Yale Daily News — Week of Oct. 8, 2021

T H E O L D E ST C O L L E G E DA I LY · FO U N D E D 1 8 7 8

NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT · FRIDAY, OCTOBER 8, 2021 · VOL. CXLIV, NO. 2 · yaledailynews.com

Racist, antisemitic vandalism found in Kline Biology Tower “I am outraged by these despicable and cowardly acts of hate, and I am deeply saddened that the crew working on the site, members of our police department, and others within our community who have responded to these incidents had to see such vile messages,” Salovey wrote in the statement.

Kline Biology Tower, or KBT, has been closed for construction since an electrical fire broke out in the building in 2019.

Police discovered hateful graffiti and vandalized construction materials inside KBT on September 20, Higgins wrote in his email. The next day, he added, facilities and construction teams “increased security measures” by “installing additional security cameras, and fortifying the perimeter fencing and access gates to the construction site.”

The cameras captured images of five young adults as they broke into the site and spray-painted and vandalized the building’s

BY LUCY HODGMAN, ÁNGELA PÉREZ AND OLIVIA TUCKER STAFF REPORTERS A group of unidentified individuals committed hate-based vandalism inside Kline Biology Tower twice in the past two weeks, the University alerted the community Tuesday night.

Yale Police Chief Ronnell Higgins wrote to the Yale community late Tuesday about the discovery of racist and anti-Semitic grafitti inside the Kline Biology Tower at 219 Prospect St. twice in recent weeks – once on Sept.

20 and again on Oct. 2. The Yale Police Department opened an investigation immediately after hearing about the first incident, Higgins said. But the specific nature of the vandalism was unclear as of Tuesday night, as was the perpetrators’ identities.

University President Peter Salovey released a statement Tuesday night condemning the vandalism.

interior. Higgins released images of the suspects and requested that anyone with information contact the Yale Police Department.

In his statement, Salovey reiterated his request that the Yale police and security departments increase patrolling on campus.

Uri Cohen, executive director of the Joseph R. Slifka Center for Jewish Life wrote in an email to the News that he and other Slifka leaders were not informed of either graffiti incident until Tuesday’s email.

Slifka leaders released a statement early Wednesday morning denouncing the vandalism and highlighting spaces they will host for students to be among the community in the coming days.

“In this moment of rising violence against Jews and other minorities in America, even symbolic incidents like this one take on larger and darker meanings, particularly for our communiSEE KLINE PAGE 4

Yale’s vaccination rate second among Ivies Zero COVID-19 cases identified among oncampus undergrads

BY OLIVIA TUCKER STAFF REPORTER

Yale currently has the second-most vaccinated undergraduate student body population in the Ivy League, with 99.5 percent of undergraduates having received a full COVID-19 vaccination, according to the most-recent publicly available data.

Yale’s vaccination rate has crept steadily upwards this fall as administrators have pur-

REGINA SUNG/PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR

Yale's undergraduate vaccination rate has climbed steadily over the fall semester and currently sits at 99.5 percent.

sued efforts to make the vaccine readily available to Yale affiliates and encouraged them to take the vaccine. The University’s COVID-19 policy is that faculty, staff, students and postdoctoral and postgraduate trainees must be vaccinated to use Yale facilities unless they have a specific vaccination exemption, which may currently be requested for medical or religious reasons.

“We are very pleased with the high rates of vaccination that we achieved through new policies, programs to make it easy to be vaccinated, frequent communication about vaccines and exemptions, and the partnership and commitment of so many members of our campus community,” Stephanie Spangler, the University’s COVID-19 Coordinator, wrote in an email to the News.

Yale’s undergraduate vaccination rate tops that of seven other Ivy League schools, second only to Columbia University, which currently boasts a rate of 99.7 percent.

Vaccination rates for Yale’s Ivy League peers are broadly very high. While the schools SEE COVID-19 PAGE 4

YALE DAILY NEWS

Two incidents of hate-based graffiti were discovered, Yale Police Chief Ronnell Higgins told the Yale community Tuesday night.

University lobbies Congress for tax cuts

ZOE BERG/PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR

The University has spent two years lobbying against an excise tax on its $31.2 billion endowment.

BY PHILIP MOUSAVIZADEH STAFF REPORTER Yale has spent the past two years quietly lobbying against a tax on its endowment income, per an analysis of lobbying disclosures.

The 2017 Tax Cut and Jobs Act includes a provision that places a 1.4 percent tax rate on investment income for universities with endowments whose value rises to $500,000 per student. Yale, along

with Princeton, Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania, has spent the past two years quietly lobbying members of Congress to pass a separate bill, HR 4438, that would repeal this tax. The University argues that the endowment tax pulls money from funds raised for teaching, scholarship and student aid. But supporters of the tax act claim that the University has sufSEE LOBBY PAGE 4

Lynn Good wins SOM award Yale student out on bail in Pakistan while facing negligence suit

BY JORDAN FITZGERALD STAFF REPORTER

BY EDA AKER STAFF REPORTER Yale’s latest Legend in Leadership Award winner, CEO of Duke Energy and member of Boeing’s board of directors Lynn Good, has been named in a lawsuit for negligence for allegedly failing to safely monitor two 737 MAX jets that crashed and killed all passengers onboard.

Lynn Good received the award on Sept. 28 from the School of Management’s Chief Executive Leadership Institute. The Institute recognizes effective leadership and strong personal character among chief executives of major companies.

Good won the award for her work at Duke Energy, a major power company headquartered in North Carolina, which has announced several clean energy initiatives over the past

few years. But the company has long come under fire for its environmental record. In 2015, two years after Good assumed the role of CEO, it pleaded guilty to federal environmental crimes for coal ash dumps that occurred at five power plants. The company paid $102 million in fines and restitution. Three years later, the company paid an additional penalty for polluting groundwater and rivers.

But Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, SOM associate dean and the Institute’s director, said the award salutes Good’s transformation of Duke Energy from “legacy industry” to “clean energy.” The award adds to the recognition Good has received in the past year from Forbes and FORTUNE magazine as one of the “Most Powerful Women” in business.

SEE GOOD PAGE 5

Zulfiqar “Zulfi” Mannan ’20 in late August returned home from a Lahore party to find out Pakistani authorities were ready

COURTESY OF ZULFIQAR MANNAN

Recent Yale grad Zulfiqar Mannan won their bail confirmation hearing, avoiding up to three years in Pakistani prison for a queer-coded photoshoot.

CROSS CAMPUS

INSIDE THE NEWS

THIS DAY IN YALE HISTORY, 1992.

