Two years later, after reapplying to the program following her graduation, she was overcome with disbelief when the panel announced her as one of the 32 American Rhodes Scholars this year. Martinez-Alvarado said that hearing her name felt so surreal that for a few moments, she stood frozen, unable to fully process the moment. 

 “The person I was standing next to had to tap me on the shoulder and motion toward the judges for me to snap out of it,” she said.

Martinez-Alvarado is one of four Yalies this year who received Rhodes Scholarships this past weekend. Martinez-Alvarado and current Yale senior Angelin Mathew ’25 are two of the 32 American Rhodes Scholars and Chriss Tuyishime ’25, an international student from Rwanda, and Tony Wang ’24, an international student from China, are two of the international scholars chosen from over 70 countries around the world. 

Recipients of the Rhodes Scholarship receive funding for two to three years of graduate study at the University of Oxford, the foremost consideration being academic excellence. Since its inception in 1902, the qualities of a Rhodes scholar have been adapted to value an ambition for social impact and the ability to work with others.

“[Scholars] should be committed to make a strong difference for good in the world, be concerned for the welfare of others and be acutely conscious of inequities,” Ramona Doyle, American secretary of the Rhodes Trust, wrote in a press release announcing the 32 American Rhodes Scholars.  

Sayda Martinez-Alvarado ’23

After hearing her name called, Martinez-Alvarado immediately called her parents and then shortly after expressed thanks to the many friends and mentors who helped her throughout her journey to Yale and her Rhodes Scholarship. 

At Yale, Martinez-Alvarado majored in psychology and was in the Education Studies Program. Throughout her time at the University, she developed a passion for equitable education, which shaped many of the activities she was involved with at Yale. 

“I’ve always been committed to this mission of education, and making it more accessible to all students, and reimagining how we can make it a more effective tool for social and economic mobility,” she said. 

As a student who found immense comfort in the first-generation, low-income community, she provided mentorship as an FGLI student ambassador for the Yale College Dean’s Office. She was also the head first-year counselor for Davenport College, a head advising fellow for Matriculate, a nonprofit college advisory group, and the head conductor for the Davenport Pops Orchestra. 

Most recently, she has worked as a senior policy analyst at EdTrust, a nonprofit promoting educational access and opportunity for students of color and FGLI backgrounds. For the past year, she has been working to make college more affordable to students of color and from low-income backgrounds.

Martinez-Alvarado still plans to attend law school after her studies abroad, focusing on law within the education system. Since very few law schools offer such a curriculum, she reapplied for the Rhodes scholarship to pursue education-specific degrees at Oxford. She is particularly interested in two programs — a master’s in education and in evidence-based social intervention and policy evaluation.

Angelin Mathew ’25

For the final stage of the scholarship, Mathew flew to Atlanta for an interview, competing against 15 other finalists for two spots. When the panel announced that she had won, she immediately burst into tears and hugged the other finalists.

“I would be so happy if any of the other people in this room won because I had gotten to know their life stories,” Mathew said. “I was just filled with a lot of gratitude for having won, but at the same time, I was inspired by the other finalists around me.” 

Mathew is currently pursuing a double major in Molecular Biology and Humanities, focusing on Buddhist-Christian comparative theology. 

She is deeply interested in how spiritual and religious beliefs inform end-of-life care and medical decision-making, founding a global initiative called the Existential Flourishing Network. Mathew also led research focusing on socio-demographic locations of death across 20 years, cancer treatment affordability and treatment technologies that could improve the care of bedridden, terminally ill patients.

At Oxford, Mathew hopes to pursue a master’s in religious studies and a second in medical anthropology. She’s specifically interested in the UK’s initiatives to destigmatize death. Much of the work of the UK National Palliative Care Council aligns with the area of study that Mathew has been researching for the past two years. 

“They found that there was a really big gap between where people said they wanted to die and where they were actually dying. And part of their intuition was that this might be because there’s not enough mainstream discussion around death or advanced care planning,” she said. 

Mathew also hopes to study how different religions could inform patient-doctor relationships. 

Chriss Tuyishime ’25

Tuyishime is a senior majoring in Ethics, Politics, and Economics expecting to graduate in December. While pursuing a certificate in global health studies, he contributed to a policy brief on sustainable investment in the African pharmaceutical industry submitted to a senior official at the African Development Bank. For his senior thesis, he is researching Rwanda’s use of innovative aid modalities. 

Tuyishime has served as a marine student explorer in France, a summer law intern in Washington, D.C. and a college prep tutor in Rwanda. 

At Oxford, he plans to pursue two master’s degrees — in translational health sciences and in public policy.

Tony Wang ’24

As an undergraduate at Yale, Wang  received six awards, including the CMES Libby Rouse Prize Fellowship for Peace and the Conger-Goodyear Prize for Outstanding Senior Thesis. He was also named a Henry Fellow, which provided a fully funded scholarship to study in the UK. He graduated in 2024 with a double major in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations and History of Art.

Tony has studied Persian, Sanskrit, and several ancient languages to explore the history and archaeology of the Silk Roads. He has published four papers in Chinese and English, with another forthcoming, and serves as a trilingual editor for the “Journal of Ancient Iranian Studies.”

As a research assistant in the Yale Department of History and at the World Art History Institute in Shanghai, he deepened his expertise, while volunteering as a docent at the Mogao Caves in Dunhuang, the Capital Museum in Beijing, and the Tsinghua University Art Museum. His archaeological fieldwork in Afghanistan and Pakistan inspired his work with initiatives like “Guardians of Bamiyan” and “Guardians of Gandhara,” where he developed heritage preservation courses and site labels for local communities.

Tony plans to pursue research in archaeology at Oxford. He hopes to become a researcher based in China, focusing on cultural interactions and sharing archaeological insights through public education.

Currently, there are more than 2,000 American Rhodes Scholars globally.

Update, Nov. 20: Since the publication of this article, Tony Wang ’24, an international student from Beijing, China, has also been named a Rhodes Scholar, and the article has been updated to reflect this.

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Pro-institutional neutrality members of the panel expressed concerns that the University taking a stance on world issues could deter junior faculty interested in joining Yale who have dissenting opinions due to the power dynamic between University administrators and junior faculty. 

A common sentiment among the Faculty for Yale panelists was that the University taking a stance would “chill” discourse and place those who oppose the University’s position in an uncomfortable position. 

Wesleyan University President Michael Roth, who opposes neutrality, joined four Faculty for Yale members who support the concept on the panel. The event featured panelists law professor and former dean of Yale Law School Anthony Kronman, political science professor Hélène Landemore, professor of political science and global affairs Ian Shapiro and associate professor of psychiatry Michael Strambler. 

