The search for the University’s 24th president included the addition of SAC, the first of its kind in a Yale presidential search. Council members were tasked with gathering information from across the University and then sharing that information with the search committee. 

After obtaining the input of over 2,000 Yale students, faculty, staff, alumni and New Haveners and sorting through 128 nominees, the Yale Corporation named McInnis as the new president Wednesday morning. The News spoke with four students on the SAC about the recently announced appointment. 

“We fought tooth and nail to get some sort of representation so that students had some sort of voice that was formally recognized by the Presidential Search Committee,” Julian Suh-Toma ’25, outgoing Yale College Council president and ex-officio SAC member, told the News. “At the very least, knowing that [the search committee] had read about what students across the University — and not just in the College — cared about, that’s important.”

Suh-Toma said that although he considers the SAC a first step to student inclusion in Yale’s presidential search, he hopes that any future search will embed more direct student representation in the process.

He added that although he was not surprised by McInnis’ appointment, he was pleased that the University chose its first female president to serve in a non-interim capacity. 

Suh-Toma also said that he suspects McInnis’ challenges will include issues regarding free speech. He hopes she will seek the input of student groups involved in these issues in recent months, as well as faculty and administrators, to “understand the landscape of Yale’s leadership” that Suh-Toma believes will be a marked difference from that of Stony Brook University.

“As a University, we’re at a critical juncture where there’s really important and ongoing conversations around free speech,” Suh-Toma said. “It’s going to be interesting to see how she tries to relate herself to both students and faculty when it comes to advocating for human rights and for freedom of expression on campus.” 

Echoing Suh-Toma, SAC secretary Benjamin Schafer GRD ’27 wrote to the News that he believes McInnis assumes her duties at a “critical juncture” of Yale’s history. He added that he looks forward to working alongside the new president to share the insights SAC gathered.

Jim Zhou GRD ’24 wrote in an email that he was excited by Yale’s “historic milestone” that McInnis’ appointment represents.

However, Zhou wrote that he has reservations about McInnis’ standing on free speech, adding that he believes it is “crucial” that the new administration upholds and strengthens the University’s free expression values.

Some faculty from Stony Brook have raised concerns about McInnis’ record on campus free speech. McInnis, who currently serves as president of Stony Brook, faced criticism following the arrests of nine Stony Brook students on March 26 during a pro-Palestine protest at the university’s Administration Building. On March 27, a group of students and faculty members arranged a sit-in protest in response to the arrests. In the ensuing weeks, more than 600 Stony Brook faculty members signed an open letter calling for McInnis to revise Stony Brook’s free speech policies and increase administrative transparency.

“Yale’s dedication to strong free expression, as outlined in the Woodward Report, is a fundamental institutional value,” Zhou wrote. “Her track record at Stony Brook raises concerns about her commitment to these principles.”

McInnis wrote to the News that there is an “obligation to safeguard students, faculty, and staff from disruptive and obstructive behaviors that go beyond allowed reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions,” a commitment that was tested this past year. She said that she is “fortunate” to have the Woodward Report, which she said underscores academic freedom and freedom of expression as a “bedrock principle” at the University.

Chrishan Fernando GRD ’25, president of the Graduate and Professional Student Senate, told the News that, like Suh-Toma, he was not entirely shocked that McInnis had been chosen as Yale’s president, given her service to Yale as a trustee and other leadership experience in higher education.

Fernando said that although he does not know much about McInnis, he looks forward to learning more about her and added that from his conversations with McInnis at least twice this year, he has no reason to suspect that she will not listen to student concerns. 

“Especially at this time Yale needs a president who is willing to personally engage with students as much as they possibly can, so I hope that she’s the president who can really do that,” Fernando said. “I feel like that’s the position everybody’s at right now … we’ll need to learn more about her and be willing to listen to what she has to say and also watch how receptive she is of student opinions.”

Yale’s search committee announced the creation of the SAC on Oct. 2 after growing student demand for representation in the Presidential Search Committee’s deliberations. The SAC comprised 15 elected students from across the University: four graduate, four professional and four undergraduate students. The presidents of the Graduate and Professional Student Senate, the Graduate Student Assembly and the Yale College Council served as members ex-officio to the SAC.

On Jan. 29, Joshua Bekenstein ’80 announced a synthesis of the qualities that students, faculty and staff had voiced during the Presidential Search Committee’s listening sessions and through anonymous web forms. The summary also included information from the SAC’s report that the News obtained in full the day of the announcement. 

The SAC report contained data from over 1,800 student responses and discussed topics not explicitly mentioned in Bekenstein’s announcement, including free speech and academic freedom, student mental health and diversity, equity and inclusion. 

Although Yale’s last presidential search in 2012 did not include a formal student body akin to the SAC, the YCC at the time created a report on student opinions about the presidential search process.

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Past and present University leaders responded to McInnis’ appointment with congratulatory remarks and excitement for her coming tenure. 

“It is wonderful to know that Yale will be led by an alumna who has embraced our university’s values and aspirations,” University President Peter Salovey wrote to the News. “In all her leadership positions, she has championed students and faculty members, opening new avenues for teaching, research, and scholarship. I look forward to supporting Maurie in a role that has meant so much to me.”

Salovey noted his time working alongside McInnis — who has been the president of Stony Brook University since July 2020 and a Yale trustee since 2022 — as part of the Association of American Universities and the Yale Corporation. He wrote that McInnis’s record as a leader, educator and scholar reveals a “deeply held belief in the power of education to improve the lives of individuals and strengthen communities.”

Former Yale President Richard Levin echoed Salovey’s embrace of McInnis as Yale’s next leader. He added that the challenges at Yale and other institutions throughout the country this past year will be an opportunity for McInnis to highlight Yale’s educational principles.

“Following a challenging year of controversy across the landscape of higher education, President McInnis has an opportunity to encourage rational discourse as a pathway to mutual understanding, and to renew Yale’s focus on the pursuit of excellence in scholarship and teaching,” Levin wrote.

McInnis’ appointment comes amid heightened scrutiny about campus antisemitism, Islamophobia and University response to student activism in the wake of the Israel-Hamas war. Earlier this month, Salovey was summoned to testify before Congress on campus antisemitism following a tumultuous period of protests that included three-day-long encampments on both Beinecke Plaza and Cross Campus. Salovey was later dropped from the hearing and asked to submit a transcribed interview instead. 

