My introduction to New Haven began as a Cops and Courts Reporter for the News. I traced the city’s fault lines and encountered a broken justice system. Most city leaders, however, refused to challenge the status quo.

Last spring, I investigated the string of vacancies plaguing New Haven’s Civilian Review Board, or CRB. Established in 2019, the CRB aimed to strengthen police oversight across our city. The Board has failed to deliver on that promise. 

This challenge left a lasting impression on me — one that called for action. I stepped down from my post at the News and applied to serve on the CRB. Alongside Alder Frank Redente, I sought to expand the Board’s enforcement authority, restore community trust in policing, and ensure transparency within legal proceedings. My petitions to join the CRB were met with silence from the Mayor’s office. To this day, the downtown seat on the Board remains empty.

Behind closed doors, the Yale Police Department disbanded its own advisory board — a group of students, faculty and residents tasked with guiding YPD policy. New Haven can no longer afford silence. To deliver justice, we must demand accountability. 

I am running to represent Ward 1 on the Board of Alders to fight for a justice system that listens, delivers and responds to every New Haven resident.

Here’s who I am and the values I stand for.

Pieces of my family’s story rest in American law. My saba fled Hitler’s reign of terror for refuge in New York City. My abuelo escaped Castro’s Cuban revolution for Miami. The United States, fractured and flawed though it is, restored my family’s livelihood. Every night at the dinner table, we’d examine injustice with an eye toward history and faith in reform. 

I seek to honor my story by turning these dinner table conversations into progress. I seek to honor my story by spreading justice and love within my community. I seek to honor my story by mending cracks in the American dream — a dream where all citizens can earn decent wages, live in comfortable homes and enjoy the dignity of equal opportunity.

On campus, I serve as co-president of the Yale Undergraduate Prison Project. Our campaigns deliver literacy programs to Rikers Island Jail, host résumé workshops for justice-impacted individuals and foster dialogue around New Haven policing. This work has revealed the boundless possibilities when Yale and New Haven build together.

Engaging with residents from different backgrounds, ideologies and principles, I am driven to pop the Yale bubble. Every interaction, whether with street vendors or schoolteachers, offers a forum for grassroots reform — a glimpse into a story Yale students must understand. The bedrock of democracy relies on this bridge between New Haven and Yale. All voices must be heard, cherished, and acted upon.

I believe in a vision where Yale and New Haven can collaborate as partners, advocates and friends. Together, we have the opportunity to make this a reality. Our time at Yale should not be seen as a stop along the way, but a commitment to building a stronger New Haven. 

If elected alder, I will always choose progress over politics. I will stand for a new form of progressive leadership — pursuing justice for New Haven, not a political party. 

In the coming months, I will continue to share my vision for Ward 1. I will listen with humility and learn with compassion. I will engage with community members, local officials and Yale students to find solutions to our city’s most pressing challenges. 

Let’s build together.

JAKE SIESEL is a sophomore in Berkeley College. He can be reached at jake.siesel@yale.edu.

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I want to highlight two more important observations about Gen Z: first, our fixation with aesthetic naturalism; the second, our shared responsibility regarding environmentalism. 

There is one author whose body of work explores all these themes: Henry David Thoreau. 

Thoreau was plagued by all the same internal conflicts that we are today. He is not the cantankerous hermit in the woods that you may have thought he was. This image is just one of the many ways he has been misinterpreted. He was truly a kind — if aloof — writer with a deep love of nature and of his fellow man, someone fully committed to his principles. 

Videos about “reconnecting with nature” or “van life” have drifted through all our media streams. Musicians like Noah Kahan, Ethel Cain and Hozier have gained popularity through their rustic American aesthetic. Even as children of the digital era we still yearn for some connection to nature. We may not vocalize it, but we all feel bogged down by our monotonous lifestyles. Thoreau felt the same in his time. Thoreau tried to escape this feeling through transcendentalism. 

Transcendentalism is a philosophical and social concept that sees all nature as the purveyor of divinity. Practically, transcendentalists had empathy for nature and appreciated all it could provide us. Thoreau’s most famous endeavor was his two-year stint at Walden Pond, responsible for his subsequently most famous work “Walden.” He built a small cabin on the borrowed land of another famous transcendentalist, Ralph Waldo Emerson. Here Thoreau wrote great literature, studied local flora and fauna and explored his solitude. 

Some think they can unmask a fraudulent Thoreau by noting that he had visitors to his cabin or that his mom did his laundry. Rebecca Solnit explores how ridiculous our obsession with his laundry is in “Mysterious of Thoreau, Unsolved.” It is important to note that Thoreau kept none of this secret. He was transparent in his endeavors. There is a whole chapter of “Walden” about his trips into town every other day. 