A crowd of approximately 75 community members, mostly professors, raised their hands to ask questions and voice their opinions on institutional neutrality throughout the panel. Institutional neutrality is the policy under which higher education institutions decide not to take positions on current events that do not directly relate to the university.

The panelists discussed the role an institution should have in discussing world issues and how an institution taking a stance on an issue could affect professors at the University. Roth was the only member of the panel who dissented against institutional neutrality, arguing that universities should be allowed to comment on world events that affect members of their communities.

“What did Rick Levin say on behalf of the University that corrupted the conversation of free speech at Yale?” Roth asked. “What did [the presidents] say that made you feel like they’re really getting in your way to pursue the truth?”

Administrators such as University Provost Scott Strobel and former Law School Dean Robert Post LAW ’77 were present at the event. Most members of the University committee that will advise University President Maurie McInnis on whether to adopt neutrality were also present, including Sterling Professor of Philosophy Michael Della Rocca, School of Management Dean Kerwin Charles, religious studies professor Jennifer Herdt and history professor Stephen Pitti ’91.

Law professor Kate Stith, one of the architects of Faculty for Yale, said that the panel had been planned since last spring before McInnis was chosen and initiated consideration of neutrality at Yale. 

Faculty for Yale formed in February, inspired by the Council on Academic Freedom at Harvard, to promote free expression and diverse viewpoints at Yale. The group does not have hierarchies or official leadership positions, and formed from “just a bunch of us sitting around,” Stith said.

Stith said that institutional neutrality was not intended to be the main focus of the faculty group, but that it’s now a timely discussion since the idea is under official consideration.

“We thought it’s something you could put your arms around, but then it turned out to be the issue of the day,” Stith said. “One of the missions of the group is to have serious, contested conversations. So in some ways, this [panel] is an example about what we want to see more of at Yale.”

Stith said that Faculty for Yale asked Roth to join the panel because they were interested in his public statements on the topic, including a New York Times opinion piece, and wanted to include him as “our neighbor.” Wesleyan is located in Middletown, Conn., approximately 20 miles from Yale.

Stith said that a handful of Faculty for Yale members met with McInnis before the panel and communicated the organization’s goals.

“We told her we’re having this,” Stith said. “She thanked us for meeting with her. She had read our statement. She said she couldn’t come but she would send some people from her office.”

Beyond institutional neutrality, faculty members focused on the idea of departmental neutrality. Kronman expressed concern for departments releasing unsigned letters, such as a 2021 statement by the program on Ethnicity, Race & Migration that recognized the “Palestinian struggle as an indigenous liberation movement” and condemned “Israeli state-sponsored attacks” on Palestinians. 

“In some ways, I think institutional neutrality is even more important at the departmental level,” Strambler told the News.

While he thinks faculty members can take stances as individuals, Strambler warns faculty in administrative positions and senior faculty to be careful about “proselytizing in the classroom.” 

“I think it was a good variety,” professor Steven Smith, who provided closing remarks to the panel, told the News. “It probably didn’t cover the entire range of opinions, but Michael Roth certainly was a provocateur. Certainly, the panel didn’t suffer from consensus. I think there was a lively debate.”

Harvard University adopted institutional neutrality in May 2024.

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Trump announced Vance as his running mate on his social media platform Truth Social during the first day of the Republican National Convention — or RNC — in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. On Wednesday, the third day of the RNC, Vance officially accepted the nomination, delivering a speech that touched on his Midwest upbringing, his tenure at Yale Law School and his perspectives on economic policy and border security.

The News spoke with seven members of the Yale community — two from Yale College and five from Yale Law School — who shared a diverse array of opinions on Vance’s selection. Some expressed concerns about Vance’s shifting position on Trump and his firm conservative stance, while others commended his journey from a low-income family in Ohio to U.S. Senator, noting his capacity to resonate with working Americans and younger voters because of his background and age.

“It’s a smart choice by the Trump campaign that will make it even harder for the Democrats in November,” Sage Mason LAW ’24 wrote to the News. “It’s difficult to predict what kind of Vice President (or President) J.D. would be, because his views have changed so much over the last few years.”

In his 2016 memoir and New York Times bestseller “Hillbilly Elegy,” Vance discusses his background where he focuses on his upbringing in Middletown, Ohio, amidst a backdrop of poverty, family dysfunction and the cultural challenges of Appalachia. 

Through personal stories and reflections, Vance explores themes of personal responsibility, the impact of “hillbilly” culture and the resilience needed to transcend his circumstances, culminating in his journey from a troubled upbringing to his academic career as an undergraduate at the Ohio State University and later Yale Law School.

Jake McDonald LAW ’25 told the News that Vance’s memoir “spoke to the soul of America in a way few others have.”  

“His unique background – coming from a working class family in a working class community – will provide a much-needed voice to those problems and help to develop solutions,” McDonald said.

He added that Vance has been a “stellar representative and alumnus of YLS.”

After graduating high school, Vance served in the Marine Corps for four years as a Combat Correspondent, including deployment to Iraq. His military service enabled him to attend Ohio State with the support of the G.I. Bill, which provides school funding for veterans. 

With his assumption as Trump’s VP, Vance becomes the first military veteran on a major presidential ticket since former Senator John McCain in 2008.

Devin Froseth LAW ’25 told the News that Vance “understands everyday Americans in a way that most national politicians don’t.” Froseth highlighted aspects of Vance’s background — from economic insecurity to a challenging family life — that resonates deeply with many Americans. 

As a veteran himself, Froseth emphasized that despite Vance’s difficult upbringing, he chose to serve the nation in the Marine Corps, describing him as “the rare politician who never forgot his roots.”

“Trump chose Vance in spite of him attending an Ivy League school,” Forseth said. “Vance understands the millions of Americans who feel unrepresented by our government. Vance is a voice for the millions of hard working Americans from communities dealing with poverty, crime, a lack of jobs, and other tough situations.”

Vance is married to Usha Vance ’07 LAW ’13, whom he met at Yale Law School. Vance, the daughter of Indian immigrants, is from San Diego, California. She studied history at Yale College and later pursued her legal education at Yale Law School, where she served as the Executive Development Editor of the Yale Law Journal. 

Following law school, she clerked for Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh ’87 LAW ’90, who at the time was still a judge on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, and later for Chief Justice John Roberts. She has since established herself as a practicing attorney. 

On the third day of the RNC, Usha Vance also spoke, emphasizing her husband’s impoverished upbringing and the dynamic of opposites attracting, underscoring their diverse backgrounds.

“J.D., Usha, and their three young kids are a model American family and example of the American Dream, and Usha will bring intelligence, grace, and presence as Second Lady,” Froseth said.

Trevor MacKay ’25 told the News that it is “refreshing” to have a relatively young candidate. Vance, 39, would be one of the youngest vice presidents in American history if Trump were to win the presidency. 