STAFF

Plans are created for the first large-scale renovation of Sterling Memorial Library since 1931. Frequent flooding of the building has caused damage to the library's collections, and the new plans include a modern climate control system.

to arrest them for violating the country’s obscenity laws.

Mannan and best friend, bandmate and fellow-Yale alumna Kc Odesser ’20, had held a queer-inspired photoshoot in front of a nationalist monument, inspiring

Yale New Haven Health is expected to lay off approximately 100 unvaccinated members of its staff, with notices due to go out by this Friday. Page 8 SCITECH

GAGE

In the wake of a major resignation, professors are sounding the alarms about pressures placed on academic freedom at Yale.

Page 9 UNIVERSITY

intense backlash from the country’s conservatives. Despite the conservative fracas, Mannan’s bail was confirmed Oct. 2 after numerous bureaucratic delays. The confirmation does not mean Mannan has been acquitted. But according to their lawyer, Hadi Ali Chattha, this ruling indicates that Mannan will not face jail time.

“The case effectively decided whether we want the state to decide for us what we can and can not wear in public,” said Chattha, the founder of Fair Trial Defenders Legal Aid Cell. “It’s about police doing moral policing and how a radical, religious, nationalist group can steer what the priorities are for law enforcement agencies.”

Mannan, who is originally from Pakistan, and American native Odesser were both working as high school counselors in Islamabad and Lahore, respectively. The SEE ACTIVISTS PAGE 5

WINFRED

A long-time New Haven resident's life and work will be featured at a gallery in New York City until December.

Page 11 CITY

JEOPARDY

“Jeopardy!” wins.

Page 14 SPORTS

A fifth-year computer science Ph.D. now has the second most consecutive

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, OCTOBER 8, 2021 · yaledailynews.com

PAGE 2

OPINION Every Last Drop P

erhaps it’s an inevitable part of human nature to grow numb. In the words of a mildly cynical Chinese saying: get bitten by too many ticks, and you’ll hardly feel the itch anymore.

That’s the general sentiment as California falls into flames again.

Like last year, and the year before.

And the year before that. We’re seeing the same pictures of inky tree silhouettes cast against the backdrop of otherworldly orange, the same calls for renewable energy and environmental stewardship.

So many of the recent developments spell trouble and worry.

After taking a brief dip, coal consumption is on the rise again. The UN climate report from this past summer issued a “code red” warning for humanity’s future. And despite a one-and-a-half-year halt in commuting and air travel, our carbon emissions hardly fell compared to previous years and temperatures have only continued to peak. We’re wading ever further into unfamiliar territory and flirting with disaster.

But the point is that the California blazes are becoming not so much headlines as they are a kind of dreaded annual ritual, another entrée in the long banquet of natural disasters to drag us through whichever of the four seasons actually remain. The images are horrifying, but they’ve been cycled through enough times — like the clips of flooding New York subways or the photos of the ungodly wreckage in Belgium and Louisiana — to become somewhat tolerable to the eye. By now, we’ve seen nearly all there is to see.

I could tell you about the 33 billion tons of carbon dioxide we pumped into the atmosphere this past year, the 267 gigatons of glaciers that are melting away annually or that another 2,443,196 acres in California have already been burned this past year. But none of this probably matters — they’re a different set of statistics pointing nonetheless to the same narrative of doom and disaster that has been played on loop for the past four decades. We’re at the point when the numbers have reached such staggering magnitudes that they simply elude any attempt to make meaning of them.

We’ve all known about climate change, though. Most of us can trace the current climate disaster to Donald Trump’s rollback spree of some 100 climate policies or the stubborn pointlessness of those who continue their meaningless attempts to debunk climate change nearly a century after its discovery. When Yale refused to divest from fossil fuels, we stormed football fields and Cross Campus. We can crunch the numbers and lobby for carbon taxes. We can propose grand plans worthy of fixing all those grand problems. We advocate, rail and rally.

But, like everyone else, we each struggle to uphold our commitments, especially when the temptations of the present offer more expedient alternatives. The normalcy of so many of our Yalie lifestyles stands in eerie contrast to the present state of our world. Protest for divestment

but toss the leftovers in the trash because that roasted chicken is, by all reasonable estimates, likely less than 0.0000001 perHANWEN cent of the food waste generZHANG ated each day by a nation 328 Thoughtful million strong.

Lobby for new spot carbon policies but indulge yourself in a 20-minute hot shower and order from Amazon Prime, since there are 7.6 billion others living and breathing and wasting just as much as you are. Once you sit down and run the calculations, you realize that hardly anything you do on a dayto-day basis will ever even scratch the surface in the cosmic scheme of nations, continents and companies.

Which is correct, and also incredibly faulty. The future of the planet will decidedly rest in the hands of our governments and economic choices, often making the inertia of Capitol Hill politics or the messy economic card games played by global superpowers beyond frustrating. Nor does it help when the success of our climate policies lies under a capricious government prone to political mood swings every four years.

But chalking the issue up to lip service promises and forces greater than our own also makes room for the apathy, scapegoating and impunity that allow us to continue our cognitive dissonance. We can’t demand from others what we have failed to follow through ourselves. We’re irrational creatures burning away through the time we have left, procrastinating on an assignment whose consequences are nothing short of life and death. Now is no longer the time for speculation, despair, cynicism or finger-pointing. If we are to make meaningful, measurable change, we must not only push for new policies but begin by claiming personal responsibility for our daily actions.

Weeks ago, fires swept into a grove of sequoias in northern California. Firefighters wrapped an aluminum blanket around the base of General Sherman. Physically speaking, the line of defense looked meager and unconvincing at best, a thin ring of foil hastily draped over 275 feet of 2000-year-old bark. Technically speaking, it was also lacking — you don’t need to be a material scientist to doubt that a blanket capable of providing only shortterm protection will reasonably fend off the swelling plumes of fire if and when they come.

All the same, a 12-foot, measly fire blanket is sometimes our best attempt at saving what little we have left. I think that’s at least better than nothing.

HANWEN ZHANG is a sophomore in Benjamin Franklin College. His column, “Thoughtful spot,” runs biweekly on Thursdays. Contact him at hanwen.zhang.hhz3@yale.edu .

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GUEST COLUMNIST CHRISTOPHER L . MILLER

Tom and Daisy Go to Singapore Y

ale’s “grand strategy” of recent years seems to be imploding on both sides of the world.

On August 26 the world learned that Yale-NUS College in Singapore was being abolished. President Peter Salovey’s announcement was titled “On the Planned Closing of YaleNUS College in 2025.” The students and faculty of Yale-NUS are in disarray; parents complain of a “bait and switch.” A change.org petition protesting the decision has gathered almost 15,000 signatures.

According to The Chronicle of Higher Education (Sept.