With this book our generation can find someone who has articulated the very ineffable connection we have to nature. If you have ever felt a strong curiosity or draw to nature but have felt constrained by the limitations of domestic life you will feel connected to this book. Pay attention to Thoreau’s opinions on how to live a deliberate and simplified life. Spend time looking at the world around you and ask yourself if you think you are living deliberately and of your own volition. This is the ultimate lesson of “Walden”: be observant and intentional. This book will make you want to question the world around you and finally stop accepting things at face value. It is a masterfully introspective exploration of the human condition and of nature. 

Environmentalism is, or at least should be, at the forefront of young people’s minds. We were born onto a planet beaten down by previous generations and most of us have joined in. But a decent chunk of us fears the apocalyptic crisis that could be our future. A survey focused on people aged 16-25 from The Lancet Planetary Health showed that 85 percent of respondents were moderately worried and 57.9 percent were extremely worried about climate change. Thoreau laid the early foundations of the environmentalist movement in America. 

AI and short form content has lessened our ability to be intellectually challenged. Reading and writing can provide us with these challenges and Thoreau conveys why it is so vitally important. The biggest technological advance of his time was a train that careered about a mile away from his cabin in “Walden.” Thoreau noted how the train created an abundance of convenience but pierced through the forest, disrupting nature. Read these moments in “Walden” in the context of AI. There are important questions that can be taken from Thoreau, questions of convenience vs ethics. AI may take away the stress of tedious tasks, but at what point does it take the importance of our thought process? Thoreau believed in leading an intellectually challenged life; in the chapter “Reading” he urges us “to be provoked, — goaded like oxen, as we are, into a trot.”

In class, learn to appreciate how difficult it may be to listen to your professor. Close your browsers and lower your laptop screen. Next time a friend hits you with the classic Yale nicety “let’s get a meal” maybe try to take a walk somewhere new.   

GRIFFIN SANTOPIETRO is a first year in Berkeley College. He can be reached at griffin.santopietro@yale.edu. 

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I am sure the Class of 2029 is basking in the joy of their selection. They should be. There is much to be excited about. But they will soon learn what we grizzled almost-sophomores now know: the choosing is just getting started. It is a long-documented fact that we have a culture of exclusivity here. Many, myself included, have taken issue with this in the past. But I have changed my mind.

Rachel Shin ‘25 has detailed at great length the immense selectivity of our campus organizations. The subtext is clear — “college students are doing it to themselves.” The natural conclusion here is that our draconian selection processes result from a great failure by our students. But I think the creators of these processes had the right idea.

Rejection strips away the entitlement of the prodigal first year, and as such is equally valuable to the university as all the open fellowships and accessible opportunities in the world. It is rejection that opens first years up to new avenues of exploration.

For “gifted and talented” first years arrive at Yale having never truly failed in their lives. As such, they define themselves by the many awards and positions they have accumulated over the years. Once here, they quickly search for a new anchor of identity in a campus organization, often one centered around their previous areas of success. After an elaborate set of essays and interviews rivaling the Common Application, many are rejected and some are accepted.

It is only here that the true growth begins. For the rejected, mere platitudes about detachment are not enough: personal exploration and a truly-held identity are the only cure for that first great failure. Rejected from the Debate Association, the star high school debater must decide if they like arguing for its own sake, and if so, how to independently keep their voice sharp. Not-quite-club-level former varsity tennis players must improvise hitting sessions with other has-beens. Of the would-be a cappella singers, some find new outlets for their voices while others forever reserve their singing for the shower. All along the question is asked: Without the titles, what do you want to do with your time? 

As for the selected, they too quickly realize that nobody really cares. Their initial acceptance only delays the journey of self-exploration the rejected are already beginning. Eventually, all will be rejected, from some thing or another. If my email inbox is any indication, I can promise the Class of 2029 that being a Yale student entitles you to no position.

I don’t think we should shame people for joining selective organizations and I don’t think we should sound the alarm about exclusivity. People will always aim to be selected and all shaming does is further obscure the process of selection. The real world is competitive, and processing rejection is a skill to be learned like any other. In the real world, Americans increasingly decry highly selective universities as bastions of groupthink where education is no longer valued and a nefarious political agenda supersedes all. And yet application numbers continue to creep up. I would much prefer a culture that is transparent about its desire for selection.

It is hard to see a university that rejects over 95 percent of its applicants as the “schoolhouse for the world” of President McInnis’ inaugural address. But Yale will impart the same lesson to the rejected and accepted alike. The accepted will just wait a little longer.

ROHIL MOHAN is a first year in Morse College studying Economics and Political Science. He can be reached at rohil.mohan@yale.edu.

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 Students tend to use it by scanning courses for high numbers next to teachers’ names and low numbers in the column for workload. They end up “shopping” for classes online in this way, making decisions based on user ratings, much the way they would for products on Amazon. Just like online shopping has largely replaced American retail, Yale has allowed CourseTable to replace the once-beloved “shopping period,” still a consumer model but at least one where students could explore a variety of classes in the opening weeks of the semester. 

