakdown in Yale affiliation of the people arrested. 

On Tuesday morning, the News asked a University spokesperson to provide the number of arrestees who are current Yale students, Yale-affiliated individuals or non-Yale affiliated individuals. The University spokesperson wrote that 44 were Yale students and four were “non-students.” 

While the total number of arrests was corroborated by Aggarwal, she told the News that only three of the 48 people arrested were not Yale students. Aggarwal told the News she confirmed this number by communicating with other jail support team members and protesters and by searching on Google and the campus directory.

The reason for the different counts of Yale students arrested remains unclear.

“President Salovey’s public fabrication of 10 non-Yale affiliated arrests demonstrates gross incompetence at best, and bad-faith scare tactics at worst,” Sadie Lee ’26 wrote on behalf of organizers. “Yale arrested 48 people, 45 of whom were Yale affiliates, and it hasn’t even bothered to get the numbers right in the days since.”

Campbell did not respond to multiple requests for comment on Tuesday.

The Yale Police Department is located at 101 Ashmun St.

The post Salovey email overcounts protester arrests appeared first on Yale Daily News.

For nearly six hours, about 100 protesters — including Yale students — blocked the staircase and escalators that lead from the station to the tracks to demand that Rep. Rosa DeLauro call for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza and stop voting for military aid to Israel. Organizers wrote in a statement to the News that the goal of the sit-in was to “end business as usual” during what they described as a genocide in Gaza. Israel disputes charges of genocide. Several event attendees told the News that they participated with the intention of police arresting them.

Dave Steckel, the MTA media liaison, wrote to the News that the nine people arrested were issued misdemeanor summons for second-degree breach of peace, which is the “intent to cause inconvenience, annoyance, or alarm or recklessly creating a risk thereof.”

Event attendees disputed the number MTA police offered, saying that 13 people received charges of breach of peace. Steckel declined to comment on the discrepancy, and the News was unable to independently verify either count. The News could not confirm whether Yale students were among those arrested.

During the sit-in, which lasted from 5 p.m. to 11 p.m., protesters chanted “Free, free Palestine” and “Get up, get down, we’re anti-war in this town” as they blocked the main stairwell and escalators to the platform. protesters hung a banner over the timetables that read “DeLAURO STOP FUNDING GENOCIDE.” 

According to multiple attendees and video obtained by the News, the protesters directly at the top and bottom of the staircase and escalators locked themselves together with bicycle locks and PVC pipes. While this blocked the stairs and escalators, passengers were still able to get from the station to the tracks using the building’s elevators. 

Around 11 p.m., at least nine and possibly as many as 13 attendees on the bottom floor of the station blocked the elevators to provoke arrest, according to several attendees. They were quickly arrested by MTA police. The rest of the protesters left the station around the same time. Some protesters continued demonstrating outside the station past midnight. 

Steckel wrote that no protesters were detained in a cell after the arrests, and all protesters left the station by 11:00 p.m. Some protesters continued demonstrating outside the station past midnight. 

“We wanted to escalate so that people in ‘lock boxes’ could get arrested because we wanted the image of law enforcement cutting them up,” said one attendee, to whom the News granted anonymity due to safety concerns. “That was the whole purpose of being locked down — you are intending to be arrested after law enforcement ‘unlocks’ you.”

Breach of peace is a Class B misdemeanor in Connecticut and carries penalties of up to six months in jail and a $1,000 fine.

Advocates in New Haven and across Connecticut have protested since October in support of a permanent ceasefire to end Israel’s military offensive in Gaza, through which Israel has killed over 32,000 people in Gaza, though experts believe thousands more to be dead. Israel has undertaken the offensive in response to Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel, in which Hamas killed 1,200 people and took over 250 people as hostages.

The sit-in was organized by what several attendees interviewed by the News described as a collection of individuals who took issue with DeLauro’s support for military aid to Israel and refusal to call for a permanent ceasefire. 

“The point of direct action is to disrupt the business as usual, and really bring attention to these causes,” Abdul Osmanu, a Hamden Town Councilor who attended the sit-in, said. “Oftentimes the needle really doesn’t move without any real meaningful direct action.” 