17), the closure of Yale-NUS “offers lessons to colleges seeking global re-engagement.” But what lessons, and how will they be learned?

Then, on September 30, the New York Times reported as front-page news the resignation of Professor Beverly Gage as chair of Yale’s “Grand Strategy” program, under pressure from the administration to accept an outside “board” of right-wing figures including Henry Kissinger.

Within a month, two “grand strategies” seemed to have fallen in on themselves in ways that should be deeply embarrassing to the Yale administration. Peter Salovey and vice president “for global strategy” Pericles Lewis should both resign.

On September 13, I wrote to the Yale faculty Senate to propose two things in regard to Singapore: 1. That the Senate adopt a resolution expressing, at a minimum, “concern” about the closing of Yale-NUS and its consequences. Anything to break the “deafening silence” of Yale. (I take that phrase from a professor at Yale-NUS who wrote to me after my letter was published in the News, Sept 2.)

2. That the Senate name a select committee of both senators and non-senators from the faculty for the purpose of an inquiry into the Yale-NUS project — its history, its unfolding, and its closing. Neither a witchhunt nor a whitewash, such an inquiry should be done in a spirit of collegial fact-finding, willing-

ness to learn, sincere reflection, and transparency.

After several rounds of backand-forth correspondence, I received a definitive refusal of both requests from Professor Valerie Horsley, chair of the Senate.

She wrote that “this issue does not warrant our efforts this year.”

And she made this other astonishing statement: “no further action of the FAS Senate would be beneficial to identifying a ‘lesson learned’ or how to improve if such a venture is attempted by Yale in the future.” Does Yale really have nothing to learn? Faced with administration assurances that this was all Singapore’s doing, and that Yale can do nothing about it, the Senate goes limp.

Yet, in reaction to the Grand Strategy scandal, the Senate, within hours, leaps into action.

“The Senate is highly concerned,” Professor Horsley tells the News, and “will investigate.” Why the disparity in the responses to these two simultaneous fiascos? Could it be that Yale-NUS, though far larger in scope, is out of sight, out of mind and inconvenient for many members of the Senate to contemplate?

The Senate’s reasons for refusing (in what they call a “closed full” meeting) both of my proposals, as reported to me, are not sound. I have understood those reasons to be (with my responses indented): - Singapore is about Yale’s past, not its present or future; the Senate needs to focus on “forward-looking” issues.

- The crisis in Singapore is unfolding at this moment and will continue until 2025.

- An inquiry into Yale-NUS would be controversial and “divisive.”

- The Senate was created in order to examine and debate, but certainly not suppress controversies among faculty. Ironically, the logic of the PAP state in Singapore is precisely to insist on “consensus” and to suppress dissent.

- An inquiry would be “futile” because the decision made by Singapore was unilateral; Yale can do nothing.

- The goal here is not to change Singapore’s decision, which would

presumably be impossible. But with a resolution, Yale might at least be heard, and with an inquiry, Yale might learn from this affair.

- There is not enough time.

- If the Senate has time for Grand Strategy, it can find time for Yale-NUS. To examine the institutional context in a clear light: Would the discussion and inquiry be embarrassing? Controversial? Perhaps so: the power structure and cast of characters at Yale remain virtually unchanged since 2011. The contract governing the arrangement has never been made public.

Those who pushed back against the project at the time were called — by Charles Bailyn, the “inaugural dean” of YaleNUS — “foolish.” Then-President Richard Levin called dissent on the subject “unbecoming.”

Now, Yale-NUS College is being called a “profligate bonfire of time, money and human capital” (Scott Anthony in The Times Higher Education) Why did the project burst into flames so quickly?

Since the shocking announcement of the closing, Yale has had little to say. Hapless and “bittersweet” (Lewis), Yale administrators seem determined now to just “offer [their] best wishes” (Salovey), turn their backs, and walk away. The Senate now joins the administration in that ostrichlike posture. The most apposite quotation describing Yale’s institutional stance right now may be this, from The Great Gatsby: “They were careless people, Tom and Daisy — they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.”

Is it “foolish” or “unbecoming” to ask Yale to be better than Tom and Daisy?

The unabridged version of this article appears in the Yale Daily News online.

CHRISTOPHER L. MILLER is the Frederick Clifford Ford Professor of African American Studies and French, Emeritus. Contact him at christopher.miller@yale.edu .

Processing the unimaginable “A

fter reading the headlines, only numbers stay in my mind. Three million. Ten. Six hundred. One. The list goes on and on. We get better at quantifying pain.”

I remember scribbling down these sentences last semester as we all tried to grapple with death.

The death of several of our own.

The death of millions during the pandemic. The death of Rachael Shaw-Rosenbaum ’24.

At the time, writing a column about this felt so pressing as I observed many problems with the way Yale handled death. But I couldn’t write anything. I couldn’t find the words.

I didn’t understand the crushing weight on my chest and the feeling of just floating aimlessly. Camus’ words echoed in my ears: “It doesn’t matter very much whether you die at thirty or at seventy since, in either case, other men and women will naturally go on living, for thousands of years even.”

Very recently, however, the death of a close family member made me realize why I was feeling like this all along. It’s because we are not given the time and space to grieve and process the unimaginable. We go on living as Camus predicts. But not naturally. We are forced to go on living.

When my dad delivered the news of our family member’s death, my mind went blank. I could only say, “I should have known him better” as the sudden sense of guilt came in crushing waves. His absence in my life had never felt so real. I pushed back the tears.

In the midst of everything I had to do, all the assignments, meetings, events, I also felt like I didn’t have the right to feel this way. I didn’t want to share it with my

friends, fearing that it would take up their time and put them in a somber state.

A s k i n g fo r extensions on deadlines for SUDE reaYENILMEZ personal sons would make me seem Piecing weak or irresponsible. No Together one needed to know. No one needed to share my pain.

I now realize how flawed this mindset is. Death has, certainly, become a much more isolated experience. We are all expected to deal with it on our own, quickly, without disturbing anyone else. But we are also responsible for perpetuating this expectation. We keep repeating that this year or even just this week has been hard for all of us, but saying it is not the same as processing it. And to process it, it is more than natural to depend on other people and ask for help.

This is a major issue at Yale.

After traumatizing events, personal or communitywide, we are expected to continue business as usual. Attend classes. Submit the p-set or essay. Continue studying. It is almost as if tragedy and pain don’t exist in our vocabulary, as if we are robots, quickly processing information without feeling anything.

The “it is what it is” mindset is the reason why Camus’ words echoed in my ears at the time and will continue to echo in many more students’ ears.