Many students prioritize finding classes where they’ll have to do the least work, which is not exactly the best measure for shaping your education. Often when you work the hardest, you learn the most. And you sometimes don’t recognize a class as a good one until time has passed and you realize how much you learned or how it’s changed the way you think or how widely you can apply what you gained from it. Doing less work in a class often minimizes this effect.

But CourseTable is not the problem — it is a symptom of a modern college environment where opportunity cost is king. Of course, it is in the best interest of a student aiming for a law school or medical school application to take the classes most likely to grant them an A, i.e. gut classes. And let’s face it: most Yale students got here by filling their calendars with extracurriculars and achievements in high school, and this continues for many at Yale. Academics might only be part of a pre-professional means to an end, and the “workload” number on CourseTable feeds into this approach.  

The other main number students focus on, the one next to a teacher’s name, is misleading in a different way. This number is not derived from a rating of the teacher’s performance or effectiveness, as many students believe; it is the average of student responses on course evaluations to the question, “What is your overall assessment of this course?” 

But students tend to like certain courses better than others, regardless of who’s teaching them. In the Political Science, Economics and Philosophy departments, just to name a few, there are professors whose ratings are skewed lower because they teach big lecture courses. The lectures almost always receive lower ratings than seminars, no matter who is teaching them, meaning that the professor’s overall rating takes a hit. 

Yes, there is another number indicating a teacher’s rating only for a specific course, but it still has the problem of being derived from this “overall course” question. If CourseTable must be so reductive, why not use one of the other more teaching-centric metrics on student evaluations, such as, “This course was well organized to facilitate student learning” or “I received clear feedback that improved my learning”? One or both of those numbers combined would be a more accurate reflection of the teaching. 

 There is also no indication on CourseTable, unless you dig a little deeper — which many students don’t — of the number and variety of courses represented by these averages. A new teacher might teach one course for one semester and get a high rating on it, which now appears as their definitive value, while another teacher has taught full-time at Yale for 20 years, teaching a range of types of courses — the fun and the less fun — including through the dismal pandemic years, and thus have a lower overall rating. It creates a false equivalency.

You could argue that using student evaluations as a barometer for choosing classes at all is not ideal. Students are not always the best judges of the quality of their own education. Of course, the amount that students learned in a class definitely influences the rating in a positive direction, but we should be honest about what course ratings often truly reflect: some combination of a teacher’s charisma and the ease of the class. 

Before CourseTable gained traction over the last several years, there were a number of factors that students would consider in choosing courses, probably the main one being word-of-mouth. When the process of choosing a class became purely algorithmic, much of the nuance was lost. The recommendations from friends, FroCos, academic advisors and other professors all suddenly had less weight than these few numbers on a chart. This means that now students are missing out on classes they might otherwise have gotten a lot out of.

And CourseTable has real effects on teachers and departments: if a class has low enrollment one year, it may get pulled from the roster the following year. This not only changes the shape of the curriculum but potentially the terms of teaching contracts, especially if someone is not protected by tenure.

 So, as you register for courses this week, remember that the numbers on CourseTable don’t tell the whole story. You don’t have to take a grand moral stand against an educational landscape that has already shifted, but you might get more out of your time at Yale if you just look beyond CourseTable’s bright and shiny colors.

We think that a good education is more than a product to be consumed — even if it has a somewhat consumeristic underlying structure. It is a delicate balance of students’ needs and teachers’ expertise and abilities, and the growth — of both students and teachers — happens in the spaces where those two things meet. If Yale students are, in fact, just trying to maximize fun and minimize effort, then CourseTable is a useful tool, but if that’s the only reason they’re at Yale, then we have a bigger problem.

CARTER DEWEES is a senior in Saybrook College. He can be reached at carter.dewees@yale.edu.

PAM NEWTON is a Lecturer in the English department and the Residential College Writing Tutor in Pauli Murray College. She can be reached at pamela.newton@yale.edu. 

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Last week, I took a chance. I declared my solo campaign for Yale College Council President. Because of that chance, we’re here.

Now, I’m asking you to take a chance.

I am no stranger to my public image, an impassioned outsider who may lack the polish of a conventional candidate but candidly speaks his mind. For those already convinced, you’ve found your match. For those still skeptical, I’m asking you to hear me out.

My meal schedule has remained empty this past week. Why? Chances are you may have caught me wandering around Commons or your residential college dining hall. I might have even sat down with you and asked you the following question point-blank: what kind of change would you like to see at Yale? 

More tangerines? Got it. Increased budget transparency? Noted. Every answer is logged in my Yale History of Art notebook, origin unknown. Take a peek at my notes below (don’t mind the chicken scratch).