Osmanu also argued that DeLauro was ignoring the will of her constituents, citing polling that shows the majority of Democrats support a permanent ceasefire in Gaza.

On March 7, DeLauro — who represents New Haven — put out a statement calling for a six-week ceasefire.

“We must work to get more humanitarian aid into Gaza, free all the hostages held by Hamas, and enact a six-week ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas conflict that allows for the protection and survival of innocent Palestinian civilians caught in the middle of war,” DeLauro wrote. 

On March 22, DeLauro voted for a $1.2 trillion government funding package which passed overwhelmingly and included $3.3 billion in aid to Israel’s military.

DeLauro did not respond to a request for comment on the sit-in or arrests.

The protesters also held an Iftar — the evening meal that breaks the fast for Muslims observing Ramadan — during the sit-in. Osmanu, who is fasting for Ramadan, said that people brought water, dates and pizza, which enhanced the sense of community among the protesters. 

Adam Nussbaum ’25, who participated in the sit-in, said that he had met with staff from DeLauro’s office earlier in the day alongside a delegation from Yale Jews for Ceasefire and described the meeting as frustrating. The protest, by contrast, brought him hope. 

“I think it can easily feel cynical, and in moments like these, seeing so many people rally and put their bodies on the line — saying that we won’t stand for this injustice and this sort of death-making is very moving,” Nussbaum said. “I feel very inspired by it. It just makes me feel like we will win.”

One bystander, who asked only to be identified by their first name Ty due to fear of retaliation from their employer, told the News that they arrived at Union Station around 7 p.m. to catch a train. They said that while they could have gone around the protest to board, they felt “uncomfortable” with breaking the line and wanted to support the ongoing protest.

They added that the protest was “very peaceful” and “powerful,” and that they believed the police were aggressive in their removal of protesters from the stairwell area. Ty ended up taking a train on Friday instead.

Shilpa Patel, a worker at the Sbarro in Union Station, said that the MTA Police “did their job” but that the police were not able to control the protesters as they blocked the escalator and elevator. 

According to attendees and video of the event obtained by the News, more than 30 police officers from four departments — New Haven police, Amtrak police, MTA police and Connecticut State police — were present at the protest, though only MTA police made arrests. 

The Union Station sit-in followed a protest on the New Haven Green Thursday afternoon where approximately 100 Yale and New Haven community members gathered to urge New Haven officials to call for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war. An organizer for the New Haven Green protest told the News that the rally on the green and Union Station sit-in were planned separately. At the end of the rally, the organizers informed protesters that they could march to Union Station to support the action. 

DeLauro has represented New Haven since 1991.

Anika Arora Seth, Khuan-Yu Hall and Kenisha Mahajan contributed reporting.

The post Pro-Palestine protesters arrested at Union Station appeared first on Yale Daily News.

The team was led by a trio of high-scoring seniors  Daniel Ma ’23, Michal Gerasimiuk ’23 and Daniel Sheinberg ’23 — and featured Arthur Delot-Vilain ’25, a self-described “lower level getter of questions.” The Yalies went 12-5 over two days of gameplay at MIT in which the Yale cohort pulled away from their opponents over a dominant 17 games. They placed fifth overall in the country and the highest of any team that was made up solely of undergraduates.

“It was great,” Sheinberg, who serves as one of the co-presidents of Yale Student Academic Competitions, said of the win. “Job’s finished. We can rest.”

Quizbowl is an academic quiz competition in which players compete head-to-head to answer questions on a variety of academic subjects, ranging from chemistry to mythology. 

Yale’s team boasted a wealth of experience. Three of the four players returned from winning the undergraduate title last year. Expectations among the quizbowl community were high.

“I think we were definitely the favorite coming in because we won last year — the undergraduate title — with a weaker team,” Sheinberg said.

The Bulldogs’ primary competition for the undergraduate title was Brown University, who they had beat out for the title on a dramatic final question the year before. For the team, especially the seniors, Brown was a familiar foe. For Ma and Delot-Vilain, some of the Bears were opponents from as far back as high school quizbowl.

The tournament started well for the Yalies. They breezed through the preliminary matches with a 6-1 record, far exceeding what was necessary to qualify for playoffs.