McInnis has already begun thinking about the fundraising and development work that lies ahead, Joan O’Neill, vice president for alumni affairs and development, wrote in an email to the News.

O’Neill, who expressed her hopes to the News in November that Salovey would be succeeded by a female president, highlighted McInnis’ commitment to the For Humanity Capital Campaign’s success and her excitement at bringing it to completion in 2026. 

“I am thrilled with the news that Maurie will be Yale’s next president,” O’Neill wrote. “She and I have already started talking about the work ahead and she is excited to spend time with our volunteers and donors.”

The campaign, Yale’s fourth and most ambitious fundraising effort in the University’s modern history, has a target of $7 billion. Salovey stated earlier this year that he aimed to get as close to $6 billion before his departure as Yale’s president on June 30. During a January interview, Salovey told the News that the campaign was “very much on track” and “a bit ahead,” with the total raised at that time hovering around $5.4 billion. 

University Provost Scott Strobel and Tamar Gendler, dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences – both named on the News’ shortlist of possible presidential candidates in September – said they look forward to McInnis’ tenure at Yale. 

Gendler said she looks forward to welcoming McInnis back to campus and working alongside her to advance Yale’s academic mission. Gendler also recently invited McInnis to speak to the Faculty of Arts and Sciences to discuss her insights about her experiences in the faculty and university leadership. 

“I invited her to speak to the FAS faculty so that they could hear insights drawn from her decades of experience as a faculty member and university leader, and I’m confident that she’ll bring those same keen insights to bear on her work as President of Yale,” Gendler wrote. “I very much look forward to our work together.”

Strobel wrote that he believes McInnis has a “deep understanding” of Yale’s strengths and potential, citing her experience and leadership as an alumna and trustee of the Yale Corporation.

“I have been fortunate to work with Maurie in her role as a member of the university’s Board of Trustees,” wrote Strobel. “I am grateful for her commitment to Yale’s mission and look forward to all that will be accomplished under her leadership.”

McInnis will begin her tenure as president July 1.

Correction, May 31: This story has been amended with the correct spelling of Joan O’Neill’s name. 

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McInnis is president of Stony Brook University in Long Island, New York, and has served as a successor trustee of the Yale Corporation since 2022. She received her bachelor’s degree in art history from the University of Virginia in 1988 before earning her master’s and doctorate degrees from Yale in the History of Art in 1990 and 1996, respectively. She held several academic and administrative positions at the University of Virginia before serving as provost of the University of Texas at Austin from 2016 to 2020 until she was appointed as Stony Brook’s president. 

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

“I’m so honored and humbled to be able to be Yale’s next leader, the chance to come back to my alma mater, to an institution that has such a positive impact on people across the world,” McInnis told the News Wednesday morning. “I do understand that the fact that I will be the first non-interim woman serving in that role means that I can play an important role as a role model.”

Previously, Hanna Holborn Gray served as interim president from 1977 to 1978 after the former president Kingman Brewster ’41 resigned from office.

The announcement concludes a nearly nine-month search process that began when Salovey informed the Yale community last August that the 2023-24 academic year would be his last at Yale’s helm. 

The search occurred in a year fraught with backlash against college presidents and comes at a time of increased leadership turnover in American higher education, as the role of university presidents becomes more complex and the subject of intense scrutiny by an institution’s various constituents, the media and the public. Three other Ivy League institutions — Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania and Cornell University — are looking for a new president.

In her announcement, McInnis wrote that she looks forward to meeting the University’s students, faculty, staff and alumni and “continuing the spirit of listening and collaboration.” McInnis wrote that she intends to hold listening sessions and individual meetings in the months ahead.

During a Wednesday morning interview, McInnis reiterated her commitment to “tackle the world’s most pressing challenges” by working alongside the Yale community to create a vision for the ways in which Yale will improve the world now and in the future.    

McInnis’ appointment comes as leaders at Yale and higher education institutions across the country have faced heightened scrutiny about campus antisemitism, Islamophobia and their responses to the student activism in the wake of the Israel-Hamas war. Prior to the summer recess, Yale’s campus was rocked by unprecedented student demonstrations calling for divestment from University investments in military weapons manufacturers. Following a three-night encampment on Beinecke Plaza, police arrested 48 individuals — among them 44 students — on the morning of April 22.

“There’s no doubt that this is an incredibly complicated moment, not just for higher education, but in the world,” McInnis said. “And I look forward to working with this community on those challenges as we build our collaborative response.”

Joshua Bekenstein ’80, senior trustee of the Corporation, told the News that the search committee received nominations for 128 leaders in higher education and other sectors. 

Bekenstein added that this is the first time in recent history that Yale’s president has come from the Corporation.

“In the end, all 15 trustees were extremely excited and it was a very, very unanimous vote with extreme levels of excitement about the future,” Bekenstein said. “Peter Salovey has done a fantastic job for 11 years, putting Yale where we are today, and we believe that Maurie will be a fantastic leader on a go-forward basis.”

During McInnis’s tenure as president of Stony Brook, she has excelled as a fundraiser for the school, securing a $500 million unrestricted endowment donation from the Simons Foundation, a historically large gift, especially for a public university.

Some faculty members at UT Austin and Stony Brook have criticized McInnis’s leadership as overly authoritative and dismissive of faculty concerns. At Stony Brook, critics have called into question her record on campus free speech. In late March, a group of students and faculty members participated in a demonstration in response to the arrests of nine Stony Brook students the day before during a pro-Palestine protest at the University’s Administration Building. In the following weeks, over 600 Stony Brook faculty members and students signed an open letter calling for McInnis to revise the school’s free speech policies and increase administrative transparency.

More recently, Stony Brook’s faculty senate voted to demand that all charges be dropped against 29 individuals — including students and faculty — arrested for their participation in a pro-Palestinian encampment on May 2, and to investigate Enterprise Risk Management – a campus police operation formed by McInnis.

When first contacted by the News about these criticisms in April, McInnis declined to comment. However, in an interview with the News Wednesday morning, she said that such criticism comes with leadership positions.

“Being in a leadership position usually means you can’t please everybody all the time,” McInnis said. “There’s always going to be a multiplicity of opinions about how a variety of different issues should be addressed.”