I then cannot help but ask “How can we even take pride in being a close-knit community when we cannot reflect

and grieve together?” When we all know the source of our distress, but cannot really say anything. When the constantly repeated “We are here for each other” is an empty and senseless promise, no different from the desensitizing numbers we read in headlines.

DEATH HAS, CERTAINLY, BECOME A MUCH MORE ISOLATED EXPERIENCE. WE ARE ALL EXPECTED TO DEAL WITH IT ON OUR OWN, QUICKLY, WITHOUT DISTURBING ANYONE ELSE. Death is unimaginable. And processing it takes time. It should take time. Coming to this realization is not easy. But we need to actively decide to acknowledge our pain, and choose to reflect and share with friends. It is only then we can start calling ourselves a true community. It is only then we can start to go on living naturally.

SUDE YENILMEZ is a sophomore in Berkeley College. Her column, ‘Piecing Together,’ runs every other Thursday. Contact her at sude.yenilmez@yale.edu .

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, OCTOBER 8, 2021 · yaledailynews.com

PAGE 3

NEWS

“The woods are lovely, dark and deep. But I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleeps.”

ROBERT FROST AMERICAN POET

Students, alumni feel unheard over Yale-NUS closure

ASHA PRIHAR/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

From town halls to Parliament, Yale-NUS affiliates push for answers on the liberal arts college’s closure.

BY PHILIP MOUSAVIZADEH AND ADAM LEVINE STAFF REPORTERS In the month since the announcement of Yale-NUS’ closure, faculty, students and alumni have mobilized to oppose what they call a “top-down” decision. Efforts to save the first liberal arts college in Singapore have reached the nation’s Parliament and sparked petitions collecting nearly 15,000 signatures.

Yale and the National University of Singapore partnered up in 2011 to create the liberal arts college, which accepted a cohort of around 250 students each year. But on Aug. 26, NUS announced it would withdraw from the deal, seizing on a clause built into the school’s founding that allowed either party to unilaterally pull out of the partnership by 2025. In July, NUS President Tan Eng Chye GRD ’89 told University President Peter Salovey that NUS would merge Yale-NUS with its existing University Scholars Programme to create the “New College,” which would not be affiliated with Yale. NUS expressed a desire to open the college to more Singaporean students, and Tan has since said financial concerns were another factor in the split. According to Vice President for Global Strategy Pericles Lewis, the decision came as a surprise to Yale leaders, who ultimately accepted NUS’ decision.

Though Yale faculty have long opposed the partnership, Yale-NUS students noted that it allowed for increased academic

and civic freedoms within the state. When the news of the closure came out, Singapore’s Education Minister Chan Chun Sing assured the country’s parliament that the split would not result in a loss of academic freedom at the New College. Still, Yale-NUS students, faculty and alumni have voiced concerns and launched campaigns in opposition to the move, most recently in a Sept. 28 town hall with Tan. “I am upset, confused, hurt, angry and still shocked by this decision,” Suman, a current YaleNUS student who asked to be identified by her first name due to fear of government retaliation, wrote in an email to the News.

“In a matter of months, our fate was etched onto stone for us, and without our input or any say.”

In an email to the News, Chua Loo Lin, director of the Office of University Communications at NUS, wrote that, “The decision was a very considered one that takes into account the broader vision of the National University of Singapore (NUS) to expand access to a broad-based interdisciplinary education.”

Chua added that the New College “will carry with it elements of the culture and legacy of YaleNUS and USP.” Following the Aug. 26 announcement, the Yale-NUS community banded together through a petition denouncing NUS’ merger decision. The petition, which has garnered more than 14,600 signatures, uses the slogan “#NoMoreTopDown” to

call for greater community input in NUS decision-making.

In late September, over 530 YaleNUS alumni signed an additional statement of issues and demands to be presented to the NUS Board of Trustees, Yale-NUS Governing Board and Singapore’s Ministry of Education. The statement focused on the negative implications of the closure, namely the loss of a unique institution in Singapore, dwindling diversity of higher-education options and lack of financial accessibility for Singaporean students.

“The way in which this decision was made suggests an administrative environment that is hostile to collaboration, growth and stability across Singapore’s higher education sector,” the letter reads.

Yale-NUS students were able to express their concerns in a Sept.

28 town hall with Tan, which was framed as a chance for students to learn more about NUS’ split from Yale and its merger with USP. During the town hall, Tan pointed to financial concerns as a reason for the closure, differing from Chua’s and Education Minister Chan’s assertions that finances were not a deciding factor in the split.

Tan explained to attendees that Yale-NUS was over $200 million behind in its funding goal for its endowment, a sum too large to warrant accepting an offer of help from Yale. According to the Octant, the Yale-NUS student newspaper, only $87 million has been raised out of the $300 million goal, which was set to be reached by 2030.

In a statement to the News, Chua explained that “financial sustainability was an important consideration, but not the main motivation for the establishment of the New College.”

At the town hall, Tan further explained to attendees that had the merger decision not been made, Yale-NUS would “be diluted” and the students “eventually [would] suffer.”

When one student asked about community pushback, citing the widely-spread petition as evidence for the community’s unhappiness, Tan commented that the petition included misinformation. He pointed to the petition’s assertion that the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences and the Faculty of Science merged to form the College of Humanities and Sciences, which he said was incorrect because there was additional consultation and alterations to the programs, according to a transcript of the town hall reviewed by the News.

Students who attended the town hall told the News that they left unsatisfied, with many of their questions unanswered.

“We wanted [the town hall] to be some avenue of closure,” Jacob Jarabejo Yale-NUS ’22 told the News. “But what it seems after attending this town hall is that it just reignites our flames to just push back against this kind of incompetent leadership.”

Siddharth Mohan Roy YaleNUS ’25 also told the News that Tan did not adequately answer his and other students’ questions.

Mohan Roy said that, in his opinion, the NUS president seemed to be “creating his own questions” to answer.

Chua did not respond to specific questions about the town hall.

Taking questions from members of parliament on Sept. 13, Chan argued that there is no reason to be concerned with the loss of academic diversity or freedom of thought with Yale-NUS’ closure.

“It would be grossly unfair to faculty members in NUS and other autonomous universities to suggest that their teaching or research is in any way less rigorous, of lower quality or less free than that of the Yale-NUS faculty,” he said.

Jamus Lim, a member of Singapore’s Workers’ Party, told the News that he had tried to raise his concerns regarding the closure of the university in parliament, but was never called upon.

In response to the sudden closure, Lewis claimed that Yale is taking an active role in supporting the faculty of Yale-NUS. In an email to the News, he said that NUS has given all Yale-NUS faculty members the option of joining the New College, and that Yale is also planning to welcome YaleNUS faculty members who would like to spend “some of their sabbatical time” in New Haven.

