To guide its work, the committee will ask for the perspectives of members of the Yale community, as well as a variety of “external experts” and “critics of higher education,” McInnis wrote to the News. Rather than requesting a report or specific outcome, she wrote, the committee will decide itself how to present its findings to McInnis.

A form on the committee’s website solicits comments from Yale affiliates and the general public. McInnis wrote that the group will also create some way for Yale community members to discuss this topic. Her announcement states that attempts to foster dialogue on campus may take place “in the classroom.”

Throughout the announcement, McInnis described the issue as concerning “public trust” in universities as they “come under attack in the public square,” and charged the committee with addressing “public perception.” She did not mention attacks from the federal government such as threats to revoke federal funding or rhetoric framing schools as liberal echo chambers, instead formulating the problem as a lack of confidence among the American people.

McInnis wrote that as universities attempt to understand falling trust, they must “redouble commitments to academic freedom and free speech. At the same time, they cannot operate sealed off from the society in which they are embedded, and which they were established to serve.” She noted that universities must combat “self-censorship” on campus.

The committee is co-chaired by history professor Beverly Gage and sociology professor Julia Adams. There is a professor on the committee from the School of Medicine, School of Management, School of Public Health, School of the Environment and the Law School. Three other faculty members in Yale College round out the group, working in the English, astronomy and physics and slavic languages and literatures departments.

McInnis wrote to the News that she selected these professors based on “several factors, including their ability to convene internal and external experts representing a broad range of views and their commitment to strengthening Yale and higher education more broadly.” 

Gage wrote to the News that the committee has not had its first meeting, so she cannot yet comment on the specifics of its work.

Adams called the president’s charge for the committee “especially important and timely.”

“We will cast a wide and inclusive net to be sure that many points of view are heard to inform the Committee’s deliberations,” she wrote.

McInnis explained she sees faculty governance as core to Yale. For her, this manifests in faculty committees, which conduct work as “part of my broader strategy of shaping Yale’s future” based on feedback she receives in meetings.

McInnis first identified declining trust in higher education as a priority she would address during her presidency in a November interview with the News.

Yolanda Wang contributed reporting.

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The IHRA definition states that antisemitism includes “targeting of the state of Israel,” with the caveat that it is not antisemitic to lodge criticisms of Israel “similar to that leveled against any other country.” Scholars have debated the definition, with critics arguing it can conflate criticism of Israel with antisemitism. Its proponents suggest that it emphasizes that discourse about Israel can go beyond legitimate political criticism and become antisemitic. 

An archive of Yale’s policies from the day before Trump was inaugurated in January does not include the IHRA definition. The policy page states that it was last revised on March 28. The University did not announce publicly that it would begin to consider IHRA’s definition. 

Yale has not adopted one definition of antisemitism but instead disciplines antisemitism as part of its broader rules surrounding discrimination and harassment on the basis of race, ethnicity and shared heritage. The IHRA definition was added as a footnote that Yale “considers” as part of these broad guidelines. 

The definition includes several clauses tying antisemitism to Israel, such as describing as antisemitic “denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor” and “drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.”

Linda Maizels, recently-appointed inaugural managing director for the Yale Program for the Study of Antisemitism, said that one of the reasons that universities are looking at suddenly adopting the IHRA definition is pressure from the Trump administration, adding that not all American Jews support such efforts. 

“Many Jews are uncomfortable because they feel that some of these measures are coming out ‘in their name,’ and they don’t support broad-based attacks on removing money from universities,” she said. “I don’t think this is effective. In the end, it could result in exacerbating hostilities against Jews.” 

Maizels, who is a prominent scholar of contemporary antisemitism on college campuses, said that the IHRA definition was not meant to be used in campus settings, but added that it’s a “useful guide.”  

“I don’t think that an institution adopting the IHRA definition is necessarily going to solve the antisemitism problem,” Maizels said. “On the other hand, I don’t think it is as dangerous as it’s made out to be.”

Yale’s addition of the definition comes amid pressure at peer institutions to reevaluate their definitions of antisemitism. 

Columbia University recently revised its definition of antisemitism amid pressure from the Trump administration to adopt the IHRA definition in exchange for restoring federal funding. While the administration urged adoption of the IHRA definition, Columbia instead implemented its own similar version.

Harvard University adopted the IHRA definition of antisemitism in January as part of settlements of two lawsuits surrounding antisemitism on Harvard campus. The decision to adopt this definition has been criticized. 