Why go through the trouble? I’ll tell you why: it’s because I care, and I care deeply.

I care about the Yale student community. It pains me to hear, time and again, that students feel voiceless in campus decision-making. Many don’t know what the YCC Senate does — let alone the President. They feel blindsided when major changes to quality of life are announced via email. I promise, if anything, to shake things up and do so with the utmost transparency.

I care about New Haven. On Sundays at the Link New Haven community resource desk, I’m exposed to suffering that’s hard to put into words. Clients might walk up to me with limbs discolored from frostbite, having slept outside in subfreezing temperatures on the New Haven Green. That this level of neglect mere steps away from one of the world’s wealthiest institutions is beyond comprehension.

I care about upholding freedom of expression. When hundreds of students come together thoughtfully to advocate for a cause they believe in — like they did the Sumud Coalition referendum — and are met with a hollow, bureaucratic reply from the University president, it feels like a betrayal of what a university should stand for. We’ll go back to the drawing board again and again until student voices actually shape the conversation.

So yes, I lack formal YCC experience, but that doesn’t worry me. I will ensure to surround myself with the best team possible, first and foremost. I’ve seen how long-term involvement in institutional structures can wear down urgency and disconnect you from those you represent. In the end, I’m the person next to you in lecture, the one across from you at Commons. I might bother you with a question, but I promise to not stop fighting for you.

I’m asking you to take a chance on me.

BRIAN MOORE is a junior in Silliman College running for YCC President. He can be reached at b.moore@yale.edu. 

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Dining hall hours don’t always reflect students’ schedules, laundry costs add up and students are concerned with federal changes that impact a vulnerable population on our campus. With achievable and thorough policy goals, we are committed to an action-based push for a better daily life for all students at Yale. We’re pushing to reevaluate the most recent dining changes, provide free laundry for all students and build a student government that recognizes student voices and appropriately channels these concerns to the administration. As fixes that students have called for, these changes would make daily life less stressful and more supportive.

Jointly, we have served in every branch of YCC — from events to policy, including class councils, Senate, the Executive Board and Spring Fling — and we are ready to lead the YCC in supporting every corner of this campus, from student organizations to cultural centers, to the everyday student who doesn’t engage heavily with student government. Through better outreach, we will collaborate with various organizations on campus to ensure there are plenty of avenues for students to engage with the YCC. 

As Pauli Murray Senator, I — Diego — passed and implemented an Uber voucher raise from $30 to $40, allocating over $30,000 to high-need students at Yale. This bill was co-sponsored by 22 other students, with leaders from Rural Students at Yale, Yale First Gen Advocacy Movement, QuestBridge Scholars at Yale and the Office of International Students and Scholars. In addition, I built on previous proposals to have dining halls open for breakfast during Thanksgiving Break, alleviating another financial hurdle for students remaining on campus during academic recess. Just recently, I co-sponsored a bill allocating remaining YCC funds to purchase hundreds of MTA tickets and Uber vouchers for students to get from campus to airports for the summer. 

As Deputy Director of Academic Policy, I — Emily — spearheaded the Public Policy Certificate proposal, which received interest from over 1,000 students. Simultaneously, I served as a member of the University Committee on Majors where I worked with administrators and faculty to push the Public Policy and Entrepreneurship certificates. I also advised on the requirements of majors such as Global Affairs, resulting in a reduced number of requirements and a more accessible major. I also successfully passed a proposal advocating for more flexible deadlines around Election Days, to further voter engagement at Yale. In my other YCC capacities, I hosted multiple Berkeley Senator Outreach events to gather input from students. I also supported the 2024 Wellness Week during finals season to enhance student wellbeing.

Free laundry has been a point of contention for several years; many past administrations have promised free laundry and were unsuccessful. What makes this time different? The CSC contract, the service provider for laundry machines at Yale, will expire in August of 2026. In coming the months the University will meet with prospective providers. We will push for them to build programs to provide free laundry as a part of the contracting process. In addition to free laundry, we will expand routine checks of laundry machines in the residential colleges to ensure that machines are not out of service for more than a week and do not damage your clothing.

In addition to laundry, we recognize that recent dining changes have left students confused. Closing Commons on Fridays, taking away hot breakfast and lunch from many dining halls, and implementing restrictions for certain dining halls to non-college residents for the first hour have left students feeling like changes are made without their opinions taken into account. Some colleges have extended their dining hours, which has been a welcome improvement. However, we need to actively gather student input after these changes to understand what the community wants and make decisions that reflect those needs.

We pledge to utilize the power and authority of the YCC to push the administration to support policy changes that promise a better everyday life for all of its students. We understand that every year at Yale is a special one, so let’s make it the best it can be — let’s make it better.

DIEGO PAZ is a sophomore in Pauli Murray College running for YCC President. He can be reached at diego.paz@yale.edu.