MacKay said that for too long, he felt like the political system has been dominated by people several generations removed and that Vance will be a key player in decades to come. He said that Trump’s pick made sense since Vance is “intelligent, articulate, and far enough removed from the Washington, D.C. status quo to energize the base and attract new voters interested in new ideas.”  

MacKay added that he is especially looking forward to his debate with Vice President Kamala Harris since it will give him a chance to introduce himself to people who only know him through “the filtered lens” of the news or social media.

However, others who spoke with the News voiced concerns about Trump’s selection of Vance.

Yash Chauhan ’26 wrote to the News that through his selection of Vance as his running mate, Trump has shown that political gain and loyalty take precedence for him over real qualifications. He said that Vance, once a harsh critic of Trump, could have offered a new vision for the Republican Party with his education and unique upbringing. Vance has since become a staunch Trump ally. 

In office, Vance has maintained a consistently conservative stance, opposing abortion and foreign aid to Ukraine, while championing an “America First” political agenda.

“Moments like this remind us that while a Yale education is indeed a great privilege and honor, it by no means guarantees that its recipients will stand by the principles of ‘light and truth,’” Chauhan said.

Vance’s team did not respond to a request for comment.

Duncan Hosie LAW ’21, an appellate lawyer and former fellow at the ACLU, said that Vance is a “chameleonic charlatan” and that Vance’s change from Trump critic to ally is “a case study in cynical opportunism.”

MacKay said that Vance’s shifting views do not reflect dishonesty but rather reflect an individual who is “methodical” in the way he conducts himself, which he said can be seen in his nonpolitical conversion to Catholicism. MacKay said that he places a lot of value on not only what a candidate thinks, but how they have arrived at those ideas.

“While his politics have changed significantly since he authored ‘Hillbilly Elegy’, I do not think the way he arrives at his ideas has,” MacKay said.

Gevin Reynolds LAW ’26 said that in selecting Vance as his running-mate, Trump has rejected conventional wisdom, which would say to choose someone who can bring balance to the ticket, like a woman or person of color. 

Instead, Reynolds said, Trump doubled down on “the election denialism, America First-ism, and MAGA extremism that his base so craves.”

Reynolds — who is an official surrogate for the Biden-Harris campaign — added that Trump has anointed Vance as “heir apparent to the [Make America Great Again] Movement.” 

“Long term, I’m interested to see how the selection of J.D. Vance impacts what some have termed the ‘realignment’ playing out in politics today,” Reynolds told the News. “If Trump and Vance govern as champions for the working class, they have the potential to attract a significant chunk of non-college-educated voters — especially men — of all races to their Republican Party.”

MacKay – who identifies as “traditionally conservative”  –  told the News that while he does not agree with everything Vance says or believes, he views Vance’s ideas and selection as the VP candidate as indicative of a substantial shift in the priorities of the Republican Party, possibly unmatched since Reagan. While a newcomer to politics, Mackay believes Vance’s background lends him a lot of credibility and reliability to a wide variety of the population.

“I am sure that Yale and the professors here helped inculcate that intellectual aggressiveness in Senator Vance. There is a reason so many politicians have been graduates of Yale,” MacKay told the News. “Without Yale, I am sure there would have been no Senator Vance.” 

Vance was elected to the Senate in 2022.

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She received her bachelor’s degree in art history from the University of Virginia and master’s and doctoral degrees in the history of art from Yale. Throughout her career, McInnis’ academic work has focused on the relationship between art and early American politics, as well as themes of race, slavery and power in the American South.

“I can’t say enough good things about her scholarship except perhaps to say it is exceptionally timely for Yale right now,” Bruce Robertson GRD ’78 GRD ’83 GRD ’87, a professor of the history of art and architecture at the University of California, Santa Barbara, said. “You have in Maurie a very able administrator, but also someone who is fearless in treading into new scholarly areas around race and identity and who does it sensitively.”

In her most recent 2019 book “Educated in Tyranny: Slavery at Thomas Jefferson’s University,” which McInnis co-authored, she and her colleagues explore the history of slavery at the University of Virginia.

Leslie Harris, a professor of history at Northwestern University who researches African American history, told the News that “Educated in Tyranny” is an “important addition” to the ongoing research on the history of slavery and enslaved peoples at institutions of higher education and that she is impressed that McInnis was able to balance her work as an administrator with her commitment to completing the book. At UVA, McInnis served as director of American studies and later vice-provost for academic affairs. 

In addition to editing the book, McInnis contributed a chapter entitled “Violence,” where, according to Harris, she demonstrated her “unflinching attention” to Thomas Jefferson’s and the University of Virginia’s “troubled histories and legacies” regarding slavery and race. 

She added that society “desperately” needs university leaders who can speak eloquently on these issues, and she is hopeful that McInnis will rise to the challenge.

“Most university administrators shied away from such investigations, fearing the controversies they would bring, or simply in denial about the role of slavery at their institutions, but McInnis went in the opposite direction,” Harris said. “I hope that she will bring a similar fearless leadership to Yale.”

In 2011, McInnis published “Slaves Waiting for Sale: Abolitionist Art and the American Slave Trade.” 

The book uses paintings to examine the slave trade in the American South and examines the role of visual culture and iconography in transatlantic abolitionism movements.

“‘Slaves Waiting for Sale’ is a model of engaged scholarship,” said Edward Ayers GRD ’78 GRD ’80, former president of the University of Richmond and founding chair of the board of the American Civil War Museum. “The book displays an astonishing range of talents, weaving the history of art into a rich interpretation of an entire society.”

According to Bernie Herman, a professor of American studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a member of McInnis’ dissertation committee, the book centers on a single painting in a far-reaching narrative that cuts across the antebellum South and transatlantic debates over the human cost and contested ideologies of slavery. 

Herman added that McInnis’ work in this field “epitomizes the best in scholarship,” and her accomplishments are “nothing short of extraordinary.”

Robertson wrote that when he first read the book he was “astounded” at what she discovered in her work. He said that it takes “amazing research skills” to find the material she uses in the book and putting it to work interpreting images is “astonishingly smart and creative.” 

He added that the book demonstrates that if you dig hard enough, it is possible to recover the suppressed voices of enslaved Black Americans in their “particularity and humanity.”

In 2020, when McInnis was also considered for a chaired appointment at Stony Brook University, David Shields, a ​​professor of English language and literature at the University of South Carolina, was tasked by Stony Brook to provide a summary assessment of McInnis’ academic work. In the report, which was obtained by the News, Shields traced McInnis’ work from her first published work, “The Politics of Taste in Antebellum Charleston,” published in 2005, which explores how the city came to be regarded as one of the most refined in antebellum America, to “Slaves Waiting For Sale.” 