Deena Margolies, an attorney who led the settlement with Harvard, also filed a discrimination complaint that led the Department of Education to open an investigation into antisemitism at Yale. Margolies said that one result she would like to see of the investigation into Yale is the University’s adopting the IHRA definition of antisemitism.

“I know people get very upset when they hear IHRA, and they think, ‘Oh gosh, they’re going to tell us we can’t criticize Israel,’” Margolies said. “And that’s not what IHRA is about. I think the hope is that there will be more speech and more dialogue.”

Administrators emphasized that the IHRA definition is not the only consideration in their disciplinary rules on antisemitism. 

The University spokesperson wrote to the News that Yale’s Office of Institutional Equity and Accessibility “considers all applicable state and federal legal and regulatory guidance” in addition to the IHRA definition. 

The spokesperson added that “Yale’s policies and procedures related to Discrimination, Harassment, and Retaliation are not intended to infringe free speech or the free expression of ideas.”

“We’re very committed to preventing antisemitism and to helping anybody who becomes a victim of antisemitism,” explained Dean of Yale College Pericles Lewis. “But we don’t have a separate definition of it.” 

The definition has been used by the U.S. State Department since 2010.

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McInnis called these criticisms a “gale-force wind.” She noted how trust in institutions altogether is on the decline and said that many Americans no longer see higher education as promising. Strobel quoted Ezra Stiles, Yale’s seventh president, who described the role of a university president as “a laurel interwoven by thorns.” Today, he said, those thorns are “growing” as fewer Americans consider higher education to be fundamental to civic society.

Emotion choked both McInnis and Strobel at points during their speeches. Strobel sniffled as he pledged support to McInnis navigating “trials on Yale’s behalf,” the crowd applauding when he paused to regain composure. McInnis fought tears at the beginning of her speech as she told the room that the experience of leading universities is an honor second only to raising her children.

Many of Woolsey Hall’s 2,650 seats were empty. Few students or faculty members attended as there were only around 350 invited guests. “We find ourselves with quite a few extra tickets to Sunday’s presidential installation ceremony,” wrote the Director of Operations for Ezra Stiles College in an email before the event offering leftover tickets to graduate affiliates.

Around 150 pro-Palestinian protesters chanted from across a blocked-off street at the ceremonial procession as they marched into Woolsey. Inside, the event featured speeches, a prayer, poems, musical performances and the presentation of ceremonial objects, culminating in McInnis’ 10-page inaugural address.

The inaugural address

McInnis’ speech was premised on the idea that Yale is currently facing “uncharted and choppy waters” of challenge. She posed a question of what leadership should look like in response to this obstacle, drawing an extended metaphor of two buildings.

The first building, the schoolhouse her great-grandparents founded in the swampland of Frostproof, Florida, represented how education should be accessible to all, not a privilege. The second building she described, the Notre-Dame de Paris, represented how an exceptional institution can endure through wars, plagues, fires and culture shifts, and use those opportunities to adapt. McInnis is an art historian and was a graduate student in the Yale Department of the History of Art. 

“Time and again, we have been both challenged and refreshed by change,” she noted, using the Notre-Dame metaphor to say that difficult times can force improvements. “Sometimes change is essential. And I believe that in this moment, Yale will once again rise to improve ourselves, our community, and our world.”

McInnis also affirmed her commitment to free expression as a bedrock principle of Yale, referencing the Woodward Report, the University’s foundational document on the topic. She said the promise of the report today means ensuring that Yale is not an “ivory echo chamber” but instead encourages curiosity and individual ideas.

Yale’s future, she stated, should be defined by creating international partnerships, increasing research collaboration, expanding opportunities for students, attracting top scholars, welcoming “diverse viewpoints” and working with New Haven. McInnis previously told the News that she expected to deliver a “vision speech” at the inauguration but later sidelined that plan because the climate of higher education has changed.

The pomp and circumstance

Hours before McInnis’ speech, two processions formed at the Yale Law School and Sterling Memorial Library. The parades, consisting of deans, tenured faculty, trustees, former trustees, former presidents and other honored guests, marched oversized flags to meet on Cross Campus.

As the group waited on the Cross Campus grass to march into Woolsey, pro-Palestinian student protesters gathered across the street with the stated intention of disrupting the inauguration procession. Barricades enforced by Yale Police officers blocked the protesters from entering Cross Campus or proceeding down the sidewalk in front of Schwarzman Center.