EMILY NGUYEN is a sophomore in Berkeley College running for YCC Vice President. She can be reached at e.nguyen@yale.edu.  

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I nodded my head. We both knew what she meant. 

In my AP U.S. History class in high school, I learned about the term “bully pulpit,” used to denote a public office or authoritative position, often the presidency, that grants its occupant an exceptional opportunity to speak out on any issue. As a columnist for the Opinion desk, I am in a somewhat similar position. I have a platform. I can address any issue I would like. But this comes with a major caveat.

For better or worse, the News gets more attention than your average college paper. It is subject to frivolous criticism on Fizz just as much as it is subject to scrutiny from alumni, Ivy-eyed organizations and perhaps, at times, the federal government. In short, people in my position must constantly and conscientiously fulfill two roles: first, as a collegiate newspaper that sparks campus discourse about issues as mundane and trivial as what we see making its rounds on Fizz; and second, as an widely-read paper with a mandate to discuss big, serious issues. Issues that, in some cases, put our names and livelihoods in jeopardy.

As a student journalist, my writing must toe a fine line, between addressing first-year imposter syndrome at Yale to writing about the impact of wildfires on my native Los Angeles.

A slew of complicated mandates emerges: be serious, but not too serious. Wield rhetoric without being tacky. Be strong in your opinions, but qualify every word lest you offend somebody or hurt somebody else, or perhaps blacklist yourself from a job that you’ll want a decade down the line. Be prudent and judicious, yes, but also speak of controversy quietly.

Write so you can walk down the street safely.

The responsibility I hold is not necessarily of a dual nature, but it has drastically different levels of scrutiny. I knew that becoming a columnist for the Opinion desk would come with its fair share of criticism from my peers; in this business disagreement is a part of the game. But the firmness of my mother’s grasp told me she wasn’t worried about what my peers were critiquing on Fizz.

This powerful bully pulpit from which we speak may be more aptly named the Bullied Pulpit; we can affect change with our journalism, but the consequences of our words make us targets on campus and off, interpersonally and nationally. The gap between being perceived as an instigator rather than an initiator is a mere misstep. 

Journalism must of course be respectful, accurate and prudent in how it disseminates both truth and opinion, but there is a line between courtesy and cunningly contrived culpability. There is a difference between knowing better and knowing better given circumstances that should not be.

In this world we live in right now, voicing a belief apparently requires caution. Doing so can be socially “dangerous” due to the scrutiny we face amongst peers online, but this has always been the case. What has changed is the scrutiny we face beyond campus. Exercising the power of our voices can be dangerous, legally and personally. Now more than ever, we must be smart about how we speak and careful about what we write. We must be aware of our audience, which may now include the federal government. Our job has become far more political. In this present world, we cannot forget that we speak from a bullied pulpit. We cannot allow ourselves to be the cost of outspokenness.

There is much to question and oppose. Answers to these questions and encouragements of these oppositions are begged during times when even the most opinionated fall silent. 

As a staunch advocate for candor, truth and advocacy in itself, I shudder to recommend self-censorship as a solution to this issue. But I would be wholly irresponsible to advocate for flagrant outspokenness when the threats we face are far more permanent and far more damning than normal backlash. Depending on the situation, education, citizenship status and familial livelihood could be at stake. I urge you to exercise caution. 

I cannot give you perfect guidance. Every case is unique, every person is different. I am once again reminded of my mother’s wisdom. The best advice I can offer you is what she told me: lay low for a while.

MIA GORLICK is a first year in Pierson College. Her fortnightly column,“Beyond the Headline,” explores all facets of life, micro and macro, mundane and major, that shape the lived experiences of the people that shape Yale. Through her writing, she gives words to the shared human experiences that lie beyond the buzzwords, and establishes a platform and forum where she can exercise the power of her own voice and in doing so, encourage and inspire others to do the same. She can be reached at mia.gorlick@yale.edu.

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The debate, ostensibly tactical, is largely split down ideological lines. Hewing closely to public opinion are Democratic moderates; those looking for a more expansive political vision are to their left. How Democrats respond in 2028 will largely depend on which of these sides wins out. And having a response that works, having one that maximizes the chance that the Democratic nominee beats the Republican nominee, is obviously the most important question. I think saying things that most Americans agree with is the better way to win. I think the data backs that up. 

But there’s also a deeper point, not just about the immediacies of American politics but the way democracies work more generally. If politics was about performing and persuading, the people wouldn’t really be in charge! We talk about political theater, but politics would be literal theater under the persuasion model. Voters would be members of the audience, clapping and cheering for the best performances but lacking the ability to change the course of the show. We’d have a society ruled by the most persuasive actor, or, worse, by the slickest used-car salesman.