Shields praised McInnis’ academic scholarship and said that Stony Brook would be fortunate if they counted McInnis as a colleague.

“Because Dr. McInnis is such an eminence in the field of early American art history and material culture studies, it is not difficult to make a case for her tenured appointment … as this letter suggests, I regard McInnis as one of the most important scholars in the field of art history and material culture studies,” Shields wrote in the report.

McInnis will be the first woman to serve as Yale’s president in a non-interim capacity. 

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At the discussion, which was organized by the William F. Buckley Jr. Program in partnership with the Young America Foundation Irving Series, Cruz and Knowles discussed issues of free speech and intellectual diversity on Yale’s campus; however, Cruz’s visit to New Haven was met with backlash from several on-campus student groups.

One student, Jamie Nicolas ’25, previously told the News that Cruz visiting Yale would “give him a platform” and “affirm his actions.” Another student, Carly Benson ’24, who is from Texas, said she felt confused as to why Cruz would bother coming to campus at all, noting that she had already heard people plan to boycott or protest the event. 

The Buckley Program at Yale, an organization committed to “promoting intellectual diversity and free speech,” according to its website, is known for frequently bringing controversial guests to Yale’s campus to discuss topics of free speech. Throughout the Class of 2024’s time at Yale, the group has hosted several such guests, including former United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in November 2022, former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Ben Carson ’73, and Yale Law School professor Amy Chua.

“That some perspectives diverging from those held commonly may have value, does not mean that perspectives have value because they diverge from the majority,” Texan student Naomi D’Arbell Bobadilla ’22 told the News in 2022 ahead of Cruz’s visit. “This is especially worth remembering when the majority in question is the majority of people who did not enable a right-wing insurrection, which Ted Cruz did.” 

Before their discussion at the event, then-Buckley president Kevin Xiao ’23 highlighted the significance of Cruz’s visit to Yale and the opportunity for him to speak with students holding differing viewpoints. Knowles also emphasized this point, stating that “Yale certainly lacks intellectual diversity” and underscoring the importance, in his view, of bringing intellectual diversity to the University.

Throughout the discussion, Knowles and Cruz discussed several topics such as education in which Cruz voiced support for Florida’s March 2020 “Parental Rights in Education” bill, known by opponents as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill and opposed the teaching of critical race theory. 

The two also discussed the confirmation of then-recent Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first Black woman to sit on the nation’s highest court. During Jackson’s confirmation hearing, Cruz made national headlines for his aggressive questioning on topics such as critical race theory and discrimination against transgender people.

​​“If you take an unpopular position, you risk being denigrated, you risk being ostracized,” Cruz said during the event. “And so people often just shut up about it, [they] just say, ‘You know, I’m going to keep my views quiet.’ How you come through that, I think, is one of the real testing aspects of education.”

Both opposed students and members of the Buckley Program anticipated protests ahead of the event. Xiao said that he welcomed any protests conducted “peacefully and in a manner that does not disrupt the event.” 

However, rather than directly protesting the event, many campus organizations — such as Yale College Democrats, The Yale Politic, the Yale Undergraduate Legal Aid Association, and Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán — planned a day of action for their causes.

The day included a Cross Campus fundraiser that raised over $1,600 for Texas-based organizations, such as the Texas ACLU, the Texas Organizing Project, Planned Parenthood of Greater Texas and the Central Texas Transgender Health Coalition. Following the fundraiser was a panel discussing the Jan. 6, 2021 riots, the day in which a mob of supporters of former president Donald Trump surged the United States Capitol, and a phone-banking session in support of Democratic Texas state Senate candidates.

“Our programming is inspired by our faith in direct action and commitment to supporting grassroots organizations that serve communications left by Sen. Cruz and his political allies,” then-Dems President Kyle Mayer ’23 told the News.

Protests surrounding Cruz’s visit to campus were not the only ones related to free speech at the time. At Yale Law School in March 2022, over 100 students gathered to protest a panel featuring Kristen Waggoner, who serves as president of the conservative legal advocacy group Alliance Defending Freedom, which was designated by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a hate organization. More recently, in April 2024, Erin Hawley LAW ’05, who counsels for the ADF and argued against the right to abortion pills at the Supreme Court, also visited the Law School.

Both Cruz and Waggoner’s visits to campus raised discussions surrounding free speech on Yale and college campuses around the nation

On Sept. 29, 2022, U.S. Circuit Judge James Ho called for a boycott of hiring law clerks from Yale in a speech to a Federalist Society conference in Kentucky. Ho cited concerns about free speech, saying Yale tolerates “cancel culture,” especially against conservatives. On Oct. 7, 2022, Federal Appeals Court Judge Elizabeth Branch announced she would join the boycott in a statement to the National Review released.

Last October, Law School Dean Heather Gerken announced a new program, Crossing Divides, aimed to encourage discussion across political and ideological lines.  The program seeks to equip law students with the skills to collaborate with individuals from different backgrounds, according to the Law School’s website. The program has hosted several events throughout the 2023-24 academic year featuring top government officials from opposing ideological sides, all focused on the theme of working across political lines.

“Such differences of opinion remind us of why we have free speech, especially at institutions of higher learning where the mission is the cultivation and creation of new knowledge,” Xiao previously told the News. “Students should be able to hear different voices, engage with them in good faith, and decide for ourselves whether we agree or disagree. Only through open and honest discussion can we grow and better understand our own values and beliefs.”

Cruz received his law degree from Harvard Law School in 1995.

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In a joint Monday evening statement, 25 affiliate organizations of the Asian American Cultural Center expressed solidarity with the arrested students and those involved in the protests. In the statement, which was not officially endorsed by the AACC, the groups wrote that they were “greatly saddened” by the administration’s response to protests they characterized as non-violent. They also wrote that they were disappointed that the University had failed to “protect marginalized voices” on its campus.

“I think that each member who signed the statement has their own intentions and reasonings, but speaking personally, I decided to vote for signing because of the history of solidarity and advocacy for liberation that precedes KASY and the Korean American community at large,” said Mark Chung ’25, co-president of the Korean American Students Association at Yale, who signed the statement alongside the 24 other AACC affiliate organizations. “We as Koreans are defined by the lasting effects of colonialism and American imperialism, and it is our duty to stand with those around the world fighting against the same struggles.”

Chung told the News that KASY was involved in the planning and drafting of the letter alongside the other organizations listed as co-signers. He added that KASY voted on the statement as a board, with the stipulation that without a unanimous vote, they would not sign the letter. The statement ultimately received unanimous support.

Since early last week, campus has been embroiled in discourse around divestment. Hundreds of Yale students and community members have protested the University’s investments in military weapons manufacturers in light of Israel’s ongoing war against Hamas in Gaza.