Although McInnis has been a trustee since 2022, her initial appointment to the board was controversial among University alumni and graduate students. McInnis lost the 2020 alumni fellows election yet was appointed to the Corporation as a successor trustee two years later. At the Corporation, she serves on the institutional policies, School of Medicine, finance and educational policy committees, the latter of which she is the chair of.

McInnis told the News that she gained insights about university governance as both the Corporation trustee and president of Stony Brook. 

“One of the great things about being a trustee is the breadth of vision you get in that position to the governance aspects of an institution — you really understand an institution’s strengths and its strategies for moving forward. That is very different from actually being in a leadership role,” McInnis said. “My experience at Stony Brook has given me extraordinary insights into many of the management issues that as president you face at large, complex institutions.”

The Presidential Search Committee consisted of eight Corporation members — not including McInnis — and four faculty members, as well as a 12-member Student Advisory Council that gathered student input on the process. 

Salovey will step down on June 30, taking a sabbatical before returning to the faculty where he is currently the Chris Argyris Professor of Psychology.

Read the News’ past coverage of the presidential selection process here.

Ben Raab, Yurii Stasiuk and Ariela Lopez contributed reporting.

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Both Millstone and Norwood appear on this year’s Alumni Fellow election ballot. However, some students are urging alumni not to vote for Millstone, citing his political donations and other personal investments.

In a post online, the Yale Endowment Justice Coalition, or EJC, is urging eligible alumni — those who have held their undergraduate degrees for at least five years or any graduate and professional alum or honorary degree holder — to cast their vote by the May 19 deadline “to block a drone investor and far-right megadonor from becoming Yale’s next trustee.” 

The backlash comes amid growing criticism of the Corporation from students and alumni over its lack of transparency, most recently with regard to the University’s investments in military weapons manufacturers.

“Students are calling for divestment from weapons and genocide, and they’re also facing limits on that in their freedom of expression so putting someone on the Corporation who is obviously tied to the weapons industry and to anti-higher education politicians like [Ron] DeSantis just wildly misses the moment,” Taran Samarth GRD ’29, an organizer with the EJC, said. “It’s also just become very clear that the [Alumni Fellow Nominating Committee] misread the room in picking Millstone as a candidate and centers the need for reinstating the petition process and expanding democracy of the Corporation, not restricting it as we’ve seen in recent years.”

In total, the Corporation boasts 19 members: Yale’s president; 10 “successor trustees” chosen by current Corporation members; six “alumni fellows” nominated by the Alumni Fellow Nominating Committee, or AFNC, and voted on by eligible alumni; and two ex-officio members: the governor and lieutenant governor of Connecticut. 

This year’s alumni fellow candidates

Millstone currently serves as co-CEO of Standard Industries, described on its website as a “privately-held global industrial company” which serves as the parent company to various industrial manufacturers, roofing and solar companies and which has also recently begun backing a slew of media start-ups. 

Additionally, Millstone and his wife Jeniffer Millstone ’00 are the founding donors of the Millstone Scholars program through the Tikvah Fund, which provides 7th and 8th graders “the opportunity to study the great ideas, leaders and texts of Jewish civilization,” per the organization’s annual report.

In 2022, the Millstones gave a gift to Yale’s Institution for Social and Policy Studies to launch the Millstone Fellowship, which provides financial support to rising seniors exploring careers in public service over the summer.

A member of the University Council since 2019, Millstone studied mathematics and philosophy and rowed at Yale before eventually attending Harvard Law School, where he currently serves on the Board of Advisors for the Harvard Law School Program on Corporate Governance. Along with his wife, Millstone also supports several civic organizations, including the Partnership for Public Service, the fortune Society and the Bard Prison Initiative.

Norwood has served as the executive vice president and president of government health benefits at Elevance Health — which serves over 47 million people in the United States and has the second largest Medicaid portfolio in the country — since 2018. Before joining Elevance Health, Norwood worked as the director of the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services from 2015 to 2018. Norwood has also worked for 19 years with Aetna, a CVS health company, in a number of capacities and most recently as the Mid America Region President.

She has also been widely recognized for her work by a number of organizations. In 2019, Black Enterprise named Norwood as one of the Most Powerful Women in Corporate America. Savoy Magazine listed her as one of the Most Influential Black Corporate Directors in 2021, as one of the Most Influential Black Leaders in Corporate America in 2022 and as one of the Most Influential Black Executives in Corporate America this year. 

Norwood currently serves on the committees on risk and corporate responsibility for the board at Wells Fargo. Prior to obtaining her law degree from Yale Law School, she received a bachelor’s and master’s degree in political science from Valdosta State University in 1981 and the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1982, respectively. She previously served on the YLS Fund Board and the YLS Executive Committee.

Per the alumni fellow election website, alumni fellow candidates typically do not campaign and are elected “solely based on the information included in the official election materials.” A University spokesperson wrote to the News that because of this, “those involved in the election process cannot do media interviews during this time.” 

Mixed feelings on Millstone

In an Instagram post, the EJC raised concerns  over Millstone’s political donations to far-right politicians, including Ron DeSantis ’01, Nikki Haley, Ted Cruz and Tom Cotton. FEC Filings show that Millstone donated $1 million to DeSantis’ Never Back Down PAC in April 2023, over $800,000 to support Haley’s presidential bid from October to December 2023, over $23,000 to support Cruz from 2022 to 2024 and over $37,000 for Cotton from March 2021 to June 2023.

The group also criticized the Millstone Scholars program at the Tikvah Fund, whose core curricular pillars include courses in “Jewish thought and history,” “Zionism and modern Israel,” “the spirit of Democracy” and “the great ideas of Western Civilization.” According to the program’s site, the programming is meant to foster the next generation of Jewish leaders “in an era of declining Jewish identity and rising anti-Semitism.” 

Lastly, the EJC scrutinized Standard Industries’ investments in three particular startup companies — ARRIS Composites, Aras and Saildrone — that focus on the production of drones and military transport vehicles. Millstone’s Standard Industries also owns GAF Energy, which is now the largest producer of solar roofing globally. 

Two of Millstone’s friends paint a different picture of the potential trustee. Elyssa Friedland ’03, a former managing editor of the News and current fellow of Grace Hopper College, said in an interview that she was “saddened” to read the way that Millstone was depicted in an op-ed submitted to the News because “it neglected so much of the unbelievable social justice work” Millstone and his wife have done.