That might seem possible in the age of Donald Trump. But it just doesn’t match the history of the past decade. He won in 2016 because, yes, people liked him more than Hillary Clinton. But they liked him because he moved right on immigration and left on entitlements, and Hillary Clinton ran to the left of Obama. In 2020, Joe Biden didn’t have a charisma advantage over Trump — the economy was tanking and people were tired of Trump’s chaos. In 2024, Trump won again after Biden had governed from the left on immigration and presided over a period of high inflation. To me, it seems like political life is dominated less by master manipulators than by the set of ideas Americans have about immigration and the economy. 

That political parties are beholden to the tyranny of public opinion isn’t a bad thing — it’s something to be optimistic about. Donald Trump doesn’t have some kind of black magic that makes him invincible. Democrats won’t need a once-in-a-lifetime, transcendently charismatic visionary. They can win again by saying things that more people believe in.

If the dominance of popular beliefs is then both an obvious byproduct of living in a democracy and something that those who oppose the current president should be happy about, why are certain left-leaning commentators — including those who have written in favor of “majoritarianism” — so opposed to it? The best answer is that those who adopt the persuasion model do so because they have policy preferences out of line with the majority of Americans. And so they take up ideas about how people are being misled about their self-interest. Instead of realizing their shared interests, the masses are plagued by false consciousness. This is the move that Marxists like Lukacs and Gramsci turned to when it became clear that the working classes of the world didn’t want to rise up in unison. If you define your politics as doing what is good for the many, but the many turn out not to like you very much, it’s easier to conclude that the masses have been misled by your evil opponents than it is to abandon all of your ideas about the world. It’s what you turn to when you’re losing and out of ideas.

Still, theories like this are made plausible by the slightly counterintuitive beliefs of the American people. Non-college voters, generally poorer than average, are less likely to back redistributive economic policies than the educated, upper-middle-class professionals on the other side of that redistribution. A multiracial, working-class coalition voted for the candidate who stripped poor Americans of their health coverage. It doesn’t feel like people are rationally pursuing their self-interest. And I don’t want to say that this idea is totally wrong. People form their beliefs about what’s best for them in the context of the news they consume. Media companies need to turn a profit, and stories about chaos on the border and migrant invasions get more eyeballs than ones about how the vast majority of undocumented immigrants work full-time and pay taxes. Certain right-wing social media tycoons boost some kinds of ideological content and not others. I’m happy to concede that.

But let’s assume the strongest version of this theory is true. Americans are pro-immigration socialists brainwashed by the capitalist media into believing that a better world is not possible and that migrants are the source of their problems. Even if this was the case, and it’s not, what do you plan to do about it? The people believe what they believe. Why would someone who runs on a platform of trying to convince people to believe something else outperform one who runs closer to what people actually think? It doesn’t make intuitive sense. 

There are indeed times when long-term, successful campaigns changed public opinion. But that’s exactly how public opinion changes: through long-term campaigns of persuasion, usually outside of government. Politics has a different function, and muddying the distinction between it and activism makes the job of winning elections much harder. 

Abraham Lincoln once told a crowd in Columbus, Ohio that “public opinion in this country is everything.” Jamelle Bouie himself recently wrote in reference to right-wing ideas about indoctrination on college campuses that people “come to certain conclusions about the world based on their experience of it.” I would encourage the Democratic Party to recognize that — and act accordingly.

TEDDY WITT is a first year in Berkeley College. His biweekly column “The American Crisis” explores history, politics and current events in America and at Yale. He can be reached at teddy.witt@yale.edu.   

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Imagine paying almost $90,000 to a business that has $40 billion in reserves and a cadre of  130,000 loyal alumni who donate hundreds of millions of dollars each year — and that business decides to unilaterally change — and breach — the contract with sanctimonious statements such as “reducing waste” or “the students’ eating patterns” have changed, a.k.a., blaming the victim.  

As an associate fellow of Timothy Dwight College, I have seen firsthand the decline of the residential college system under the guise of efficiency or expediency for decades. As a community associate of Rice University’s Martel College, I see firsthand the way Yale’s residential colleges used to be — vibrant communities with students engaged in discussions with each other and faculty; standing on tables to make announcements around a common lunchtime and dinnertime; and not being locked out of the central hall of the community in off hours. 

But this latest dining hall policy change is illustrative of ongoing decline in the residential college experience and the social fabric that ties Yalies together. 

Bart Giamatti ’60 GRD ’64 was the last Yale president who appreciated and respected the residential college system. His love for Yale was plain as he co-edited Master Pieces from the Files of T.G.B., a collection of essays and letters of Timothy Dwight College Master Thomas Goddard Bergin ’25 GRD ’29. As Yale president, Giamatti was acutely aware of the need to better market the product of Yale. He co-taught “Marketing the University” at the School of Management. He pushed to upgrade the dining halls to improve offerings. Before Giamatti, it was Kingman Brewster ’41 who made sure that the residential colleges became the center of campus life with the advent of admitting women to Yale College. 