The protests included an extended student occupation of Beinecke Plaza beginning on Friday, April 19. Early in the morning on Monday, April 22, Yale police arrested 48 student protesters for trespassing on Beinecke Plaza and cleared out their encampments. Using zip ties, officers escorted them through the College Street entrance of the Schwarzman Center onto Yale Shuttle buses.

The arrested protesters faced charges of criminal trespassing, categorized as a Class A misdemeanor, before being released with citations and an assigned court date of May 8. Arrested students will also be referred to the Yale College Executive Committee for disciplinary action, potentially resulting in reprimand, probation or suspension.

The protesters have since relocated to Cross Campus, where dozens of students remain as of Wednesday night.   

“We are firmly against the University’s criminalization of peaceful protest, and stand united with our friends and peers, who were arrested by YPD Monday morning, in calling for Yale’s disclosure of and divestment from military weapons manufacturers, along with a ceasefire in Gaza,” Joshua Ching ’26, president of the Indigenous Peoples of Oceania cultural group, who also co-signed the AACC-affiliated statement, wrote to the News.

Ching said that for the IPO, divestment from military weapons manufacturers is about solidarity with the Palestinian people and about “fighting against the ongoing military occupation” of Pacific island nations, which he said include Hawai‘i, Guåhan, West Papua and which IPO members “call home”

Ching added that the IPO also signed another joint statement with student organizations affiliated with the Native American Cultural Center expressing similar sentiments.

Following the arrests, several cultural groups have continued to participate in events with pro-Palestine protesters. On Tuesday, April 23, Mecha de Yale, a student organization dedicated to social justice for the Latine community, collaborated with Yalies4Palestine to host an event titled “Baila Por Un Sueño.”

At the event, which was held on Cross Campus from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m, attendees participated in events focused on creating “intercultural solidarity while centering and having all eyes on Palestine.” Programming included poster-making workshops and an informal teach-in about Palestinian resistance symbologies, as well as Palestinian and Latin American solidarity poetry readings and dance workshops.

On Monday, the Black Students Alliance at Yale also released a statement condemning the arrests of the pro-Palestine protesters. In the statement, BSAY wrote that the group “condemn[s] Yale’s criminalization of our peers.”

“We released a statement yesterday to make clear that we stand in solidarity with our peers who were arrested yesterday,” Momona Hadish ’25 and Anna Elesinmogun ’25, co-presidents of BSAY, wrote in a joint statement to the News. “We understand that as presidents of BSAY, our organization would not be standing without political and social justice efforts — without those taking bold stances for what is right — thus, it is our responsibility to speak out when such grave injustices are occurring on our campus.”  

Yale’s first cultural center, the Afro-American Cultural Center, was established in 1969.

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The case, Monk v. United States, seeks to address racial discrimination and persistent bias against Black veterans in housing, education and disability benefits, tracing back to the inception of 1945’s postwar G.I. Bill. This military benefit, administered by the VA, assists veterans and their dependents in covering expenses for programs like college, graduate school and other training programs. Yale Law School’s Veterans Legal Services Clinic and the Chicago-based law firm Edelson PC are representing the petitioners in this case.

“Black veterans should never have to fight systemic unfairness and racial discrimination in the VA, much less in 2024,” said Theo Benjamin, an attorney at Edelson PC. “But this ruling is an important step toward ending those harms.”

The case was brought forward by Conley Monk Jr., a Black U.S. Marine who served during the Vietnam War, on behalf of the National Veterans Council for Legal Redress. Monk alleges that upon returning from the war, he was consistently denied access to his entitled veterans benefits in housing, education and disability. 

Despite suffering a stroke in 2010, Monk’s attempts to apply for veterans disability benefits were rejected, and subsequent efforts in 2012 faced the same outcome. Monk contends that these experiences inflicted upon him “dignitary, emotional, and psychological harm.” Furthermore, he alleges that his father, a World War II veteran, encountered similar hurdles in accessing veterans’ benefits in the decades following his service.

In his 25-page opinion, Judge Stefan Underhill LAW ’84 rejected the government’s motion to dismiss the case, arguing that the court lacked the jurisdiction to hear it. The court determined that the allegations of ongoing and systemic racial discrimination warranted the advancement of the case. With its ruling, Monk v. United States stands out as one of the rare instances in U.S. history in which a case seeking to redress historic discrimination has successfully overcome a motion to dismiss.

“The risk of harm that veterans would be denied benefits in a racially discriminatory manner was reasonably foreseeable to the VA,” the decision reads. “The VA should have known as early as the 1970s that Black veterans were at a greater risk of benefits denials than white veterans. Two studies found Black servicemembers were substantially likelier to face disciplinary action and an unfavorable discharge classification.” 

In an email to the News, Gary Kunich, a public affairs specialist for the VA who sent a statement on behalf of VA Press Secretary Terrence Hayes, declined to comment on the lawsuit. Hayes said in the statement that the VA “doesn’t comment on potential and pending litigation.”

In the statement, Hayes wrote that the VA “will not rest until every Black veteran — and every veteran — gets the benefits they deserve at the VA.”

“Our mission at VA is to provide Veterans with the health care and benefits that they’ve earned,” the statement reads. “That is why we have set up a new Agency Equity Team and the new Equity Assurance Office at VA: to identify any differences in VA health care and benefits, understand them, and eliminate them.”

However, other experts and advocates still take issue with the VA’s alleged bias and discrimination in providing Black veterans their benefits.

Richard Brookshire, chief executive officer and co-founder of the Black Veterans Project, said that there have been billions in economic loss to Black veterans due to the VA’s alleged neglect and that the court’s ruling denying the VA’s motion to dismiss is a “historic step toward justice.”

​​“Monk v. United States is the most important legal case reckoning with the legacy of racial discrimination against Black veterans in our nation’s history,” said Brookshire. “Since its inception, the Department of Veterans Affairs has designed and implemented its benefits programs to reinforce our nation’s racial caste system – neglecting its moral, ethical and legal responsibility to intervene to ensure racism was not a barrier to accessing home loans, education benefits and disability compensation.”

Jared Hirschfield LAW ’25, a member of the VLS clinic who worked on the case, told the News that Monk, his brother Garry Monk and Brookshire deserve “tremendous” credit for their strategic vision in building and litigating this case.

He added that it was a privilege for himself and his law school colleagues to work alongside them in this “historic case for racial justice.”

“Judge Underhill’s decision is a huge win for our clients — Conley Monk Jr. and the National Veterans Council for Legal Redress — and for Black veterans nationwide,” Hirschfield wrote to the News. “For the first time ever, a federal court concluded that Plaintiffs sufficiently alleged that VA knew or should have known about racial disparities in its disability benefits program going back decades — disparities many Black veterans have long suspected.”