From the sidewalk in front of Silliman College, protesters chanted the names of trustees followed by “face us” and slogans such as “Yale, Yale, pick a side; divestment or genocide.” Protesters tied banners and set framed portraits of Palestinians killed by the Israeli military against the barricades facing Schwarzman. The protest dispersed after around 40 minutes of direct confrontation with the procession.

The protesters, led by the Sumud Coalition, had first gathered on the New Haven Green at 9 a.m. Protest organizers delivered speeches criticizing how Yale’s trustees “coronated one of their own” in selecting McInnis as president last year. Organizers also called on McInnis to stand against the Trump administration’s moves to deport pro-Palestine student protesters. 

Once inside the venue, procession participants draped in multicolored robes sat in the front rows of the audience. Students, parents, alumni, faculty and staff scattered the rest of the room. A row of Yale’s outspoken conservative students sat in the back left. Students on University committees or who obtained tickets through their schools or residential colleges dotted the audience. McInnis’ children, husband and parents sat in the front row in the center.

On stage, members of the Board of Trustees sat in a row alongside Strobel, former president Peter Salovey and Vice President for University Life Kimberly Goff-Crews. McInnis sat off-center on the 400-year-old Wainscot Chair, the ceremonial seat of the president that is otherwise housed in the Yale University Art Gallery. Other guests flanking her on the platform included University of Cambridge Vice-Chancellor Deborah Prentice, University Chaplain Maytal Saltiel and Yale College Dean Pericles Lewis.

The carefully-choreographed ceremony unfolded over the course of an hour. Senior trustee Joshua Bekenstein ceremonially presented the university’s charter, seal and four keys to campus spaces to McInnis. Goff-Crews swept McInnis’ hair aside as Bekenstein laid the metal collar representing Yale’s schools on her shoulders.

In addition to McInnis and Strobel’s speeches, the ceremony featured addresses by Prentice and University of Virginia president James Ryan, an invocation delivered by Saltiel and two poems recited by Professor of African American Studies, English and American Studies Jacqueline Goldsby.

McInnis wiped tears from her face as the Glee Club filled the room with a benediction at the end of the ceremony. Director of the Institute of Sacred Music Martin Jean played the procession of robed guests out of the auditorium with solemn bagpipe music. Guests reconvened afterwards in Commons, the dining area of the Schwarzman Center, for champagne, meats and cheeses.

McInnis is the first woman to serve as president of Yale in a non-interim capacity.

Yolanda Wang contributed reporting. 

The post Speeches at McInnis’ inauguration address attacks on universities appeared first on Yale Daily News.

She gave a date by which she would share that vision with the Yale community: her inaugural address, which she will deliver this Sunday, April 6, from the stage of Woolsey Hall. “We will have something that looks more like a vision speech,” McInnis said in August about the inauguration.

But in a Wednesday interview, McInnis said that because the climate of higher education has changed, she no longer plans to give such a speech.

“We are in a different and more complicated moment in terms of the public’s sense of higher education,” she said on Wednesday. “It’s a little bit more complicated time.”

President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance LAW ’13 have painted universities as elite echo chambers that indoctrinate students, calling them “the enemy.” Since taking office, the Trump administration has sent higher education leaders into panic mode with threats to revoke hundreds of millions of dollars in federal grants to universities. Republicans in Congress have also proposed dramatic increases to the taxes levied on university endowments.

Wesley Whistle, a project director for higher education at think tank New America, said these attacks mean universities will abandon some plans and programs to avoid becoming political targets for funding cuts and to reduce operating costs.

“These attacks will inevitably stifle creativity and ambition within higher education,” Whistle said. “Programs and initiatives that could have driven meaningful change, particularly for marginalized communities, will be sidelined in an effort to maintain funding and, for many institutions, the doors open. It’s truly a shame that college and university presidents are pressing pause on initiatives.”

In a recent budget update, Yale announced that its spending for the 2026 fiscal year will be “far more constrained” in part because potential cuts to federal funding and higher endowment taxes “could have profoundly negative consequences on Yale’s finances,” McInnis wrote to the News. 

In a December interview, McInnis said that her office would design a process by the beginning of the spring semester to “deepen our listening” around five topics she earlier told the News she is focusing on. The University has not yet announced that process. In Wednesday’s interview, McInnis said that Yale administrators have spent much of their time dealing with federal policies and politics affecting higher education.