Lewis added that he is working with Salovey to ensure that there are enough faculty, resources and extracurricular support to create a “great” experience for remaining Yale-NUS students. In addition, Yale is increasing the number of Yale-NUS students who spend a semester abroad in New Haven prior to the 2025 YaleNUS split.

But Suman expressed disappointment with the decision to close Yale-NUS, as well as doubt that the experience would replicate the Yale-NUS of years’ past.

“I was deeply upset, and I remain upset about the decision,” Suman said. “I was promised a

certain Yale-NUS experience when I decided to attend this college, and despite the assurances that yes, Yale-NUS will retain its identity till I graduate, it would be a lie to say that I will get the full ‘Yale-NUS experience.’”

Yihao Xie Yale-NUS ’17 echoed Suman’s sentiment, telling the News that he was angry at a perceived lack of consultation of students or alumni prior to YaleNUS’ closure, and the lack of “adequate, consistent explanation,” as to why the school split with Yale.

“I also think the hasty and secretive way the announcement was made, and the refusal to openly engage with stakeholders even after all the backlash and criticism, reflect very poorly on the NUS leadership,” he said.

“They don’t care what stakeholders think and just want to push through with an unwise and unpopular decision.”

“There’s a lot of emotions coming through,” Jarabejo said. “[Tan] keeps [re]iterating that we need to calm down and understand NUS’ perspective. But based on his answers, and how patronizing he was, it seems like he needs to understand us and not just understand us, but actually understand why we’re pushing for certain things.”

Chua emphasized to the News that NUS will continue to employ all current faculty and staff during the transition.

Faculty at Yale have also expressed disappointment at the abrupt split of Yale-NUS. Bryan Garsten, who chaired the inaugural curriculum committee for Yale-NUS College that designed its common curriculum, said that he was really “surprised and disheartened” to hear about the decision. He praised the faculty of Yale-NUS, who he said “built this new college from scratch [and] showed how to reimagine liberal education for the 21st century and for an international setting.”

Garsten also expressed concern with the impact this will have on the lack of options for students within Singapore, emphasizing the liberal arts education YaleNUS offered.

Yale-NUS currently employs approximately 320 faculty and staff members.

Contact PHILIP MOUSAVIZADEH at philip.mousavizadeh@yale.edu and ADAM LEVINE at adam.levine@yale.edu.

University releases annual security and fire safety report

BY RAZEL SUANSING AND KYLIE VOLAVONGSA STAFF REPORTER AND CONTRIBUTING REPORTER Yale’s annual campus security and fire safety report, released Thursday, revealed that reported instances of on-campus crime and sexual assault fell between 2019 and 2020.

T h e 2 0 2 0 re p o r t wa s announced in a schoolwide email from Jack Callahan, Yale’s senior vice president for operations. It shows that crime went down across the board between the years 2019 and 2020; for example, the report found that instances of on-campus burglary dropped from 36 in 2019 to 20 in 2020, while sexual assault incidents experienced a smaller decrease from 32 in 2019 to 29 in 2020. On-campus drug arrests dropped from 10 to three and stalking instances went down from 20 to six across the two years. Domestic and dating violence, however, rose slightly in 2020 — the report listed ten on-campus instances, compared to eight in 2020. Neither year saw any on-campus murders.

“The report highlights Yale Public Safety’s commitment to maintaining a safe living, learning, and working environment in partnership with our shared community,” Yale Police Department Chief Ronnell Higgins wrote in an email to the News.

The report, which is usually released on or before Oct. 1, is mandated by the Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Pol-

icy and Campus Crime Statistics Act, or “Clery Act.” It is compiled by the Yale Police Department using data provided by a number of university officers including the Office of the General Counsel, the Fire Marshal’s Office, the Title IX Office, the University-Wide Committee on Sexual Misconduct, the Office of Emergency Management and Yale College.

The report is compiled from crime statistics collected by the Yale Police Department as well as fire statistics from the Yale Fire Marshal’s Office. The Yale Police Department collects such crime statistics from two primary sources: police agencies and school officials “with knowledge of formal and informal complaints” from Campus Security Authorities. Reports from CSAs are solicited annually by the Senior Vice President For Operations, and the report is compiled accordingly.

In a year of drastic change brought about by the pandemic, the report also allowed the collection of university offices to share how they coped with such challenges and to detail the resources available through their offices. It also briefly outlined the University’s future plans for addressing COVID-19, sexual assault and campus crime.

The report also reviewed last year’s COVID-19 response, highlighting how the University requires “all students, faculty, staff, and postdoctoral or postgraduate trainees” to be fully vaccinated or have approved exemptions to the mandate.

In an email to the News, Dean of Student Affairs Melanie Boyd in part attributed the University’s successful COVID-19 response to its vaccination strategy.

“Yale was fortunate to make it through last year without major outbreaks.” Boyd wrote.

“A lot of credit goes to the layered approach — a lot [of] prevention through education and public health guidelines, as well as routine testing that enabled swift isolation and contact tracing when positive cases did emerge.”

In the University-wide email, Callahan encouraged students to review the report and inform themselves of the campus resources available to them.

In particular, the report’s Title IX section provides a comprehensive list of resources available to students who experience sex discrimination. Sex discrimination, according to the report, can include “sexual harassment, sexual assault, and other forms of sexual misconduct.”

Should students be faced with such an issue or need someone to consult with, they can refer to the report’s directory of Title IX Coordinators or review descriptions of various programs to file complaints, receive medical care or seek emotional support. These include the University-Wide Committee on Sexual Misconduct (UWC), the Sexual Harassment and Assault Response and Education Center (SHARE) and the Communication and Consent Educators (CCE) Program.

“I hope that people know we exist and that they at least know

VAIBHAV SHARMA/ PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR

On Thursday, the University released its annual campus Fire and Safety report for the year 2020. who the CCEs are in their college,” Josephine Holubkov ’24, a CCE, said of the program.

Moving forward, Holubkov added that the CCEs’ Survivor Support Project Team is brainstorming how it can best stage interventions for people who have experienced sexual violence “this year and beyond.” Additionally, the group plans to host

bystander workshops for both first-years and sophomores, as well as more specific workshops for upperclassmen.

Students can access the full report on the Yale Public Safety website.

Contact RAZEL SUANSING at razel.suansing@yale.edu and KYLIE VOLAVONGSA at kylie.volavongsa@yale.edu .