The National Veterans Council for Legal Redress is located at 197 Dixwell Ave.

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The discussion, which was off the record, was co-hosted by the Yale Law Democrats, the South Asian Law Students Association, the reproductive justice group If/When/How, the Election Law Society and the American Constitution Society. According to Yale Law Democrats President Sage Mason LAW ’24, at the event, Gupta discussed her journey from law school to the American Civil Liberties Union, the Civil Rights Division, the Leadership Conference and her tenure as an associate attorney general.

“We invited Vanita Gupta because she could offer unique insights and reflections as a leader at the forefront of the fight for justice and civil rights,” Yale Law Democrats president Sage Mason LAW ’24 told the News. “It was a rare opportunity to engage with such a high-level official so soon after the conclusion of their government service.”

Gupta pursued her undergraduate studies at Yale College before obtaining her law degree from New York University School of Law in 2001. Following law school, from 2006 to 2010, Gupta served as a staff attorney with the ACLU’s Racial Justice Program. During this time, she concentrated on systemic criminal justice reform, immigration detention and education litigation. She achieved a settlement on behalf of immigrant children detained at a privately run prison in Texas, ultimately resulting in the end of family detention in that facility.

In October 2014, former President Barack Obama appointed Gupta as the United States assistant attorney general for civil rights and head of the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division. She made history again when President Joe Biden nominated her on Jan. 7, 2021, to serve as the United States associate attorney general, becoming the first woman of color in that role. Confirmed by the Senate on April 21, 2021, Gupta became the 19th United States associate attorney general. In this capacity, she oversaw several divisions of the Department of Justice, including civil litigating divisions such as the Civil Division and the Civil Rights Division, as well as various grantmaking components and offices.

Gupta completed her tenure in the position on Feb. 2.

“I’m inspired by her leadership as the first woman of color to hold a top three leadership position in the Department of Justice,” Michelle Charles LAW ’26 told the News.

Charles, who is the incoming president of the Black Law Students Association, told the News that her attendance at the event was driven by her aspirations in civil rights law. She said that she sought Gupta’s perspective, given his extensive experience as both an impact litigator and a government attorney in the realm of civil rights.

Indu Pandey LAW ’26, a member of If/When/How, told the News that because Gupta was the chair of the Department of Justice’s Reproductive Rights task force after Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, the case that overturned the constitutional right to an abortion, the group thought it would be “fruitful” for their members to attend the discussion.

Pandey added that there are currently two cases at the Supreme Court related to reproductive rights that Gupta worked on during her time in the Department of Justice and therefore, Pandey said, it was “fascinating to hear about the life-cycles of those cases from her and the DoJ’s perspective.”

Gevin Reynolds LAW ’26, who was elected to be the next president of the Yale Law Democrats, told the News that he was excited to welcome Gupta back to campus.

“As a lawyer and a leader, she has dedicated her career to strengthening our nation’s civil rights protections. Hearing her reflect on her work inside and outside of government inspired our members to keep fighting for justice, no matter where we might find ourselves working,” Reynolds told the News. 

He added the Yale Law Democrats were excited to partner with organizations like the South Asian Law Students Association, the American Constitutional Society and If/When/How on this event, and that under his leadership next year, the group will “continue to look for ways to build a coalition through the events we put on.” 

This past academic year, the Yale Law Democrats have hosted events with Mayor Justin Elicker, Zayn Siddique LAW ’16, former principal deputy of the Domestic Policy Council and former Biden White House Council Stuart Delery LAW ’93.

Overall, the event’s organizers expressed that they were pleased with how Gupta’s discussion turned out. 

“The events were both hugely successful, providing an opportunity to engage intimately with ASG Gupta and the legal issues she’s dealt with throughout her storied career,” Mason said. “At the Yale Law Democrats general body meeting following our dinner talk with ASG Gupta, we also had the chance to reflect on this past year, set the course for the year ahead, and introduce our incredible new board members.”

Gupta graduated magna cum laude from Yale College.

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Loehr, who worked with student research assistants Balen Essak-Hernandez LAW ’25 and Courtney Perales LAW ’25 on the brief, seeks to demonstrate how the habitual criminal law in Colorado — a law that imposes harsher penalties on defendants with prior convictions — is rooted in the eugenics movement. According to Loehr, the brief illustrates this by tracing the history of habitual criminal law.

“Most histories of habitual criminal laws begin in the 1980s and 1990s and the laws are described as emerging from the tough-on-crime era. I noticed that in fact many of the laws emerged much earlier, as part of the eugenics movement,” Loehr told the News. “We realized that this history could be helpful to courts that are reviewing habitual criminal laws, so we agreed to share the history through an amicus brief.”

The case, Ward v. the People of Colorado, involves an individual who robbed an ice cream store in the early 1990s. Colorado charged him under the habitual criminal law and he was sentenced to life in prison, where he still remains today. According to Loehr, the individual has been in prison for 31 years, more than half of his life.

In 2019, the Colorado Supreme Court established a rule in the case Wells-Yates v. People that limited the state’s power to impose the harshest habitual criminal punishments. The court held that when reviewing sentences, courts should look to Colorado’s evolving standards of decency on what punishment should be attached to a crime.

The petitioner in Ward v. the People of Colorado is arguing that his sentence should be reconsidered in light of the 2019 Wells-Yates decision; however, the state is taking the position that the Wells-Yales decision is not retroactive, meaning that it would not apply to sentences prior to when Wells-Yates was decided.

Loehr said that the issue before the court in this case is whether or not Wells-Yates should be applied to the individual in this case, and therefore, whether his sentence should be reviewed.

“Because Wells-Yates trained its attention on evolving standards of decency, the amicus brief provides the historical context of Colorado’s habitual criminal law to show how much has changed,” Loehr told the News. “In particular, the brief documents the eugenic roots of habitual criminal laws, and how they were premised on the belief that so-called ‘habitual criminals’ were an inferior subspecies that should be prevented from reproducing.”

Loehr told the News that Essak-Hernandez and Perales have done “extensive research” for the brief.  He said that they spent the fall going state by state and tracing statues back a hundred years, using HeinOnline, a historical archive that provides users with access to statutes from all fifty states. 

In addition, Loehr said, the students also helped him edit and finalize the brief before it was released.

“As someone who came into law school with a background in criminology, I was specifically looking for an opportunity to continue engaging in questions around criminal justice reform,” Perales told the News. “This project seemed like a natural fit and also addressed a topic area that I was not familiar with.”

Perales said in the months leading up to the brief, the team worked to identify original habitual offender laws across the 50 states, focusing on the period from the late 1800s to the early-mid 1900s to collect legislative materials, articles and laws that referenced eugenics ideologies of the time.