While some university presidents have spoken publicly about Trump, publishing articles opposing him or letters resisting his policies, McInnis’ approach to preserving Yale’s funding has been to avoid making statements about threats facing higher education. She has instead spent time and money lobbying lawmakers in Washington about the importance of Yale’s research to the country.

Katie Chang GRD ’27, a graduate student who sat on the inauguration planning committee, said that university leaders are facing tough decisions about how much they should say publicly.

“I sympathize because in my work as [Graduate Student Assembly] chair, there is a push and pull between advocating for students and making sure we do it in a way that doesn’t endanger the students we speak for or the representatives in our body,” Chang said. “So I understand it from that point of view.”

McInnis said her speech will now consist of reflections on Yale’s history, the values of the University and musings on its future.

Whistle argued that it is unclear what universities can do to avoid being targeted by the Trump administration. He said it is not worth attempting to appease the federal government if those attempts could be futile anyway.

“Obviously, university presidents are in a tough spot given the large amounts of research dollars they receive, but they shouldn’t cave to political coercion,” Whistle said. “They should be firm in defending academic freedom and transparent about what’s at stake.”

The installation ceremony begins at 11 a.m. on Sunday and will be livestreamed.

The post McInnis once planned a bold inaugural address. Recent attacks on higher ed have “complicated” that appeared first on Yale Daily News.

In an interview on Wednesday, McInnis said Yale will “comply” if ICE issues a warrant for a noncitizen member of the University. If ICE makes a request outside of legal mechanisms, she said the University will “reply.” The University spokesperson previously told the News that Yale will not voluntarily share student information with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, if the agency requests it.

“We will always follow the federal law,” McInnis said. “We have to.”

McInnis said that Yale does not have official policies for if ICE arrests a student. She said the University would respond to such arrests on an individual basis, and the considerations of what Yale would do “would be legal and not something I can answer.”

She added that external law enforcement agencies are not allowed on Yale’s campus unless they coordinate with the Yale Police Department. Guidance recently released by Yale Public Safety instructs members of the Yale community to request the credentials of any law enforcement agents they see on campus who appear to be external to Yale. If they confirm the agents to be from an outside agency, they should call the YPD and wait for an officer.

Civil rights attorney Alex Taubes LAW ’15, who provided legal representation for a Yale protester arrested last year, said that Yale could challenge a subpoena issued by ICE about a member of the University. Taubes argued that Yale could claim such a subpoena violates federal law by invading privileges, privacy and constitutional rights.

“Yale could do basically whatever they want, but they don’t have to cooperate if they don’t want to,” he said. “Certainly they don’t have to roll over and do whatever the government tells them.”

Maureen Abell, a staff attorney at the New Haven Legal Assistance Association, agreed that Yale can challenge the legitimacy or scope of a subpoena. But she said the success of those attempts would depend on the reason for the subpoena and “how sloppy [ICE is] with the people work,” such as the manner in which agents arrest.

Yale’s Office of International Students and Scholars, or OISS, is contacting all international students and scholars, according to McInnis. She said the office is working to help noncitizens within the University understand their legal rights and the resources available to them.

969 people with a Yale login registered for a “Know Your Rights” town hall webinar that OISS hosted on Tuesday for international members of the Yale community. OISS also posted a new page on its website about how to retain legal immigration status in the U.S.

“I think there are lots of students who are incredibly stressed out,” Abell said, so she sees providing legal representation as “incredibly important.”

Shortly after taking office, President Donald Trump signed an executive order with an accompanying fact sheet that pledged to cancel the visas of students who participated in pro-Palestinian protests. The Trump administration has since arrested international students and scholars who participated in pro-Palestinian activism on campuses across the country.

At Columbia University, ICE arrested green card-holder Mahmoud Khalil, who has Palestinian family history and was a leader of Columbia’s encampment. At Tufts University, Turkish student Rümeysa Öztürk was arrested by plainclothes officers a year after writing an opinion piece in the Tufts student newspaper criticizing Tufts’ response to the war in Gaza. Students at Cornell and Columbia left the country rather than be detained after ICE revoked their visas.

The Trump administration has asserted that it has broad legal authority to deport noncitizens who it thinks could harm U.S. foreign policy, while some lawyers argue that students who are in the U.S. legally are being targeted in violation of their free speech and due process rights.

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In a Wednesday interview with the News, McInnis said that the University’s response would be “context-dependent,” noting that any action would depend on the nature of the administration’s requests.