Friedland added that while she appreciates student concern for the Corporation election, she is worried about having one group who is “cherry picking examples” sway the election. Friedland also said that the opinion piece against Millstone’s candidacy felt “one-sided and aggressive,” eschewing a characterization of the “ethical, compassionate, thoughtful, deliberate, honest, good hearted person he is.”

“The way he’s been painted couldn’t be less accurate… this is someone who has hired former inmates to work in his company because he believes in second chances,” Friedland said. “This is a very deeply compassionate person and this is someone who through business has given so much economic support to regions that have been devastated by natural disasters.”

Eric Ries ’01, the  founder of the Long-Term Stock Exchange, told the News that he believes Millstone is well-suited to handle Yale’s fiduciary duties as a trustee.

Ries, who met Millstone while they were both undergraduate students at Yale, told the News that although he understands student concerns about ideologues in today’s polarized political climate, he considers Millstone “one of the most non-ideological people.” He added that he suspects Millstone’s political donations are not representative of some “factional political view” or “tribal affiliation” but rather strategic actions on Millstone’s part.

Ries described Millstone as “well-connected” and “intellectually curious.”

“He has a tremendous love for Yale and the project of liberal arts education in general, so it seemed very natural to me that he would be a candidate for this kind of position,” Ries said. “Having a wide range of views and understanding the separate responsibilities that come with governance… that’s what you want in a trustee and so, from that lens, I would have zero qualms about David playing that role.”

From 2021 to 2023, Millstone has also donated at least $24,000 to Democratic candidates. At Yale, the Millstone Fellowship’s inaugural class funded the experiences of seven students, four of whom have previous experience working for Congressional democrats, one student who served as a legislative captain for the Yale College Democrats and another who served as president of the Yale Undergraduate Prison Project.

Still, students worry about his ties to far-right politicians and the military-industrial complex. Samarth told the News that the criticism stems not from concern about the Corporation being apolitical but from a fear that it is “extremely political and selecting Millstone is aligned with that.”

Mounting criticism of the Corporation

In recent weeks, Yale’s campus has been rocked by unprecedented demonstrations targeting the Corporation’s secrecy and demanding that they disclose and divest from military weapons manufacturers. However, the Board of Trustees, as the Corporation is also known, has faced criticism from students and alumni for its lack of transparency prior to these protests as well. 

Over 2,000 students, almost 90 percent of participants, in a Yale College Council referendum that ran from Jan. 30 to Feb. 3 last year voted in support of more democratic Yale Corporation trustee elections. 

In February, a Hartford district court ruled that the University can regulate its trustee alumni appointments, settling a lawsuit brought forth by two alumni —Victor Ashe ’67 and Donald Glascoff ’67 — in March 2022 after the Corporation scrapped the petition process in May 2021 that alumni had been able to use to obtain a spot on the alumni fellow ballot since 1929. Ashe has since appealed the decision.

“We are prepared to continue the effort to restore democracy to the corporation election process,” Ashe wrote to the News. “The current situation is a mockery of a true election.”

Then-senior trustee Catharine Bond Hill GRD ’85 wrote in a statement announcing the Corporation’s decision to remove the petition process as a means of eliminating “issues-based candidacies” and preventing a new normal that involved “vying groups with organized support competing to focus Yale on their chosen goals.”

“At the heart of the matter is the vital distinction between an elected representative of a cause or movement and a person elected without any agenda other than to bring independent judgment to the varied and complex issues facing the university,” Hill’s statement read.

Now, the Alumni Fellow Nominating Committee nominates between two and five candidates each year for alumni to vote on. The AFNC is a standing committee of the Yale Alumni Association and is composed of alumni from across Yale’s schools and departments, Secretary and Vice President for University Life Kimberly Goff-Crews ’83 LAW ’86 and Vice President for Alumni Affairs and Development Joan O’Neil.

The AFNC also includes a current Corporation member, a spot that is this year filled by successor trustee Marta Tellado GRD ’02, drawing the ire of some alumni like the climate activist organization Yale Forward co-founder Scott Gigante GRD ’21.

Gigante told the News that he was not aware about the criticism that the EJC highlighted prior to viewing their post, which he says surprised him as an alum active in matters dealing with the Corporation. Like Samarth, Gigante also said that, contrary to the message conveyed by Hill in 2021 when announcing the end of the petition process, the current situation “brings to light the fact that you don’t really come to the Corporation without an agenda.”

“In this case, we have a candidate who has been proposed by the AFNC who has very much put his money where his mouth is in terms of his agenda, it’s out there for the world to see what direction he would prefer society to move in,” Gigante said. “Governor DeSantis has very strong positions on higher education, and it wouldn’t be such a leap to assume that such a major donor to DeSantis’s campaign could share similar positions on those issues.”

Departing trustees

Whoever wins the alumni fellow election will succeed Michael Warren ’90, who was elected as an alumni fellow in 2018. The Corporation is also set to decide on a successor for Hill, who will conclude 11 years of service as a trustee. Hill was elected as an alumni fellow in 2013 but was subsequently named a successor trustee in 2018, serving as senior trustee from then until 2021. 

Yale spokesperson Karen Peart wrote to the News that information about potential trustees is confidential and that the timing and announcement of new successor trustees is at the discretion of the Corporation. 

Warren and Hill are two of eight trustees on Yale’s 12-person Presidential Search Committee, whose last public update on the search was made on Jan. 29. University President Peter Salovey is set to step down from his role on June 30. Apart from selecting Yale’s presidents, trustees also engage in other fiduciary duties that include ruling on matters involving administrative appointments, the conferral of degrees, major building projects and budget oversight.

They have also been active in responding to the heated campus environment over the past several weeks, per an interview with Salovey earlier this month. Salovey added that although trustees’ role does not involve “management” tasks, the University has been “communicating on a regular basis” about the campus protests to obtain “informal input and advice,” which, he said, Yale typically does on “nearly any serious issue.”

“The best way to understand trustees is that their role is in governance, their role is big picture strategy, their role is risk reduction, but their role is not management,” Salovey told the News. “And I think a lot of what to do in a protest situation are management tasks; however, trustees are a very smart group and any number of them have relevant experiences: they’ve worked as campus leaders, they’ve worked as the leader of a complex organization, they have a legal background and soliciting their input is always a good idea.”

Per Yale’s by-laws, Corporation meetings are opened with prayer and occur at least five times a year; their last meeting this year is scheduled for June 8.