She added that the brief presents “key findings” on the origins of habitual offender statutes with the eugenics movement in the United States, showing how eugenicists sought to incapacitate those believed to be “inherently criminal” by influencing the passage of habitual offender and sterilization laws.

“I am hoping the brief raises awareness around the racist underpinnings of these laws and challenges their deployment to lengthen sentences for defendants,” Perales said.

Essak-Hernandez told the News that a lot of the work he did for this brief was looking at state statutes and tracing them back to the eugenics movement. He added that he worked with Perales to see the national scope of what different habitual offender sentencing laws look like throughout the country.

“We would take one of these laws and just trace it back through time, whether that be using online resources, or print resources, because not everything is digitized,” Essak-Hernandez told the News. “We would look through the archives of the statutes, looking at when they were passed, and when they were amended, seeing if the timeframe that they were passed lined up with the eugenics movement.”

Essak-Hernandez also said that this brief is more than just about the case in Colorado as it looks at habitual criminal laws throughout the country.

Loehr told the News that the team collaborated with John Nann, a lecturer in legal research and librarian at the Law School. Loehr said Nann provided guidance on conducting statutory history research and identifying resources. Additionally, Alison Burke, a library services assistant at the Lillian Goldman Law Library at Yale Law School, assisted in swiftly locating out-of-print books and articles from a century ago concerning the correlation between eugenics and habitual criminal law.

Overall, Loehr, Perales and Essak-Hernandez stressed the significance of tracing the historical trajectory of laws governing the American populace. Loehr further underscored the importance of this brief for forthcoming legal cases across the country.

“We collectively inherit laws that were passed by our predecessors, and then we enforce them, often without understanding what the laws were intended to do and what ideas they were premised on,” Loehr said. “If those premises no longer hold true, then the laws ought to be reconsidered. Habitual criminal laws were premised on the idea that individuals inherit criminality and cannot be cured of it, and thus need to be prevented from reproduction, through incarceration. That idea is horrific, and yet we continue to enforce habitual criminal laws. I hope that courts and policymakers who learn this history will be able to make better-informed decisions about whether we should continue to enforce eugenic era habitual criminal laws.”

Loehr received his law degree at the New York University School of Law.

Correction, April 13: This article has been updated to correct the title of Daniel Loehr.

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When Hawley joined the ranks of the ADF, the group was involved in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, the case that challenged the constitutional right to abortion. Hawley worked with the ADF to argue against abortion rights, which were presented before the Supreme Court later that year. The following June, in an opinion authored by Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito LAW ’75, the Court sided with the ADF, overturning nearly five decades of legal precedent established by Roe v. Wade.

Hawley, who currently serves as senior counsel and vice president of the Center for Life and regulatory practice at the ADF, is today at the forefront of the next major abortion case to reach the Supreme Court. The case, FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, seeks to further restrict access to abortion. Hawley, who serves as the head counsel in the case, argued on behalf of anti-abortion doctors at the Supreme Court on March 26 that the abortion pill, which was approved more than two decades ago, was not properly approved for pregnancy termination by the FDA and is, therefore, a danger to women.  If the Court sides with Hawley’s team, it could potentially limit access to the abortion pill nationwide.

“She’s one of the more prominent attorneys in the Alliance Defending Freedom, which has become in the past three or four years, the most influential litigator of reproductive rights cases,” Mary Ruth Ziegler, a law professor at the UC Davis School of Law and expert of the politics of reproduction, told the News. “She’s shaping a lot of cases in a very short window and she’s been sort of the front person for a lot of those cases.”

Hawley’s legal journey

Hawley began her law school journey at the University of Texas in Austin, but her time there was short-lived. Encouraged by a professor, she decided to transfer, and the following year, she was accepted to and attended Yale Law School. 

At Yale, Hawley excelled, serving as a senior editor of the Yale Law Journal and as a Coker Fellow for constitutional law professor Paul Kahn GRD ’77 LAW ’80. Coker Fellows are third-year law students who assist professors in teaching and working with first-year law students.

At the Law School, Hawley met her future husband, Republican senator and former president of Yale’s chapter of the Federalist Society Josh Hawley LAW ’06, who was the year behind her. At the time, however, they did not know each other well, she said in a 2023 interview.

“They didn’t really know each other, it sounds like, in law school,” Irina Manta ’03 LAW ’06, a law professor at Hofstra University who attended Yale Law School at the same time as the Hawleys, told the News. “She was not as involved as he was with the Federalist Society generally.”

Manta, who was also an active member of the Federalist Society and identifies as politically idiosyncratic, told the News that she does not recall seeing Hawley at many Federalist Society events and noted her relatively quiet demeanor. She said that she primarily got to know Hawley through a reading group she organized. Manta added that during that period, there were few openly socially conservative women, so Hawley’s views were not widely known.

In an email to the News, an ADF spokeswoman, who spoke on Hawley’s behalf, said that Hawley was “moderately” involved with the Federalist Society.  She said that Hawley appreciated the Federalist Society because it “encouraged robust discussion and debate among those with differing viewpoints.” 

Manta said that though she is in “much disagreement” with Hawley’s work on the abortion cases, she remembers her as a pleasant person based on their interactions in law school.

“She was very, very nice,” Manta told the News. “You will hardly find someone who will have bad things to say about her from her time in law school.”  

In contrast, Manta described Josh Hawley as “always a politician,” with a profile that seemed fitting for a future senator. Manta ran against Josh Hawley for president of the Federalist Society but was unsuccessful in her bid.

After law school, Hawley clerked for then-Judge John Roberts of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. However, her clerkship was cut short later that year, when Roberts was appointed by then-president George Bush ’68 to the Supreme Court.  In an article published by the News in 2005, Law School students pointed to Hawley as an example of “a Yalie working hands-on in the government” due to her clerkship with Roberts.

Hawley went on to clerk for Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III ’67 of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals and would later receive another offer to clerk for Roberts at the Supreme Court. There,  she shared an office with Josh Hawley, who also received a clerkship offer from Roberts. 

“He likes to take credit for our marriage,” Josh Hawley said of Roberts in a 2023 interview alongside his wife.

The Hawleys married in 2010, only two years after they got to know each other during their clerkship. They soon searched for jobs and ended up being hired by the University of Missouri Law School.  At Missouri, Erin Hawley taught agricultural and tax law and constitutional litigation.

It was during this time that Hawley gained more experience in constitutional litigation. She would often write amicus briefs, a statement by an individual or group who is not a party to the case but wants to provide the Court with additional information. She wrote a notable brief for Burwell v. Hobby Lobby in 2014  in favor of the organization’s owners, who refused to offer contraception coverage to their employees for religious reasons. The Court, in a narrow 5-4 opinion authored by Justice Alito, sided with Hawley.