Trump has taken aim at the federal funding of half the Ivy League schools. His administration required Columbia University to acquiesce to a list of demands if it wanted a shot at restoring $400 million in federal funds, which Columbia largely agreed to do. Higher education leaders nationwide have expressed worries that Columbia’s capitulation spells trouble for academic independence — the ability of universities to make their policies independently from government interference. The president of Brown University wrote in a letter that Brown would take legal action if it experienced “encroachments” on its “autonomy.”

McInnis said that if the administration makes similar requests to those made of Columbia, there would be principles that would underlie her response, namely “to defend Yale’s mission and Yale’s values.” When asked whether academic independence would be one of those principles, McInnis said that “academic freedom is a bulwark principle in higher education.”

McInnis said “we would have to see” whether Yale would take legal action if the Trump administration revoked federal funding. 

“There’s never a yes or no answer to those things,” she said. “It has a lot to do with the circumstances.”

Yale School of Management Professor Jeffrey Sonnenfeld said that he supports McInnis’ approach because each university is facing “situation-specific” decisions.

Sonnenfeld said that university presidents have the difficult job of communicating their thinking to their boards, faculty, staff and students to get the support of all stakeholders.

“They need to understand what the university is balancing off,” he said. “And something which strikes me that’s really good about Maurie is that she’s really good about talking about the trade-offs.”

Ben Cecil, senior education policy advisor at center-left think tank Third Way, explained that each university has a different landscape of stakeholders and budgets, and the individual opinions the institutions have to weigh matter to their decision-making.

“There are certain institutions that have a bit of a target on their back. Institutions are having to choose when and where and how they are having to engage with the federal government when it comes to federal funding,” Cecil said. “Something that works at Columbia might be detrimental at Yale.”

McInnis said that her strategy to preserve Yale’s funding and relationship with the U.S. government has remained the same: limiting public pronouncements while working behind the scenes to lobby lawmakers about the impact of university research on the country.

“As you can imagine, we get lots of requests for us to just speak and say ‘this is bad.’ And I think that would be a way of perhaps bringing attention to Yale, without necessarily being an effective way,” McInnis said. “What I’m trying to do is, instead of saying ‘this is bad,’ is instead be out there advocating for our mission, advocating for the work we do.”

McInnis’ goal is to establish a “regular presence” in DC between her own trips and the visits of colleagues and a lobbying firm. She said she took two or three trips to DC this month and has two more planned in the near future. Yale also recently hired an employee in DC to lobby full time. “It’s all about getting as many touch points with as many people as we can,” McInnis said.

McInnis has not issued a statement related to the federal government since mid-February.

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The News obtained a copy of the survey, which was created by the Office of General Counsel and emailed to department leaders by Lynn Cooley, dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, as part of an effort to “evaluate the impact of recent executive orders and other federal directives” on Yale’s DEI programs. The survey and email did not specify plans to change these programs.

Department leaders were asked to respond to 15 questions and report detailed information about DEI practices that relate to faculty hiring and student programs, including any programs that “have the appearance of being limited” to particular identity groups.

One question asked for the names of all employees, departments and offices with the keywords “diversity,” “equity” or “inclusion” in their titles or who work in those areas. Another question asks for the names of all affinity groups and other groups organized by demography that receive University funding or are otherwise linked to Yale. A third question requests all official materials, especially statements on DEI or department values, “that should be reviewed or which may benefit from changes.”

A University spokesperson wrote to the News on behalf of Cooley and vice president for university life Kimberly Goff-Crews that the goal of the survey is “to understand how these activities support members of the Yale community and confirm that their description and implementation accurately reflect that these programs are accessible to the entire Yale community.” 

“The review is being done thoughtfully and carefully to both comply with the law and support the diverse and inclusive environment that is essential to fulfilling Yale’s mission,” the spokesperson wrote.

The survey, which requested an “immediate response” by March 28, raised alarm among faculty. 

Following a March 27 meeting between top administrators and over 100 faculty members, Goff-Crews agreed to extend the survey deadline and schedule further informational meetings with department leaders, according to an email sent by FAS-SEAS Senate chair Mark Solomon and deputy chair Marijeta Bozovic to faculty the next day.

“Because the survey came to the departments with no advance warning or preparation, many faculty were alarmed by the request and its legalistic tone,” Solomon wrote to the News, adding that he was not commenting on behalf of the Senate.