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Salovey is called to appear in Congress on May 23 alongside the University of California, Los Angeles President Gene Block and University of Michigan President Santa Ono for the committee hearing titled “Calling for Accountability: Stopping Antisemitic College Chaos.” 

“The university has received the invitation,” a University spokesperson wrote on behalf of Salovey to the News’ inquiry on whether Salovey would attend the hearing and his reaction to the announcement. The spokesperson did not further elaborate on whether Salovey will testify on May 23. 

Education and Workforce Committee Chair Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., said in a press release that the May hearing would concern the summoned presidents’ handling of recent campus protests.

Foxx said that college and university campuses are “not a park for playacting juveniles or a battleground for radical activists” and that the hearing would serve as a “healthy dose of reality” for those affiliated with institutions rocked by demonstrations.

“The Committee has a clear message for mealy-mouthed, spineless college leaders: Congress will not tolerate your dereliction of your duty to your Jewish students,” Foxx said. “No stone must go unturned while buildings are being defaced, campus greens are being captured, or graduations are being ruined.”

When the presidents of Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology — Claudine Gay, Liz Magill ’88 and Sally Kornbluth, respectively — were called to testify at the Education and Workforce Committee’s Dec. 5 congressional hearing, Salovey was not invited and told the News that he did not know why he was not invited to testify. Unlike Salovey, the three presidents called before Congress then were new to their roles. 

Following the December hearing and backlash to the presidents’ answers, both Ivy League presidents Gay and Magill resigned from their posts. Columbia University President Minouche Shafik, who began her term July 1, declined an invitation to the Dec. 5 congressional hearing, citing a scheduling conflict at the United Nations’ COP28 conference in Dubai. However, Shafik appeared before Congress on April 17 and stood firmly against campus antisemitism, eschewing an intense focus on free speech that the presidents at the December hearing had.

The announcement from the House committee also follows the arrests of more than 1,000 demonstrators throughout the nation calling on higher education institutions to divest from military weapons manufacturers.

Shortly after 6 a.m. on April 22, 48 protesters at Yale were arrested and charged with Class A misdemeanors on Beinecke Plaza where students had set up tents during the third night of their overnight encampment. The pro-Palestine protesters then erected a new encampment on Sunday afternoon with roughly 40 tents on Cross Campus after a mass rally of over 1,000 protesters marched through the streets of downtown New Haven and Yale’s campus. Police officers then cleared that encampment on Tuesday morning but made no arrests.

Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., who led the intense questioning during the Dec. 5 hearing, said in a press conference that college and university presidents are lacking “moral leadership.”

“There are dozens of these antisemitic encampments across the country,” Stefanik said. “These mobs are breaking university rules, leading to the targeting and harassment of Jewish students and faculty.”

Unlike Gay, Kornbluth and Shafik, who all had less than a year’s experience before their hearings, Salovey has held Yale’s presidency for 11 years. Magill served less than two years as UPenn president. Salovey is also set to step down from his role on June 30. 

The hearing will be held at 2175 Rayburn House Office Building in Washington, D.C.

Correction, May 1: The language in the article has been updated to reflect the fact that Salovey has not confirmed he will testify.

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On April 16, when the bookshelf was erected and removed shortly after, there was no policy on structures on the University Provost Office’s Policies & Procedures website. The University administration then also failed to clearly explain the policy behind their removal of the structure. 

Protesters, who have been demanding that Yale divest from military weapons manufacturers, argue that the new policy unfairly targets their ongoing demonstrations.

“I find that the policy is a reactionary measure that was cobbled together to specifically silence and suppress student organizers and occupiers who have been diligently, carefully, and peacefully bringing to light Yale’s complicity in the genocide of Palestinians,” Minh Vu ’20 GRD ’26, who has been active in the divestment protests this past week, wrote in an email to the News.

Vu said they believe administrators are more interested in “policing its students” than in considering their input and that the policy was crafted to silence the peaceful protests of students in recent days.

Adam Nussbaum ’25, who has also participated in the divestment demonstrations, said that he found the policy “a bit incoherent, and absurd.” Nussbaum, an architecture student, believes that the updated policy will chill free speech and student expression.

“Requiring something to be approved by the governing body of the school makes it much more difficult for students to express themselves freely in public space because there’s always the possibility for administrative repression, as we’ve seen,” Nussbaum said.

Nussbaum added that he believes the University is experiencing a moment of distrust between students and the administration, because of this perceived repression.

Goff-Crews wrote to the News that Yale’s goals are to “always” support its free expression policies and to keep the campus secure for everyone so that the University’s operations are allowed to continue.

“We, as a community, cannot tolerate acts of discrimination, harassment, or physical harm nor can we allow any violation of Yale policies that interrupt our academic work and campus operations,” Goff-Crews wrote in Monday’s email. 

According to the updated policy, students who wish to place a structure — which the policy defines as a “wall, barrier, tent, sculpture, artwork or other object” — must first obtain written permission from an appropriate administrator with authority over that space. These administrators include heads of colleges for residential college spaces, school deans for Yale College and graduate and professional school spaces and from Goff-Crews’ office for outdoor spaces, including Cross Campus, Beinecke Plaza and other University outdoor spaces.

Protesters did not obtain permission from administrators to build the bookshelf or the tents on Beinecke Plaza.

A University spokesperson wrote to the News that the bookshelves “were impeding the flow of traffic on the plaza.” On the day the bookshelf was removed, the spokesperson cited general policies around free expression and peaceful assembly and the use of outdoor spaces. 

In an email to the News, Goff-Crews wrote that the structure policy builds on existing policies. However, she did not directly answer how it differs from the policy that was previously in place.

“The clarification, shared with the university community on Monday, specifically addresses policy regarding structures and will be useful to students and other members of the university community planning activity,” Goff-Crews wrote to the News.

Goff-Crews was named Vice President for University Life in 2019.

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As University guests gathered for dinner in the Schwarzman Center, over 400 people gathered in Beinecke Plaza, just outside the event, to protest Yale’s investments in military weapons manufacturing. Many of the protest chants directly addressed Yale Corporation members inside the venue, as protesters named the trustees and shouted, “Shame on you!”

Of the five groups originally slated for the night – Sabrosura, Tangled up in Blue, Whim ‘n Rhythm, Magevet and solo opera singer Daniel Espinal MUS ’24 – only Espinal and some members of Magevet ultimately performed. 