PAGE 4

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, OCTOBER 8, 2021 · yaledailynews.com

FROM THE FRONT

“Laugh and the world laughs with you, snore and you sleep alone. ANTHONY BURGESS ENGLISH WRITER

YPD releases info about vandalism inside KBT KLINE FROM PAGE 1 ty’s many Jews of Color, who are affected in multiple, intersecting ways,” read the statement signed

by Cohen, Rabbi Jason Rubenstein, Jewish Chaplain Howard M. Holtzmann, Hillel Student Board Co-Presidents Ruthie Davis ’23 and Zevi Siegal ’23 and Kehil-

ZOE BERG/PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR

Kline Biology Tower has been under construction since 2019.

lah Leaders Destiny Rose Murphy LAW ’22 and Darya Watnick ENV ’22.“Our first instinct and most powerful response is to come together; there is no substitute for the warmth and strength of community during moments of fear like this one.”

Several Jewish students told the News that they are unsurprised about the ant-Semitic messages, but remain frustrated at the University’s lack of response.

“I think the University needs to just stand with their Jewish students,” Kezia Levy ’24 told the News. “[Jewish students] should never feel the need to hide that identity for their safety, because at the forefront, Yale is there to make sure every student feels like they can express themselves in whatever religion or political affiliation.”

Both University Spokesperson Karen Peart and Vice President for Communications Nate Nickerson declined to provide immediate comment for this story.

“I think I wasn't really surprised,” Viktor Shamis-Kagan ’24 told the News. “There's been moments of anti-Semitism that I've seen happen to students and it's just kind of ignored … I hope we make an effort to actually denounce it and offer some antiracist, anti-Semitic trainings, antiIslamophobic trainings.”

The News reached out to the directors of the four cultural centers for comment but did not receive responses by the time of publication. Kimberly Goff-Crews, secretary and vice president for University life and director of the Belonging at Yale initiatives, also did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In a statement to the News, Yale College Council directors Jordi Bertrán Ramírez ’24 and Joaquín Lara Midkiff ’23 decried the incident and called for academic flexibility in its wake.

“What to some may merely stand as isolated incidents of van-

dalism, to the marginalized communities at Yale and beyond, represent generations — hundreds and thousands of years worth — of organized, calculated hate,” Bertrán Ramírez and Lara Midkiff wrote. “The actions of October 2nd shed greater light on an already blatant truth: we have massive strides ahead of us before we can promise a culture of campus safety, care, and respect.”

Bertrán Ramírez and Lara Midkiff urged the administration to academically support students impacted by the incident with eased access to dean’s excuses and flexible absence policies.

Students can contact the Yale Police Department at (203) 4324400 with additional information.

Contact LUCY HODGMAN at lucy.hodgman@yale.edu, ÁNGELA PÉREZ at angela.perez@yale.edu and OLIVIA TUCKER at olivia.tucker@yale.edu .

Yale's vaccination rates near 100 percent as positivity rates fall COVID-19 FROM PAGE 1 break down their publicly-available COVID-19 data differently, the dashboards all reflect consistently high rates: Cornell University and Princeton University are both at 99 percent, Brown University is at 98.8 percent, Harvard University is at 95 percent and Dartmouth College is at 92 percent. The University of Pennsylvania was at 96 percent as of September 30.

Yale’s positivity rates have correspondingly been very low. In the past seven days, the University has tested 5,624 individual undergraduate students and zero tests have come back positive, as of Tuesday night. Isolation housing capacity is currently at 100 percent.

“Zero cases is an amazing accomplishment,” professor Howard Forman told the News.

“The undergraduates need to be congratulated and we need to appreciate how hard it is to be that safe, and they have done so.”

Princeton also recorded a zero percent positivity rate among undergraduates in the week ending on Oct. 1. But just last week, Harvard Business School temporarily suspended most in-person classes following a number of COVID-19 infections among the students.

Still, positivity rates have been low across the Ivy League, though none as low as Yale’s or Princeton’s. In the last seven days of publicly-available data, Brown logged a positivity rate of 0.05 percent.

Cornell’s was 0.07 percent, Har-

vard’s was 0.09 percent, Dartmouth’s was 0.09 percent, Penn’s was 0.15 percent and Columbia’s was 0.33 percent.

While Yale, Princeton and Penn provide positivity rate data for undergraduates specifically, the other Ivies do not distinguish by cohort. Columbia is the only Ivy that is not currently requiring regular testing for its vaccinated affiliates.

Spangler told the News that vaccination has been one component of a multilayered approach to slowly bringing campus closer to a new normal, along with mandatory weekly testing and mask requirements.

“Last spring the University, with the advice of its public health experts, determined that achieving high rates of vaccination would be an important — likely the most important — protection against COVID-19 transmission,” Spangler wrote.

In an interview with the News, Forman — a professor of radiology and biomedical imaging, public health, management and economics — said that the University’s messaging has played a major role in achieving such high vaccination rates.

The “number one thing” to communicate in a campaign like this is that getting the vaccine can give the public “freedom,” he said. Equally as important is Yale’s approach to winning over vaccine-hesitant students: “Those students were convinced by evidence over time and not made to feel ostracized,” Forman said.

REGINA SUNG/PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR

Unvaccinated students are subject to a host of additional requirements, such as twice-weekly testing and quarantine for contact tracing.

Yale faculty, staff, postdoctoral and postgraduate trainees and students may seek vaccination exemptions on medical and religious grounds by submitting a request form to the University. Until Sept. 25, faculty, staff and postdoctoral and postgraduate trainees were also able to submit exemption requests on the grounds of strongly-held personal beliefs.

Unvaccinated individuals are subject to a variety of additional

requirements, including twiceweekly testing, daily health checks and close-contact quarantine.

Forman said that it should “hearten” members of the Yale community that life on campus is significantly less restricted than last year, due in large part to vaccines.

Forman emphasized that the Yale community’s high vaccination rate “doesn’t mean we get to let our guard down.”

“Part of our responsibility to New Haven as a rich and elite institution — a very big responsibility — is not to harm our surrounding community,”w Forman said.

“We shouldn’t be exposing them to unnecessary risk.”

Yale’s current COVID-19 alert level is yellow, which denotes low to moderate risk.

Contact OLIVIA TUCKER at olivia.tucker@yale.edu .

Yale quietly pressures Congress to repeal 1.4% tax LOBBY FROM PAGE 1 ficient funding, as its endowment is the second largest of any university, and was most recently valued at $31.2 billion.

“Yale, like the nearly 40 colleges, universities and medical schools subject to the tax on investment income, opposed the tax when Congress enacted it in 2017,” Richard Jacob, Yale’s associate vice president for federal and state relations, told the News. “The tax represents a troubling departure from long-standing federal policy of not taxing the proceeds from gifts that are used to support charitable activities related to teaching and scholarship. Moreover,

the tax advances no meaningful policy goal — it does not make college more affordable nor does it increase the pace of research being conducted on campuses subject to the tax.”