The Trump administration has issued several executive orders targeting DEI programs at various institutions, naming higher education as a particular target. A February 14 letter sent to educational institutions threatened to revoke federal funding if the schools continued their DEI policies, later walking back aspects of the letter. Universities across the country have been eliminating DEI offices, rolling back programs and scrubbing DEI pages from their websites.

“I find the confidentiality of the document and the nature of the questions to be very disturbing in that I am required to report on programs and colleagues without their knowledge,” Mimi Yiengpruksawan, Director of Graduate Studies for the Council on East Asian Studies, wrote to GSAS Dean Cooley in response to the survey. “I am also reluctant, after consultation with my own counsel, to be a signatory to information that might eventuate in my being deposed in litigation relating to misrepresentation of a program or individual employee.”

One section of the survey focuses on employment and asks for lists of all gender- and race-conscious practices in hiring and promotion processes for faculty and staff. The section lists as examples policies that require diversity in job candidate pools, hiring committees, promotion decisions and tenure processes. 

Other questions target programs such as diversity-related mentorships, training seminars, workshops, fellowships, internships, summer programs, mandatory courses, orientation programs and faculty or staff training.

A section about student policies requests an inventory of “any policies or programs that are intended to support diversity, equity, and inclusion in student life.” The section asks for descriptions of fellowships, internships, student jobs, support programs and educational or extracurricular programs that offer admission or preference on a demographic basis or are restricted to one demographic group.

One section labeled “vendor selection” asks for any diversity considerations used in the selection of “external vendors or service providers for the school or unit.”

In their March 28 email, Solomon and Bozovic explained that while the survey’s purpose and context were conveyed to deans across Yale’s schools, these details were “regrettably” not conveyed to department chairs and directors of graduate studies until the Senate meeting.

During the Senate meeting, administrators assured faculty that the survey intended to gather information, “rather than to prompt anticipatory obedience or to chill efforts to promote diversity in advance of any legal requirement to do so,” according to the email.

Goff-Crews also confirmed that brief answers stating only that a department has followed best practices set by the University in fall 2024 were sufficient, according to Solomon and Bozovic’s email.

Yiengpruksawan later wrote to the News that she is “somewhat alleviated” following these reassurances but said that administrators’ approach to the original survey presented “bad optics.”

“It tells us that we — departmental leadership and the faculty as a whole — were ‘last to know’ in a reactive situation in which the University appears to have been giving in to some form of political pressure through preemptive measures,” Yiengpruksawan wrote to the News. “I am not saying that such was the case. But it looked that way to me when I opened the survey.”

Department chairs will meet with Goff-Crews for further guidance on the survey on April 8.

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Yale’s spokesperson told the News that around 350 invited guests are set to attend the inauguration, “including alumni, community leaders and delegates who will represent other colleges and universities.” The installation ceremony, which is expected to include an inaugural address delivered by University President Maurie McInnis, is invitation-only for the Woolsey Hall event but will be livestreamed. The inauguration is purely ceremonial, and McInnis has had full status and capabilities as president since she assumed the role in July.

The inauguration has been in the works for months and was planned primarily by steering committee co-chairs Kimberly Goff-Crews, Secretary and Vice President for University Life, and Daniel Colón-Ramos, professor of neuroscience and cell biology and associate director of the Wu Tsai Institute. Twenty-two professors, deans, student representatives and other Yale affiliates rounded out the planning committee.

“They did ask me what I hoped as an overall frame for the inauguration, and I said I wanted it to emphasize community, and I wanted it to emphasize Yale, not me,” McInnis said. “It is a celebration of Yale and it is a celebration of our community. Community is about Yale, but it’s also about New Haven.”

On Saturday, McInnis will host a presidential panel with three other university heads who attended Yale: Melissa Gilliam ’87 of Boston University, Jennifer Mnookin LAW ’95 of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Deborah Prentice GRD ’86 GRD ’89 of the University of Cambridge.

The inauguration website states that the panel of university presidents will address challenges facing universities, such as “advancing their missions amid financial pressures” and “complex issues from affordability and accessibility to the integration of artificial intelligence.”

The panel is cushioned by a morning “Symposium I: Promoting Knowledge” and an afternoon “Symposium II: Applying Knowledge.” The first panel will take on “the balance between academic freedom and the responsibility to combat misinformation,” according to the website, and the second will discuss “concrete examples of knowledge application.”

Daniel Esty, Hillhouse Professor of Environmental Law and Policy, is a speaker on the first panel. He sees the event as “an opportunity to showcase how valuable a place like Yale is to the broader world.”