Why is it that 59 percent of juniors live off campus? Absent the community that is formed and cherished in the residential colleges, there is absolutely no value proposition for students to live in the colleges. In the late 1970s, the Yale Daily News reported that Connecticut’s state prisoners were allocated more living space than Yale undergraduates in their rooms. If the dining hall is no longer the center of life for students, then there are much better options off campus.    

Last week I had lunch in one dining hall alongside students and faculty from an academic department that has never, ever made a “profit” for Yale. The faculty and students present complained about the death of the dining hall. More than a dozen dining hall workers were present but severely underemployed — no cost savings there. The one “hot” offering was a desiccated chicken breast with the consistency of a hockey puck that was apologetically plopped out from a steel tub as the “protein” for one’s lunch. Is this value for one’s money?

Pity the bean counting bureaucrat in Yale’s back office who used AI to optimize the distribution of centrally prepared scones and prefabricated sandwiches. That bureaucrat has no idea that a Yale professor won a Nobel prize for applying optimization techniques and, more importantly, elucidating their limitations.  

The students of Yale College have been cheated. Yale has foisted upon them a complete bait-and-switch even while complaining about the cuts that have been foisted upon Yale by Trump, Musk and DOGE.  

To maintain the integrity of Yale, the dining halls must be restored; the students must be compensated; and the bean counters must learn what is important. Intellectual honesty and leadership are now required. 

ED HIRS graduated from Yale College in 1979 and from the School of Management in 1981. He received the Yale Medal in 2023. He can be reached at edhirs@aya.yale.edu.

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First, I caught Pulitzer Prize-winning professor Beverly Gage pacing down the steps outside of the Humanities Quadrangle. In 2021, after the controversy unfolded about her resignation from the Brady-Johnson Program in Grand Strategy, she donned a characteristically determined look on her face for a photo accompanying the piece written about her in The New York Times. Tess Ayano photographed Gage that day, Gage’s hair blowing away from her face which was pointed across the lens of the camera. The caption: “‘It’s very difficult to teach effectively or creatively in a situation where you are being second-guessed and undermined and not protected,’ Beverly Gage said in explaining her decision to resign,” seems to have greater resonance today than it did then.

Second, I caught Pulitzer Prize-winning professor John Lewis Gaddis as he came into the Hogwarts-style seminar room on the fourth floor of the Humanities Quadrangle. When Gaddis entered, I was the only student who had arrived at “Time Machines: Reimagining the Past,” one of the seminars Gaddis is teaching this semester. Before the rest of the class appeared, Gaddis and I exchanged jokes about the impending “Liberation Day,” set for Wednesday, April 2, when another slew of the Trump Administration’s tariffs went into effect.

After cutting our seminar an hour short to give us additional preparation time for our final projects, Gaddis bid the class adieu and sent us out into the crowded landing atop the stairwell in HQ and back out into our daily lives to begin thinking about how we might travel back in time to preserve bygone events for “posterity.” In the meantime, we spilled out onto York Street, dodging pedestrians, peddlers, Porsches and Priuses.

Next, I needed to make it to Rosenkranz Hall for my “Politics of Fascism” seminar, which starts promptly at 3:30 p.m. on Wednesdays and is taught by professor Lauren Young. 

Cutting through Schwarzman Center and past Commons, committing a kind of time travel to get to Prospect Street and in the vicinity of Rosenkranz Hall, I hustled through the flurry of hungry “Commoners,” making it down to the street corner where Grove Street separates College Street from Prospect Street. 

That’s when it happened. I saw a red vehicle in the street that radiated sunlight like the one that Prince wrote about in his song, “Little Red Corvette,” which is about ambivalence, vulnerability and fear. But my immediate impulse as an audiophile had apparently obscured my vision, because the car was actually a Tesla and the color, according to Tesla’s website, is not red but midnight cherry. A familiar blonde woman was behind the wheel: President Maurie McInnis.

In disbelief, my eyes defied the commands doled out by my occipital lobe, darting between her face and her navy blazer, which was trimmed with white piping on the lapel and each of the garment’s cuffs. The blazer — in line with article five of the 20-article dress code, a sartorial version of Marcus Aurelius written by the Yale Dress Study Group in 1965, which strived to stipulate students’ style — embodied the Ivy look captured by Teruyoshi Hayashida in “Take Ivy.” That look was later refined by brands like J.Crew, J. Press and Ralph Lauren. McInnis dresses with a sophistication that feels preppy and collegiate — if not elegant.