“We avoided being silly,” Delot-Vilain explained of the team’s early success.

The early games included a 440-90 blowout of Columbia University, a traditional powerhouse at the collegiate level. The round featured Ma answering a question about Montreal so quickly, an astonished moderator asked if he was from Quebec. Ma is from New York City.

Yale faced only one setback in the initial games when losing to a team from The Ohio State University. A competitor for the Buckeyes was a graduate student that had been playing collegiate level quizbowl for almost two decades.

The team also avenged their loss in the tournament last year to the University of Texas at Austin. They faced a comfortable match against the Longhorns team.

After clinching a playoff berth, the team broke for lunch — pizza for the seniors, a halloumi BLT for Delot-Vilain — and then returned for what would prove to be their most challenging set of games, starting off against what Gerasimiuk described as “the evil empire”: the University of Chicago.

Chicago, who wound up getting second in the tournament, featured a typically strong team that  included Matt Jackson ’14, who is pursuing a graduate degree at UChicago. Jackson, who attended Yale as an undergraduate, guided the Bulldogs to multiple national championships before finding success on “Jeopardy!”

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Chicago held Yale to their worst game of the tournament. The Bulldogs only answered five questions correctly out of 20 asked.

Yale bounced back over their next four games, winning three of them and only losing to a Stanford team that tied them for fifth overall. The team capped the day with a shocking — and razor-thin — upset over the Georgia Institute of Technology, the team that ended up winning the overall national championship.  

“They beat themselves,” Ma explained of the victory. Georgia Tech floundered, missing five questions where they buzzed in first and Yale did just enough to capitalize.

After a night spent in Harvard dorms, the team returned Sunday morning feeling confident about their chances of securing the title over Brown with five games left to play.

Yale had a solid second day of competition, dispatching Duke University, Cornell University and the University of Florida without much difficulty. But the team did feel like they missed an opportunity to outperform expectations with losses to the University of Maryland and Brown.

“We probably dropped two games we shouldn’t have dropped,” co-president Gerasimiuk said. “Had we not done that we would have been playing in the final sequence.”

Unfortunately for Yale, they did lose those two face-offs, running into a Maryland team whose best player had his best round against them, and then incorrectly answering eight questions against Brown, a single-game record for the tournament.

Despite the missed opportunity, Yale did secure the title they came to win, clinching the undergraduate prize with a massive come-from-behind victory over Cornell in which the team rallied after getting only two of the first eight questions. 

Cornell had also won quizbowl’s other national championship tournament the week before, making the victory even more satisfying.

“I think in many ways for me, [the game] embodied how quizbowl should be,” Ma said. “No negs until the last question, great sportsmanship on either side.”

Despite securing the national title with two games to play, Yale did not realize they had won until much later, when they got lunch with their vanquished opponents — Brown.

Over still more halloumi BLTs, Brown filled Yale in on their record, and the team realized they did not have to play in a final because they were already national champions for the second year in a row.

“It took a really long time to find out,” Sheinberg said. “But it was worth it. It was really fun.”

Yale last won national championships in consecutive years in 2011 and 2012. 

The post Yale wins quizbowl national championship for second year in a row appeared first on Yale Daily News.

The program allows Fellows and Associate Fellows — who can be faculty, staff and other Yale affiliates — to form connections with each other and with students over a four-year renewable timespan. Head of College Thomas Near described Saybrook’s Fellowship as a sort of college “social network,” wherein students are able to reach out to specific Fellows based on individual interests and expertise.

Though Fellows are often associated with the University, colleges can nominate and appoint non-Yale employees per year as Associate Fellows. This year, Head Near nominated Fiasco, and Fiasco accepted.

“He’s a big fan of Yale because he’s essentially participated in every one of the Open Yale Courses online on YouTube,” Near explained.

Fiasco’s journey to becoming a Fellow started at an entirely different academic institution: the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Fiasco has been at MIT for a year as part of its MLK Visiting Professors and Scholars Program, where he taught a course at MIT called Rap Theory and Practice, a technical exploration into the creation of rap music. 

Fiasco also worked with MIT faculty to understand the neurophysiology of spoken word art and rap. While there, he met computational biologist and Yale Assistant Professor Brandon Ogbunu GRD ’10, a member of the same program.