Charles Skorina, an investment executive recruiter who has researched the Yale endowment, said that he supports the University's efforts to repeal the tax. The tax is “basically a penalty on donating to your school,” Skorina said. He added that by taxing university endowments, which institutions rely on to fund student aid, financial support is indirectly endangered.

The tax is “a way of tak[ing] money from anyone and anything that looks like it's got a lot,” Skorina said.

YALE DAILY NEWS

Opponents of the tax argue that it hinders scholarship, research and financial aid.

Its supporters claim that Yale has sufficient funds.

But Craig Birckhead-Morton ’24, a member of Yale Young Democratic Socialists for America, disputed the notion that the University’s ability to provide aid is imperiled by the tax.”

Birckhead-Morton said that the University currently fails to provide the necessary financial support for those in need, while it also has “the money to go around.” He pointed in particular to the federal aid Congress gave Yale during the pandemic, as well as the accumulation of wealth in the endowment — which Yale hopes to increase by $7 billion through its most recent fundraising campaign.

Explaining the origins of the tax, Skorina described the measure as “populist,” saying that “there were a group of politicians [who said] ‘Well, this is a big pot of money, and it's just that schools shouldn't have it for some reason. And therefore, let's tax these donations to schools.’”

Law professor Zachary Liscow LAW ’15, an expert in tax law, echoed Skorina, saying that the decision to impose the tax in 2017 is partially influenced by anti-elitism and populism within the Republican Party. But he added that the tax is also grounded in the need to offset the increased debt incurred by the cut in the corporate tax rate also included in the 2017 Tax Cut and Jobs Act. Skorina warned of the tax’s potential long term impacts, both for the University and the coun-

try. He suggested that once a tax is added to the code, it is much easier for it to grow to where it would have a depressive effect on donations to the University.

“Every tax is smaller to begin with,” he said. “The objective of politicians is to get the tax on the books, because once you get on the books, it's a lot easier to expand it.”

Birckhead-Morton disagreed with Skorina’s analysis, saying that the “trickle-down” view of the University’s accumulation of wealth is “certainly not the case.”

He had a different view of the long term effects the tax might have.

“Obviously avoiding paying taxes is a huge thing,” Birckhead-Morton said. And given the nature of local, statewide and national budget deficits, as well as the need to fund programs at all those levels, “it’s really important that Yale pays its fair share of taxes,” he said.

Jacob told the News that the endowment is central to everything that the University does, from funding research to enabling Yale to be the “lowest cost choice, after student aid, for middle-class families.”

He further added that the endowment is crucial in Yale’s engagement with and support of the local community. “[The endowment] also enabled Yale to avoid layoffs while campus was largely closed, and it

allowed Yale to continue to be an economic anchor for New Haven and Connecticut, with a statewide economic impact exceeding $6 billion annually,” Jacob wrote in an email to the News.

But Birckhead-Morton said that Yale has not sufficiently utilized its endowment to support the local community. Last week, community members and Yale students timed a protest to coincide with the University’s launch of its fundraising campaign.

Birckhead-Morton further argued that the burden of economic recovery from the last year of economic hardship should fall more on wealthy institutions like Yale than on those less wealthy.

He said that Yale’s lobbying on this issue fits into his broader perspective of the University as a “pseudo-corporation.”

Despite his personal opposition to the tax, Skorina said it was highly unlikely that the University would be successful in its lobbying efforts.

He pointed to the present political environment, saying that no current member of Congress is seriously considering a cut on taxes, especially on wealthy institutions.

Yale spent $170,000 lobbying during the most recent quarter.

Contact PHILIP MOUSAVIZADEH at philip.mousavizadeh@yale.

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, OCTOBER 8, 2021 · yaledailynews.com

PAGE 5

FROM THE FRONT

“I'll sleep when I'm dead.” WARREN ZEVON AMERICAN ROCK SINGER

Leadership honoree involved in environmental and negligence cases

KAI NIP/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

Good was presented with an SOM award just weeks after a judge ruled that she and other Boeing board members must face a lawsuit over two fatal jet crashes.

GOOD FROM PAGE 1 “I’m honored to receive the Yale Legend in Leadership Award,” Good wrote in a statement to the News. “Being part of this group over the last year has been invaluable as we make progress on some of the most pressing issues we face as a business community and nation – including climate change. At Duke Energy, our focus is on aggressively removing carbon emissions and partnering with stakeholders to make this clean energy vision possible while maintaining reliability and affordability.”

Sonnenfeld declined to comment on the Boeing negligence lawsuit and Duke Energy’s environmental violations.

On Sept. 7, one month before Good received Yale’s award, a Delaware Court of Chancery ruled that the Boeing board of directors must face a negligence lawsuit filed by investors for failing to safely monitor two 737 MAX jets which killed 346 people when they crashed nearly three years ago. A Delaware judge ruled that the shareholders may pursue some of their negligence claims against the board.

Duke Energy spokesperson Neil Nissan declined multiple requests for comment on the connection between Good’s work at Duke Energy and her service on the Boeing board. Boeing spokesperson Chris Singley also declined a request for comment.

Sonnenfeld said that Good’s leadership is especially significant

because of the many ethical collapses, financial scandals and crises that have historically decreased the public’s trust in authorities. He added that female CEOs are disproportionately targeted and scrutinized by financial investors, making it all the more significant that Good received this award.

“The point of the award is not to celebrate or cleanse companies but rather to showcase effective, high integrity leaders whose character can set a model for others,” Sonnenfeld wrote in an email to the News.

“The severity of the challenges of what they inherited is part of what we identify as an element of their leadership accomplishments.”

In Oct. 2018, Lion Air flight 610 — a Boeing 737 MAX jet — crashed in Indonesia, killing 189 people. In

March 2019, Ethiopian Airlines flight 302 — another Boeing 737 MAX jet — crashed in Ethiopia, killing 157 people. The planes used a special maneuvering characteristics augmentation system, which is a major focus of negligence claims.

Boeing agreed to pay $2.5 billion to settle criminal charges of fraud and conspiracy in Jan. 2021. Good and other Boeing board members must now face a negligence lawsuit alleging that the board was negligent in dealing with and preventing the two deadly crashes.

“Rather than prioritizing safety, defendants lent their oversight authority to Boeing’s agenda of rapid production and profit maximization,” Delaware judge Morgan Zurn wrote in her ruling. “The Lion Air crash was a red flag about

MCAS that the board should have heeded but instead ignored. The Board did not request any information about it from management, and did not receive any until November 5, 2018, over one week after it happened.”