But as quickly as I realized that McInnis was speeding away from campus behind the wheel of a vehicle manufactured by an egomaniacal, possibly Nazi-sympathizing firebrand, she was out of sight. Perhaps for the first time in my life, I made a split-second decision that was made in the interest of blind curiosity. Realized irony beamed from ear-to-ear across my face as a smug grin, I discarded my scuffed-up backpack on the sidewalk and sprinted down College Street, catching McInnis rolling toward the stoplight ahead of Old Campus and the New Haven Green.

The light was still red when I got there. 

I stopped in my tracks, completely out of breath and feeling a kind of lactic acid build-up that I hadn’t experienced since JV track in high school. Obstructing the sidewalk paved between Grace Hopper College and the traffic on the street that McInnis’ commute away from campus was being actively impeded by, I pulled the battered iPhone 13 out of my pocket and snapped away. The impulse to capture a photo of her may seem an unusual one, but I was overcome by disbelief at what I was seeing — and I wanted proof of what I was witnessing in broad daylight. It made my momentary scrutiny of our university’s chief unchangeable. The photo had been taken. 

McInnis didn’t appear to touch the steering wheel, implicating her as either a casual driver or a technocrat who has opted for a Tesla equipped with driverless technology. Instead, she stared straight ahead, her hands fidgeting with one another. Grinning at the image of McInnis on my screen, I looked up from my phone right as she gazed back at me, flashing me a grimace and speeding away once more.

She did not seem keen on having her photo taken. 

Next, I retraced my steps to collect my backpack from the sidewalk. My stuff was well-preserved and intact, but my mind began to race about the scene I had literally chased and its humor that seemed destined for political cartoon fodder.

Then, in the midst of my fatuous thinking about what Clay Bennett, a cartoonist for the Chattanooga Times Free Press and the recipient of the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning, would do with the kind of image now neatly situated within the Photos app of my iPhone, I thought about its broader implications.

I have long been hesitant to jump on the anti-McInnis bandwagon because her tenure is still quite young. Back in the fall, I remember an early morning when I was coming home from an Old Campus affair when I saw her reporting for duty at her office long before the sun, or presumably university administrators, had risen and started the day. I was immensely proud to see her grit approach to doing the work necessary to lead Yale; it made me even prouder to be a Yale student.

But as I walked away from the moving scene I had chased down College Street, I played “Little Red Corvette,” listening through my wired, Apple-issued earbuds. I could not stop thinking about McInnis’ ownership of a Tesla, because aside from being the University president, she is an art history professor — something she emphatically told my class during her address at our opening assembly in August. She understands that visuals are important. But unrelated to McInnis’ choice of car, or Prince’s politically-agnostic intention in writing his hit song, I began to think about ambivalence, vulnerability and fear.

Those are not only Prince’s themes, but the themes that have tested McInnis’ leadership as she has operated this university during one of its most daunting eras. There has been institutional neutrality — which is, effectively, ambivalence about anything important. 

Few things reek of vulnerability more than the threat of losing nearly $1 billion in federal funding, simply because of who occupies the Oval Office. But that, as nearly every member of the Yale community knows, is our reality.

About fear: the Yale Daily News’ Tuesday, April 1 newsletter included the subject line, “Department leaders told to report all DEI initiatives.” There was also the recent departure of two of Gage and Gaddis’ colleagues in the History Department — and a third in the Philosophy Department. There has been chatter echoing around campus about the residential college deans’ clandestine, eleventh-hour emails ushering international students to the safety of the campus under the protection of its wrought iron gates and gothic arches. And, as of Monday, academic buildings on campus require an ID swipe.

Few people have forewarned the dangers of succumbing to these forces — ambivalence, vulnerability and fear — as saliently as economic sociologist Charlie Eaton, who recently argued in The New York Times’ opinion section:

“Universities sometimes call on the idea of intergenerational equity—that endowments should be preserved to provide comparable benefits for future generations—to limit spending their endowments. In this climate, intergenerational equity is little more than a fallacy. If those universities fail to defend free speech and scientific research now, future generations could lose their treasures to creeping authoritarianism.”

Mr. Eaton’s reference to “intergenerational equity,” can surely be substituted for “X.” That is, this country’s most elite universities’ leadership has led largely from a belief in the fallacy that if it just plays dead, a wannabe dictator might wane. Not so. 

As McInnis attends the formal ceremonies planned to give her rightful celebration for beginning a tenure atop one of the world’s premier academic institutions, I hope she will consider the following:

Sell your Tesla. Listen to “Little Red Corvette” by Prince and consider buying one, though you may want to avoid College Street. Reject fallacies — and certainly do not allow them to guide your leadership. Coalesce behind this campus or acquiesce before it. Read the words of a villanelle published by Welsh poet Dylan Thomas in 1947, two years after fascism was impermanently defeated. Abide by them: “Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

ZACHARY CLIFTON is a first year in Benjamin Franklin College. He can be reached at zachary.clifton@yale.edu.

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