In 2018, Josh Hawley was elected to the Senate, and the couple moved to Washington D.C. There, Erin Hawley worked part-time for the law firm Kirkland & Ellis, whom she had helped write briefs for at Missouri. Three years later, Hawley was hired by the ADF and helped the group overturn Roe v. Wade. 

“I think her influence really accelerated after the overturning of Roe because there are a lot of different anti-abortion groups that compete for funding and power but the ADF’s influence has increased, in part because they just have so much money compared to a lot of other anti-abortion groups with a huge, huge budget and huge annual revenue,” Ziegler told the News. “Being the group that wrote the law and defended the case that overturned Roe v. Wade obviously puts your name on the map.”

FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine

On March 26, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments for FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, a case pivotal to the regulation of mifepristone, an abortion medication drug initially approved by the FDA in 2000. Seven years later, the FDA introduced the Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategies program, enabling the agency to mandate certain safety protocols for medications with significant safety concerns.

In 2011, mifepristone underwent a REMS review which allowed its access to expand by 2016, granting doctors and medical practitioners the authority to prescribe it. Later, in April 2021, the FDA permitted the distribution of mifepristone through mail, followed by the approval for select pharmacies to dispense it by January 2023.

However, following the overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022, many groups challenged the constitutionality of access to mifepristone.  The Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, a group of anti-abortion doctors, claims that the abortion pill is a danger to women’s health. 

“Women should have the ongoing care of a doctor when taking high-risk drugs. The FDA betrayed women and girls when it unlawfully removed the necessary in-person doctor visits that protected women’s health and well-being,” Hawley said before the case’s oral arguments. “The FDA’s own label for abortion drugs says that roughly one in 25 women who take them will end up in the emergency room. Yet the federal government continues to defend its reckless actions that jeopardize women’s health and safety. Women deserve better, and we look forward to advocating on their behalf at the Supreme Court tomorrow.”

At oral arguments, Hawley argued that doctors cannot provide standard miscarriage care in emergency situations due to the potential that the patient had taken prior abortion medication. She suggested that her clients would be complicit in the abortion by removing fetal tissue, an argument that Dara Kass, an emergency medicine physician at the Columbia University Medical Center, described as “flawed and scientifically unsubstantiated.”

Kass told the News that it is impractical for physicians to determine whether or not a patient took abortion medication during emergency care and that the care these doctors would provide has no relation to an abortion.

“From a physician’s perspective, because of the way that mifepristone came to American knowledge and because of the anti-abortion advocates, the FDA actually went further, longer and did a more extensive evaluation before the approval of mifepristone than it did for any medication that would have had the same level of research and support,” Kass told the News. 

She told the News that when mifepristone received FDA approval for expansion, it was supported by extensive data confirming that it is “extraordinarily safe and effective.” 

Kass noted that for individuals seeking to restrict access to abortion, this evidence of safety undermines their argument. This is because mifepristone enables patients to experience a miscarriage at home without needing to visit a clinic. Therefore, anti-abortion lawyers have sought alternative arguments against mifepristone that do not directly address the medication’s safety and effectiveness, she said.

She pointed out another argument Hawley made during the Supreme Court proceedings. Hawley mentioned the right of doctors to conscientiously object, allowing them to refuse to provide certain treatment based on their moral beliefs. According to Hawley, doctors may find it difficult to exercise this right in cases of miscarriages if they cannot determine whether the patient took mifepristone during an emergency.

Kass said that Hawley is proposing to remove mifepristone from the market to address her clients’ concerns regarding potential ambiguity. However, according to Kass, the logical step would be to not assign those doctors to cases of miscarriage.

“Her lawyering is offensive to doctors,” Kass said.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson made the same point at the oral arguments, saying there was “a mismatch” between what the anti-abortion doctors claim to be experiencing and the remedy they hope to receive from the Court. 

“The obvious common-sense remedy would be to provide them with an exemption, that they don’t have to participate in this procedure,” said Jackson.

Ziegler told the News about another argument Hawley put forth, which centered around a rarely enforced 19th-century law known as the Comstock Act. This law classified contraceptives as “obscene, lewd, or lascivious,” making it a federal offense to distribute them through mail or across state lines. Ziegler said that Hawley argued that this law essentially criminalized the mailing of any abortion-related item. According to Ziegler, some of the conservative justices displayed an interest in exploring the concept of the Comstock Act as a potential ban on abortion.

However, the Court overall reacted to Hawley’s case with skepticism. Many of the justices questioned whether there was even standing in this case, because the anti-abortion doctors needed to show they faced moral harm from mifepristone being on the market despite not being the ones who would prescribe the pill. In addition, a court has never second-guessed an FDA-approved drug and the decision could have major implications on the process for drug approval by the FDA if the Court were to side with the ADF.

When asked by the News for further comment on Hawley’s argument, the ADF spokeswoman pointed to their website for more information.

Connecticut’s politicians weigh in

On the day of the oral arguments, several of Connectcut’s leaders publicly condemned this case being brought to the Supreme Court. 

“Mifepristone has been safely and effectively used for decades as part of essential reproductive care,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal LAW ’73 said in a March 26 tweet. “Today, radical Republicans are asking SCOTUS to overrule FDA’s scientific judgment & limit access to medication abortion in all 50 states. If they succeed, patients will suffer.” 

According to statistics from Connecticut Attorney General William Tong’s office, in 2021, there were 9562 abortions performed in Connecticut. Of those, nearly 64 percent were medication abortion using mifepristone.

In 2022, the News reported that Connecticut was a “safe haven” for patients seeking abortions, meaning that when the Supreme Court allowed states to determine their abortion laws, elected officials and abortion clinics in Connecticut promised to keep access to safe abortions in the state.

Last year, Connecticut leaders made contingency plans for a potential mifepristone ban when the case was still before lower courts.

Though this case aims to contest access to mifepristone nationwide, Connecticut’s leaders reaffirmed their dedication to ensuring access to abortion in the state.

“Today, if you need an abortion, if you need reproductive healthcare, if you need to see a doctor or nurse or a healthcare provider, you can do that [in Connecticut],” Tong said at a March 26 press conference. “Connecticut’s healthcare system is there for you.”  

Overall, the outcome of Hawley’s work in this case will hold significant implications for Connecticut and the nation’s access to mifepristone. 

A decision is expected to be released in June.

“What it looks like is going to happen is that she’s going to lose this case and then seed arguments for the future,” Ziegler told the News.

Hawley is scheduled to return to the Sterling Law Building for an event co-hosted by Yale’s chapter of the Federalist Society and Jus Vitae on April 9.

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