“Lupe represents the kind of thinker that Yale champions,” Ogbunu told the News. “He had a very big impact on MIT.”

He and Ogbunu collaborated on projects and talked, and eventually Ogbunu invited him to take part in a College Tea at Saybrook. 

Nathan Mai ’25 attended the February College Tea, and described the experience as “surreal.” He said that Fiasco had been one of his favorite artists since he first heard the rapper’s feature on “Touch The Sky.”

“He really struck me as a cerebral guy when he was talking,” Mai said. “There were moments where he was quoting Aristotle next to A$AP Rocky… He had all sorts of little influences from everywhere. He seems like a very curious guy.” 

From the tea, Fiasco and Near bonded quickly — near, like Fiasco, is from Chicago, and connected with Fiasco’s music.

“We grew up in different geographic parts of the city, but we both faced very similar pressures, and I’m a white dude, and because of white privilege I was able to escape trouble,” Near noted.  “Lupe escaped trouble…by being an artist.”

His favorite song? “Kick, Push.” the lead single off Fiasco’s first album: “Lupe Fiasco’s Food and Liquor.”

Near nominated Fiasco as an Associate Fellow, and Fiasco was chosen this past March.

“Proud to announce I’ve been chosen to be a Saybrook Fellow at my OTHER favorite school in the whole wide world outside of MIT…@Yale,” Fiasco wrote on his Twitter on March 30. “Shout to Tom Near for nominating me to a place where against all odds two Chicagoans found a home in the Ivy League. #SayBrookCollege #SAYWHAT”

Mai had been following Fiasco’s MIT class from afar, and praised Fiasco’s desire to bring rap music into the university as an art form worth being studied as poetry.

Fiasco will likely continue living in Cambridge in the fall, but Near and Ogbunu are hopeful that he will establish a physical homespace at Yale in some capacity over the next year.

Sartaj Rajpal ’25, who produces hip-hop and house music, praised Fiasco’s lyricism, and said he was particularly excited about the opportunity to learn from such an accomplished hip-hop artist.

“ I will be spending some time in Saybrook that’s for sure,” Rajpal told the News. “I’d love to work with him at some point”

Near and Ogbunu both noted that Fiasco would be a resource for students interested in the arts.

The college will work with the rapper to set up lectures and talks — and perhaps even to establish a course for Fiasco to teach. 

“I love the fact that we have communities where we can bring people all together, regardless of who they are …. We all come together and we find community,” Near explained in closing. “I don’t think there’s a lot of institutions where that happens.”

Lupe Fiasco headlined Yale Spring Fling in 2011. 

The post Lupe Fiasco named Saybrook Associate Fellow appeared first on Yale Daily News.

The student advocacy group began circulating a resolution at the end of March which urges Yale to cut ties with G4S — a British private security company that provides Yale Security with the technology to track swipes into campus buildings. Y4P alleges that G4S has been involved in a litany of violations of human rights around the world, including in Israel and South Africa and at the United States–Mexico border.

The Y4P resolution has been co-signed by 19 student and New Haven organizations, and a petition calling for Yale to divest from G4S has also amassed over 100 signatures.

“With this campaign, specifically, we want to provide students with an outlet to engage in the issue that’s very relevant to them,” said Craig Birckhead-Morton ’24, who is a co-chair of Y4P. “It’s not just about Palestine, in this case, because G4S, broadly, is a part of the system of mass incarceration that’s existed in this country since the 90s.”

When asked to discuss Yale’s relationship with G4S, Ronnell Higgins, Yale’s associate vice president for public safety and community engagement, provided an “independent review” report by two British academics who concluded that G4S’s activities in Israel were not in violation of international law.

“Yale University takes social responsibility and association with vendors seriously,” Higgins told the News. “AMAG Technology has assured the University that it is committed to providing worldwide apolitical, ethical, and socially responsible services. They also affirm a commitment to treating matters of human rights seriously and ensuring that the company conducts its business in a way that meets internationally recognized human rights laws and standards.”   