All four of the group acts either declined to comment on the decision or did not respond to messages from the News. Some members of Tangled up in Blue and Sabrosura joined the protest outside at the time they were originally scheduled to perform at the dinner. 

At the dinner, Espinal said that he performed one song at around 9:15 p.m. for a crowd of close to 100 people, and that he was unaware that a protest was happening outside the building.

“When I got there, an administrator told me, ‘some of the groups aren’t coming so you might be going first,’” he said.

All five groups attended a sound check for the event around 3 p.m., according to a student in attendance who requested anonymity due to a fear of retaliation. The student said that the groups had planned out what they were singing for Salovey, and had incorporated references to his tenure into their sets.

Espinal told the News that when he arrived at the Friday night dinner, members of Tangled up in Blue were still in the venue and practicing for their performance. But they ultimately left the event before their planned performance time. 

On Saturday afternoon, a protest organizer on Beinecke Plaza announced that Tangled up in Blue had pulled out of the performance in solidarity with the protest and that some members would perform on Beinecke Plaza alongside the protesters later that afternoon. The group performed around 2:45 p.m. and sang “Paradise” by John Prine and “Ohio” by Neil Young, among other songs.

Friday night’s dinner took place in Commons at the Schwarzman Center. Attendees included Yale Corporation’s current trustees, emeritus trustees, administrators, other school officials, partners and volunteers to celebrate University President Peter Solvey’s service to Yale. 

William Ginsberg, who is President and CEO of The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven and attended the dinner, told the News that the event featured “well-deserved” tributes to Salovey. 

“Trustees, former trustees, musical performances, videos about accomplishments in the Salovey years. It was very upbeat, [a] retrospective on the Salovey years and looking forward to what happens from here,” he said. 

Ginsberg said that he could not hear protesters from inside the event.

Samuel Haller, a financial assistant in the Department of Psychology, Salovey’s old department, also attended the dinner.

“The building is remarkably soundproof,” Haller said. “Nothing went through.”

While students occupied the area directly outside the entrance to the Schwarzman Center overlooking Beinecke Plaza, attendees quietly began exiting the event from the other side of the building, facing the intersection of College and Grove Street, around 9 p.m. The party-goers, some of whom left in large white vans, were flanked by more than 15 Yale police officers in two lines. Three Yale Police cars were stationed on College Street adjacent to the exit, and a fourth pulled onto the sidewalk at around 9:45 p.m.

Haller, who chose to exit the Schwarzman Center from the door facing Beinecke Plaza, said that “given what [he] was wearing,” a suit and tie, he was initially “met with some derision” from protesters, who yelled ‘shame’ at him. However, when Haller told the protesters, “I work for [UNITE HERE] Local 34 and I say, ‘free Palestine,’” their attitude toward him changed. 

Haller donned a keffiyeh given to him by protesters and joined them in “free Palestine” chants.

No members of the Yale Corporation who were seen by the News exiting Schwarzman Center, including senior trustee Maurie McInnis GRD ’90 GRD ’96, Maryana Iskander LAW ’03, Neal Wolin ’83 LAW ’88, Marta Tellado GRD ’02, Michael Warren ’90 and Catharine Bond Hill GRD ’85, responded to request for comment. 

However, Lance Liebman ’62, a trustee from 1971 to 1983 and a former Chairman of the News, said that the event was a positive reflection of Salovey’s time. 

“It was very good,” he said of the event.  “Everybody spoke very well of Salovey’s presidency.”

The Schwarzman Center is located at 168 Grove Street.

Nathaniel Rosenberg contributed reporting.

The post Three student acts cancel performances at Salovey’s celebratory dinner appeared first on Yale Daily News.

Holloway, like other figures on the News’ list, has strong ties to Yale and a robust track record of leadership posts in academia. However, his colleagues at Rutgers have raised concerns about his leadership.

Four years after receiving his graduate degree in history from Yale in 1995, Holloway joined the University as a faculty member before becoming a full professor in 2004, At Yale, Holloway became the second Black person to become Head of Calhoun — now Grace Hopper — College and was chair of the African American Studies department. In 2014, he became the first Black dean of Yale College. In 2017, Holloway stepped down to become provost at Northwestern University before being appointed the first Black president of Rutgers University in 2020.

Last September, the Rutgers University senate — which is made up of over 130 students, faculty, alumni and staff — passed a vote of no confidence in Holloway after a historic triple-union strike. Holloway, supported by the university’s board of governors, remained in the position. The News spoke to three members of faculty at Rutgers, who criticized Holloway for his handling of faculty unions and lack of communication with his university community.

Holloway declined the News’ multiple requests for comment. 

“He has consistently shown contempt for and disdain for the people who do the work of the university,” Jim Brown, professor of English at Rutgers, wrote to the News. “He has shown little interest in the working or learning conditions of students, staff, and faculty at all Rutgers campuses.”

Since the vote of no confidence, Holloway stopped showing up at University senate meetings, drawing the ire of some faculty members. 

Holloway’s desire to become the president at Yale has been “out in the open for months” among Rutgers faculty, according to one faculty member who wished to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation from the administration.

“He just seems to want to wash his hands at Rutgers and move on,” the faculty member said. “I think he would see Yale as the pinnacle of his personal achievements. So yeah, I don’t think he wants to stick around at this public university any longer than he has to.”

Rutgers faculty on strike

By last spring, faculty at Rutgers had been working without a union contract for almost a year. 

The main issue discussed during prolonged contract negotiations was the recognition of part-time lecturers, for whom the union demanded equal pay for equal work, according to Robert Scott, a Rutgers anthropology professor who also serves on the university senate. These efforts, he said, were met by “stonewalling” from the administration.

Jim Brown, a professor of English at Rutgers, served as president of one of the chapters of the Rutgers AAUP-AFT union until last year and sat on its bargaining team. According to Brown, Holloway’s administration did not take negotiations seriously.

“His administration’s inability to negotiate contracts is largely due to his willingness to allow a team of lawyers and bureaucrats to run the university,” Brown wrote. “He played no role in negotiations. I sat at the table for a year, and I never saw him.”

As the union contemplated striking, Holloway threatened to seek a court injunction to break the strike and force faculty back to work. When, on April 10, faculty went on strike, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy had to intervene, asking Holloway not to seek an injunction. Scott and Brown attributed his decision not to seek legal action to external pressure on the president. 