He believes the inauguration’s organizers thought “it would be good to showcase some of the professors across the campus who are engaged with cutting-edge knowledge creation to engage with what a university is.” He sees the audience for the panel as not only the Yale community, but also “those outside who are trying to make sense of the role of higher education and President Trump’s critique of higher education.”

Esty clarified that he was invited to speak months ago, before Trump’s attacks on universities dominated headlines, and that the panel is not a reaction to Trump.

Alongside Esty on the panel will be Ned Blackhawk, Howard R. Lamar Professor of History. He said that the panel is an example of “a longer conversation that’s happening across campus” about solidarity between professors across disciplines.

“It’s a good time to be communicating to broad audiences the work that academic scholars do,” Blackhawk said, and to display “the dynamic conversations and insights that Yale faculty and other professors across the country are contributing to society.”

From Friday through Sunday, around 40 open houses will take place, including backstage tours of the David Geffen School of Drama, late hours at the Yale Peabody Museum and newly-opened Yale Center for British Art, and an exhibit of historical inauguration materials in Sterling Memorial Library. The University spokesperson wrote that the University expects around 1,400 Yale community members to volunteer or attend the open houses.

McInnis is Yale’s 24th president and the first woman in the role in a non-interim capacity.

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The Title VI Shared Ancestry complaint alleges that two named undergraduates — Sahar Tartak ’26 and Netanel Crispe ’25 — and four anonymous students faced anti-Jewish discrimination across eight separate instances. 

Deena Margolies, a Brandeis Center attorney who filed the complaint, said that she and her colleagues pursued it after they decided Yale has allowed a “hostile environment” for Jewish students under the Title VI definition of harassment.

“Sometimes we have found that Jewish students are excluded from joining clubs, or they’re told they’re not wanted, or they’re told, We won’t take Zionists, which is often a code word for Jew,” she said. “And we found that a lot of these kinds of incidents were happening at Yale.”

The eight instances the complaint includes range from administrators allegedly applying University policies unevenly to the students receiving threatening messages on social media.

For example, both students said that they received harassment on social media after they were barred from attending a “Gaza under siege” event. The students claimed they were excluded because of their Jewish identities, while Yale released a statement asserting that some students had been barred because of pre-registration and space constraints.

The complaint states that Jewish students “including Ms. Tartak, Mr. Crispe, and others” avoided Sterling Memorial Library and the Law School Library during finals season because of “study-in” protests staged there. It also mentions an instance where protesters dropped fake one-hundred-dollar bills with bloodstain images onto students eating lunch.

Before the Department opened this investigation, it was already examining Yale under the Biden administration, following a Dec. 5, 2023 complaint filed by the Defense of Freedom Institute for Policy Studies, or DFI. That complaint focused on the “Gaza under siege” event, which was also detailed in the new complaint. 

The original DFI complaint is the reason Yale was included on a list of 60 universities that received a letter from the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, or OCR, warning of “potential enforcement actions” if the schools did not do more to combat antisemitism on campus. 

The second investigation into Yale, from the Brandeis Center and the ADL, was opened nine days after the Department sent that letter. Yale is not currently under a Title VI Shared Ancestry investigation for anything that happened linked to last spring’s pro-Palestinian encampments; the complaints were both filed before they took place.

A week after the OCR opened the Brandeis Center/ADL investigation, the Department of Education slashed the office in half, firing at least 240 of its employees. President Donald Trump then signed an executive order on March 20 to begin dismantling the Department entirely. Both moves have been challenged by lawsuits.

Margolies said the Brandeis Center verifies testimony it receives by asking for documentation such as witness corroboration, videos, emails, recordings and photographs. She emphasized that the Brandeis Center only files complaints based on conduct, not speech, and supports First Amendment freedom of speech rights.

The Yale spokesperson wrote to the News in response to an inquiry about the investigation that “Yale condemns antisemitism. It has no place in our community. We strive to ensure our Jewish community, along with all communities at Yale, are treated with dignity, respect, and compassion, and we aim to create a safe, supportive learning environment for every student on our campus.”

She continued, “we have a track record of taking antisemitism seriously and will cooperate fully with this investigation of a complaint we understand was filed with OCR in April 2024. The university has taken a number of steps since then to address concerns of antisemitism.”