According to G4S, the service it provides to Yale is the Symmetry SR Retrofit System, which is manufactured by AMAG Technology, a company owned by G4S. Yale upgraded 5,200 access card readers and 947 door controllers to AMAG’s system beginning in 2014. 

G4S did not respond to a request to comment for the article.

G4S’s Human Rights Abuses

In their resolution, Y4P details a series of G4S clients and services that they allege are in violation of international human rights standards.

Within the United States, the resolution criticizes G4S for helping Immigrations and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol in “imprisoning and deporting refugees.”

G4S was sued by the American Civil Liberties Union in 2018 for keeping four women shackled for hours in suffocating heat. The company was serving as a contractor for ICE and kept the women in a windowless, airless van for a 282-mile trip between migrant detention facilities that took 19 hours longer than it should have, according to the lawsuit.

“G4S is a huge company that has a lot of different arms, where they generally profit off of the securitization and the military industrial complex,” said Rebecca Wessel ’24, a member of Y4P.  “Namely in Israel, but also in other places, they help with a lot of work that ICE does at the border to detain migrants, and have also been involved in human rights abuses in prisons all over the world.”

Y4P also highlights an April 2019 report by the Council on Ethics for the Norwegian Government Pension Global Fund which determined that G4S committed systematic human rights violations against migrant workers it employed to work in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. The Council found repeated instances of G4S misleading migrant workers about their wages and working conditions. Workers also universally reported having their passports illegally confiscated by G4S, and several told stories of being forced to work while sick. 

In the conclusion of their report, the Council recommended that the Norwegian pension fund divest from G4S “due to an unacceptable risk that the company is contributing to systematic human rights violations.” And in November of 2019, the pension fund followed the recommendation, adding G4S to its list of excluded companies. 

In South Africa, Y4P organizers took issue with G4S operating Mangaung Prison, the second-largest private prison in the world. At Mangaung, G4S has been accused of torturing a prisoner to death, as well as forcibly administering electric shocks and anti-psychotic drugs to inmates to keep them subdued.

Birckhead-Morton emphasized that the violence G4S committed in South Africa was part of a legacy of European colonialism, with a wealthy British corporation imposing its will on a country that was largely Black and still impoverished.

“It’s gotten so bad, both in Britain and in South Africa, where some of these prisons, which were privatized and contracted out to G4S have been revoked,” Birckhead-Morton said. “I think once people hear that, there’s no doubt that they’ll want the university to cancel the contract.”

In Israel, Y4P organizers point to G4S’s 25 percent ownership stake in the Israeli security company G1 Secure Solutions, which until 2016 was completely owned by G4S. According to NGO WhoProfits, G1 Secure Solutions provides security services to Israeli settlements in areas of the occupied West Bank, settlements which are in violation of international law. 

Higgins did not respond directly to the allegations against G4S in the resolution. 

History of divestment

A number of prominent organizations have divested from G4S for their involvement in human rights abuses. 

On top of the Norwegian pension fund blacklisting G4S, the United Methodist Church did the same in 2014, explicitly citing the company’s then-involvement in Israeli prisons. The Danish pension fund MP Pension also divested from G4S in 2020, referencing the company’s “risk of repeated human rights violations.”

At Columbia University, students were successful in pressuring the university to divest from G4S in 2015. The University of California system also divested from G4S following student pressure the same year, and Cornell followed suit the next spring.

“Because of all the complicity, we are hoping that Yale can end its contract,” Wessel said. “We’ve seen other universities make similar choices, so we feel like it’s a realistic ask.”

Theia Chatelle ’25, the political action coordinator for the Yale Women’s Center, explained the center’s decision to sign on as part of their broader mission of fighting for justice around the world, whether that involves supporting student activism in New Haven or Palestinian organizers abroad.

“It’s Yale involving itself with evil corporations doing evil work around the world,” Chatelle said. “And I think drawing a line in the sand that says, ‘no, we as students are not okay with this’ is really important.” 

G4S made approximately $425 million in profit in 2020.

Correction 4/20: A previous version of this article misattributed quotes from Higgins to Houston. The article has also been updated to reflect that Yale does not have a contractual agreement with G4S, as well as that Yale did not purchase card readers from AMAG Technology but rather converted 947 existing access control panels to the AMAG SR panels.

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