Scott recalled that at one point during union negotiations, Holloway created an anonymous survey form for students to report faculty members who failed to show up to class due to the strike. 

“This is especially important for the thousands of students who are finishing their academic careers at Rutgers and are only a few weeks away from earning their degrees,” Holloway said when he contemplated legal action against strikers. 

After five days on strike, with the governor’s mediation, the university achieved an agreement with its union, which the latter pronounced as its victory. The new contract, ratified by the university unions in early May, included a 14 percent raise for full-time faculty. Adjunct faculty — as part-time lecturers are now classified per the contract — now earn close to equal pay for equal work with full-time professors

However, Brown wrote that after the strike ended, the administration continued treating workers “with disdain,” citing the layoffs of adjunct faculty at Rutgers-New Brunswick’s writing program, who he said “worked at Rutgers for more than 40 years.”

“His administration is increasing class sizes to enact these layoffs, which is bad for students and faculty,” Brown wrote. “He would likely say that this is a financial decision made because of finite resources, but he never seems to care about those finite resources when it comes to funding athletics or the pet projects of administrators at all three campuses.”

No confidence vote in Holloway’s leadership

On Sept. 22, the Rutgers University senate expressed no confidence in Holloway in an 89-to-47 vote.

The decision came on the heels of the faculty strike, as well as a controversial decision in July to merge two of the university system’s medical schools and the ousting of the Rutgers-Newark chancellor in August.

When Holloway’s administration started the merging of two medical schools, many professors were “reticent or opposed,” Scott said Then, the administration ignored the concerns among faculty and senate’s request to pause the merger and proceeded with the plan.

Last August, Rutgers also announced that it would not renew the contract with Nancy Cantor, a chancellor of Rutgers-Newark, prompting a backlash from faculty. Despite Holloway’s announcement praising Cantor, the university administration never explained the reasoning behind their decision not to renew a contract with her.

The resolution of a vote of no confidence on Holloway  refers to Cantor as “a highly effective, popular, widely-respected and nationally recognized campus chancellor.” A faculty at Newark campus, who spoke on a condition of anonymity, told the News that faculty will “never ever forgive” Holloway for dismissing her.

Brown also criticized the president for overlooking the Rutgers-Camden campus, where Brown teaches. 

​​”He will talk about how many times he has visited the campus. He will say that he has not forgotten about us,” Brown wrote. “But the policies remain the same. The campus with the largest proportions of first-generation students and non-white students does not get treated equitably.”

Brown said that Rutgers never allocated resources to Rutgers-Camden and that the campus “never felt valued.”

Following the senate’s decision, Holloway stopped coming to senate meetings and sent a letter announcing a new model of University engagement where he would meet with students and faculty in small “salons,” which became the subject of a running joke among faculty members, according to Scott.

“It had an elitist ring to it,” Scott said. “Go to Yale, take your salons to Yale.”

Scott added that he’d meet the news of Holloway being named president of Yale as a sign of relief and a chance to start anew at Rutgers.

On Friday night, Holloway arrived for University President Peter Salovey’s farewell dinner at the Schwarzman Center — one day before the Yale Corporation’s April 20 meeting. Holloway said that he was attending the dinner to “honor” Salovey.  

If selected for the role, Holloway would become the University’s first president of color.

The post Jonathan Holloway could be Yale’s next president. Some Rutgers faculty would be glad to see him go. appeared first on Yale Daily News.

Although the Search Committee has not released formal requirements for the job, the News compiled a list of eight potential candidates in September by examining the shared qualifications of former Yale presidents. The News found that the University’s presidents have often received advanced degrees and amassed a prominent record of scholarly research and publications before also serving as deans, as provosts or in other higher education leadership positions at institutions including Yale.

Both McInnis and Thomas fit those criteria.

“​​If the corporation elected one of their own members as president that would be legitimate and legal,” said Henry “Sam” Chauncey Jr. ’57, former University Secretary and special assistant to former President Kingman Brewster from 1963 to 1972. “It has happened in other colleges and universities, it’s not impossible or unusual.”

Salovey did not directly respond to the News’ request for comment about whether Yale’s by-laws dictate whether a member of the Corporation might be able to ascend to the presidency. McInnis and Thomas did not respond to the News’ request for comment on the same topic — or about whether they would accept an offer, if extended, to become Yale’s 24th president.

University spokesperson Karen Peart responded on behalf of Salovey and the trustees, referring the News to Corporation senior trustee Joshua Bekenstein’s ’80 comment from a search update issued on Jan. 29 that the committee’s “goal is to complete a thorough search that fully considers every potential candidate.”

Yale’s presidential search committee, composed of eight trustees and four faculty members, does not include McInnis and Thomas. Peart wrote that this committee will bring a recommendation to the Corporation and elect the President based on the University Charter.

“We are fortunate to have members from the public and private sector, including leaders from higher education on our board,” Peart wrote. “This allows for a great diversity of perspective and thought and does not pose a conflict.”

McInnis’ and Thomas’ backgrounds

Prior to taking the helm of Stony Brook, McInnis served as a professor, provost and executive vice president at the University of Texas at Austin from 2016 to 2020. McInnis earned her bachelor’s degree in art history with highest distinction from the University of Virginia in 1988 before earning her master’s and Ph.D. degrees in 1990 and 1996, respectively. McInnis also served on the faculty at the University of Virginia for nearly 20 years and served as vice provost for academic affairs from 2013 to 2016.

At Stony Brook, McInnis heralded in a $500 million gift from the Simons Foundation — the “largest unrestricted gift in the history of higher education,” McInnis wrote in an email to the News. Aside from her duties as a successor trustee to the Yale Corporation, McInnis also currently serves as the inaugural board chair of the New York Climate Exchange.

McInnis wrote to the News on April 5 that she finds it “personally fulfilling” to lead Stony Brook, “where excellence and equity are deeply ingrained in its culture.”

“It is a great honor, and it has been exciting to lead the institution to new heights,” McInnis wrote of her current role as Stony Brook president to the News on April 5. “We have set clear and ambitious goals grounded in expanding our impact through our research and scholarship, our engagement in some of the most challenging issues of the day and our extraordinary success in moving students up the economic ladder. And it has been an exciting year at Stony Brook. ”

After earning a bachelor’s in administrative sciences from Yale in 1978, Thomas also earned his master’s and Ph.D. in organizational behavior from the University in 1984 and 1986. Thomas has also served as assistant professor of management at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, as a professor of business administration at Harvard University, and as dean and chair of the Georgetown University McDonough School of Business.