Margolies said that she has heard from “a heavy volume of students” from Yale compared with students from other schools against which she has filed similar OCR complaints. She added that other students and professors from Yale have contacted her since the April 2024 filing about facing antisemitism at the University, but she said the Brandeis Center does not currently have plans to file further complaints.

The Trump administration revoked $400 million in funding the Columbia University due to alleged harassment of Jewish students there, requiring that the school acquiesce to nine demands for the funding to be restored. Columbia agreed to make most of the changes demanded. 

In anticipation of possible funding cuts from the Trump administration, Yale said its 2026 fiscal year budget will reduce spending on faculty raises, faculty and staff hiring, campus construction and general non-salary expenditures.

On the ADL’s 2025 Campus Antisemitism Report Card, the organization gave Yale a ‘D’ grade.

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The University announced that as it creates the 2026 fiscal year budget, it expects to reduce spending on faculty raises, faculty and staff hiring, campus construction and general non-salary expenditures.

The announcement is an attempt to set expectations for what funding will look like ahead of when schools and units submit budget proposals to the University. The email sent to faculty and staff requested that leaders of Yale’s schools and units draft contingency plans for if they lose funding in addition to submitting routine budget proposals.

“We will advance Yale’s mission based on current law while preparing to pivot in the event that circumstances change,” the email states. “Given the gravity of the current situation, we have decided there is a need to move more cautiously.”

The Wednesday afternoon email was co-signed by Provost Scott Strobel, Senior Vice President for Operations Jack Callahan ’80 and Vice President for Finance Stephen Murphy ’87. It both announces changes that will be made at the university level and asks constituent schools and units to restrain the spending under their control.

The three co-signatories wrote that they are considering which of Yale’s renovation and construction projects could be delayed until the financial impacts of federal policy changes are clear. They also expect “more modest” salary increases than faculty and staff have received in past years. 

At the school and unit level, the email suggests that University leaders reassess ongoing and planned job searches for whether “these roles are necessary for executing essential activities given the current environment.” It requests they review their multi-year projects that are in progress and “slow” other non-salary expenditures.

Howard Forman, a professor of radiology and biomedical imaging, said that budget restrictions diminish university operations in order to free up money as a safety net for potential federal shortfalls.

“If you have even a two-year or four-year reduction in funding, you’re going to see a change in the tactics of the University with regard to how they implement their vision for research,” Forman said.

The Wednesday email names two federal policy proposals as examples of threats to Yale’s finances: increased taxes on university endowments and cuts to federal funding for research. President Donald Trump imposed a 1.4 percent tax on the endowments of most private colleges during his first term and Vice President-elect JD Vance LAW ’13 later proposed a dramatic increase to 35 percent. In January, Trump ordered the freeze of trillions in federal aid, and in February the National Institutes of Health sought to cap the indirect cost reimbursements that fund large parts of Yale’s research.

The federal government has also warned that it would cut federal funds to schools that do not suspend diversity initiatives and Trump wrote on social media that he would revoke funding for schools that allow “illegal protests” on campus.

Although most of Trump’s proposed cuts have so far been rescinded or temporarily blocked, the University’s directive signals fear that some change could ultimately impact revenue. The threats have specifically targeted scientific research and university programs with ties to diversity goals, but Yale’s spending pullback is a broad move to limit spending across all areas.

Daniel HoSang, a professor of American studies, said that he hoped that there would be future opportunities for faculty, staff and students to provide feedback in the budgeting process.

“I’m grateful that we haven’t made any premature or preemptive cuts as some other institutions have, and there’s a real sense that they want to wait and see how things develop and unfold, especially at the federal level,” HoSang said. “But I can’t stress enough, the time to start having faculty-to-faculty discussions is now. Because if the worst case scenario gets ushered in very quickly, and everyone is just in a mindset of defending their own programs, it risks fostering a really big internal conflict.”

The University released a 2024-25 budget update on Dec. 12, which first warned that spending in 2026 would “be far more constrained.” In that update, the University cited low endowment returns and the “broader economic climate” to explain the expected budget reductions.

Forman said that the constrained 2026 budget echoes the University’s response to the 2008 financial crisis. Then, Yale put planned construction projects on hold and laid off as many as 100 staff members. Forman predicts that Yale will not need to be as aggressive in its response to potential Trump administration funding cuts.

“I don’t think anything they’re proposing is unreasonable at the moment,” Forman said. “What they are trying to do is not cut programs.”

For the 2025 fiscal year, Yale expects $5.85 billion in expenses.

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