Elected as an alumni fellow to the Yale Corporation in 2011, Thomas currently serves on the boards of Commonfund, DTE Energy and Vanguard. 

If it was McInnis or Thomas, why would it be taking so long? 

Chauncey told the News that McInnis and Thomas “could be the choice” if the Corporation were to elect someone among its own ranks to the presidency.

But Chauncey added that he suspects that if either Corporation member were being considered for the search, they would have been selected sooner. He said that one possible reason why the search has taken so long is that creating an offer for a candidate takes time — especially if the University’s first pick turned their offer down.

“You would have thought if it was one of those two, that they would have come to a decision a little sooner than now; it’s quite late and the search has taken quite a while,” said Chauncey. “Once you get as far as offering it to someone new, that takes quite a while and when your offered person ends up turning it down, you have to go back to scratch and start over again.”

Internal presidential hiring has precedent in the Ivy League. Lawrence S. Bacow was appointed as Harvard University’s 29th president in 2018 while still a member of the Harvard Corporation, concluding a seven-month search process. According to The Harvard Crimson, Bacow agreed to relinquish his spot on the committee in mid-December 2017, six months into its search process.

Former senior fellow of the Harvard Corporation William F. Lee told the Crimson at a press conference announcing Bacow’s selection that the search committee had received many recommendations from within and outside of Harvard in favor of Bacow.

“He went through the same processes our other candidates, but in the end, he emerged as the person who we unanimously and enthusiastically believed was the best choice to lead Harvard forward,” Lee told the Crimson. “He is one of the most respectful, insightful, and experienced leaders in American higher education.” 

The Corporation will meet this Saturday following a private Friday dinner event celebrating outgoing University President Peter Salovey. 

Yale’s presidential search committee is now seven months into its search process to find Salovey’s successor. 

A public update on the search was last released Jan. 29.

“Such a search takes time, discipline, and focus. It is also a confidential process out of respect for everyone being considered,” Bekenstein wrote in that update. “That can limit how much information we can share during the process. Most of all, we look forward to the day when we announce Yale’s next president.”

In its 322-year history, Yale has had 23 presidents, all of whom have been men — with the exception of Hanna Holborn Gray, who served as interim president from 1977 to 1978 — and all of whom have been white.

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Students installed the wooden structure as part of Monday’s “Books not Bombs” protest. Per a press release posted to Instagram account “Occupy Beinecke” — the name of the student coalition responsible for the structure — the group took inspiration from shanty towns built in 1986 to rally for Yale’s divestment from companies operating under South Africa’s apartheid regime. These structures were torn down at the mandate of Yale administrators but were rebuilt and left in place until 1988.

Just after noon, when the fixture was first installed and administrators began asking students to remove it, the News asked Montalvo at the scene under what protocol the fixture was not permitted; she asked that reporters “send an email” as she was “responding to the situation.” Around 12:30 p.m., she redirected all requests for comment to the University spokesperson and declined to individually weigh in.

“Following guidelines around free expression and peaceful assembly, and the use of outdoor spaces, Yale staff members asked that the bookcase be removed to allow free and unfettered access,” the University spokesperson later wrote to the News at 3:41 p.m.

According to the spokesperson, staff offered to have students remove the display themselves, and when the students chose not to do so, the protesters were told facilities staff would remove it. At the protest itself, however, Montalvo said that if protesters took it down themselves, they could keep it, but if administrators took it down, they could not promise to maintain the integrity of the structure nor have a storage space for it.

Yale’s spokesperson also wrote that staff offered to help organizers with the application process for putting up an art installation.

The University claimed late on Monday night that the bookcase had spanned across the entirety of the staircase leading up from Beinecke Plaza to the Schwarzman Center, thus blocking pedestrian access — but pedestrians were still able to walk around the structure to reach the other side of the Plaza, including the entrance to the Schwarzman Center. 

The University did not directly address further questions, sent around 2 p.m., on the University’s policies on required access to buildings or updated status of the shelves that were taken by Yale Facilities, nor to follow-up questions sent around 5 p.m., 8 p.m. and 11 p.m. about the specific definitions of access to University facilities or of what blocking transit entails. 

University policy for use of outdoor spaces states that “registered groups and organizations from Yale’s schools who want to use the University’s outdoor spaces for an event must apply for and obtain permission” and that “pathways and entryways to buildings must be kept clear and accessible.” 

To apply for proper consideration and approval of requests, permission should be requested 72 hours prior to the event. Monday’s demonstrators did not inform University administrators of their intention to build the structure in advance, according to an organizer. 

In September, Montalvo informed a student they could not construct a Sukkah — a hut-like temporary structure for the Jewish holiday of Sukkot — according to an email exchange obtained by the News. 

“Buildings of this sort may not be constructed on campus,” she wrote. 

The takedown of the structure is also not the first time Montalvo has cited University regulations in dismantling the work of protesters. 

In December, Montalvo gave a student permission to take down a banner that listed the names of thousands of Palestinians killed in Gaza during the Israel-Hamas war. Later, she told the News that there were “administrative errors” made in allowing the poster to go up and in authorizing the student to take it down. 

If Yale were to change its policies, it wouldn’t be the first Ivy to do so.

At Columbia University, administrators announced in February changes to their demonstration policy that reduced the protest approval window from 15 business days to two business days and created designated times and spaces for campus protests. The policy change came amid criticism of the University for its enforcement of policies regarding protests and demonstrations since the onset of Israel’s formally declared war against Hamas in Gaza, according to the Columbia Spectator.

Specifically, Columbia suspended its student chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace in November, seventeen days after revising its events policies to hand Columbia administrators “sole discretion” to determine “final and not appealable” sanctions against student groups and their individual members, per the Spectator. 

Now, under policies enacted in February, Columbia “may not deny registration or approval of an exception for any Demonstration based on the viewpoint of the individual or group seeking to hold the Demonstration.” 

University President Peter Salovey, Dean of Yale College Pericles Lewis, Dean for Student Affairs Melanie Boyd and Montalvo all did not respond to immediate requests for comment following the protest. Montalvo told the News to route all questions through to the University spokesperson.

Update, April 16: This article has been adjusted to clearly attribute the assessment that the bookshelf spanned the full stairway to the Schwarzman Center to the University.

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