In the 120-page complaint, Zurn highlighted quotes from company emails and board meeting records to argue that Boeing was unethical because they did not prioritize the safety of their passengers and crew.

In addition, Zurn concluded that Boeing misled the public in media interviews following the two crashes.

Zurn cited quotes from several Boeing board members, but Good was not mentioned specifically.

“The Board publicly lied about if and how it monitored the 737 Max’s safety,” Zurn wrote in her ruling.

Still, Indra Nooyi SOM ’80, former CEO of PepsiCo, who co-presented the award to Good, highlighted that Good has managed to successfully run a large company — Duke Energy — in the midst of a “rapidly shifting consumer global demand” for clean energy and social justice. She added that Good has done so with “intelligence” and “grace.”

Good was also recognized for being responsible for redirecting Duke Energy’s focus from carbon-intensive utilities to clean energy.

According to Darius Adamczyk, CEO of Honeywell International who co-presented the award to Good, under Good’s leadership, Duke Energy is on track to reduce its carbon emissions by 50 percent by 2030 and achieve net-zero emissions by 2050.

“Lynn is one of the energy sector’s most forward-looking leaders, focused on customers and environmental responsibility, and she will be an excellent addition to our board,” former Boeing CEO James McNerney said in 2015. “She is a strategic thinker who is leading a large, complex company through a period of great change.”

Good was a board member of the Cincinnati Ballet for eight years in the 1990s.

Contact EDA AKER at eda.aker@yale.edu .

Yale alum arrested in Pakistan for obscenity ACTVISTS FROM PAGE 1 two had held a queer-coded photoshoot in June in front of Islamabad’s Quaid e Azam monument to promote their band Mystical Shayari’s newest single, “Disco Rani.”

For the first few weeks after their photo and music video shoots, Mannan said, everything seemed fine. That was until July, when a prominent internet trolling cell — a phenomenon covered in Al Jazeera documentary “War, Lies and Hashtags: Pakistan's Twitter Battles” — picked up on the photos and criticized them for misrepresenting Pakistani values.

But Pakistani values were central to Mannan and Odesser’s choice to shoot in front of the Quaid e Azam landmark, which spells out the national tenets of faith, unity and discipline on the side of a hill, they said.

‘We wanted to claim ownership behind the idea of Pakistan as these queerish individuals in these colorful outfits that weren’t objectively disrupting Pakistani social norms of nudity but were so colorful and queer that they were going to still be perceived as queer-coded in a negative light,” Mannan said.

In the photoshoot, Mannan donned an iridescent skirt, large earrings and makeup, instead of clothing traditional for male-presenting individuals.

Still, the Twitter cell’s comments blew up, and prominent right-wing journalist Ansar Abbasi — who Mannan compared to Breitbart columnists in the United States — tweeted to #ArrestTheCouple.

Mannan, Odesser and their families then began receiving rape threats, death threats and doxxing messages. Mannan temporarily lost their job with Teach for Pakistan, and after a primetime news network picked up the incident on Aug. 3, Mannan and Odesser went into hiding in a safe house in Lahore.

Though internet trolls targeted both members of Mystical Shayari, Mannan said that throughout the ordeal, they were primarily focused on Odesser’s well being.

“I made a promise to Kc’s mom that she would be 100 percent safe

in Pakistan, so our first priority was getting her out and back to the States,” they said.

Odesser went back to New York, her home state, and Mannan remained at the safe house for several more weeks before returning to stay with their family in Lahore.

Both thought the matter had died down until police arrived to apprehend Mannan as part of a first incident report under Section 294 of Pakistan’s Penal Code, a charge penalizing individuals for obscenity.

Immediately, Mannan secured protective bail and then later pre-arrest bail, so they did not spend time in jail. The trial determined if the bail would stand, not whether or not Mannan was guilty, despite popular conversation centering on imprisonment. The hashtag #FreeZulfi was trending on Twitter at the end of August, even though authorities never actually arrested Mannan or sent them to jail.

Prominent Pakistani celebrities such as comedian Shehzad Ghias, actress Meesha Shafi and writer Fatima Bhutto all came out in support of Mannan.

“What exactly is Zulfi guilty of?

Freedom of expression?” a Twitter user shared on August 24. “This is so callous and a blatant disregard of due process rights #freezulfi.”

Mannan later discovered that the state was not the one to leverage the charge against them. Rather, a right-wing private citizen had made the complaint.

From the opposite side of the ocean, Odesser waited for news from her best friend and platonic “soulmate.” The two met through mutual friends during their first year at Yale, and collaborated on several protests and performances, including a 2019 demonstration outside of global affairs professor Emma Sky’s “Middle East Politics” class and a banner display during Yale Law School professor Akhil Amar’s ’80 LAW ’84 “Constitutional Law” course, which read, “the U.S. Constitution is the law of stolen land … upheld by Yale rapists.” They graduated together in 2020 and started their band then.

COURTESY OF HADI ALI CHATTHA

Zulfiqar Mannan will not face prison time after facing widespread backlash for queer-coded photoshoot in Islamabad.

“Our freedom in Mystical Shayari is really wrapped up in each other,” Odesser told the News.

“Even if I were to be free, physically free, when this is happening to us both and Zulfi is bearing the brunt of it, neither of us is really free. I just had to find reasons to be confident, reasons to be hopeful, trust in God, trust in our art, trust in the support of the people to pull us through this.”

Odesser said she tried not to worry, since attorneys told her there was no legal precedent for jailing an individual for alleged nudity under Section 294, which Chattha confirmed to the News. Odesser maintains that the two were fully clothed, just queer-presenting.

Odesser’s hopes prevailed. On Oct. 2, after months of waiting and a four-hour court battle, Mannan’s bail was confirmed. Chattha explained that the opposing counsel was “furious” because a bail confirmation essentially guarantees that Mannan will walk free.

“In my expert opinion and the nature of the allegation, once the accused gets confirmed bail in such a case the case is practically over, as Zulfi’s attendance is no more needed, and it will fizzle out on its own with little to no involvement by us lawyers,” he wrote in a message to the News.

The judge, who Mannan characterized as “sweetly paternalistic,” made Mannan promise to refrain

from inciting future incidents in the future, but they have no intention of ceasing their activism. Odesser intends to return to Pakistan in the coming weeks.

During their time at Yale, Mannan studied English, participated in the Yale Multidisciplinary Academic Program in Human Rights and worked as a WKND staffer for the News. They were a member of Morse College.

Dubinsky said. “The faculty, the students and staff [are] here to do important work and to become the next generation of leaders and we are here to enable that work.”

Contact JORDAN FITZGERALD at jordan.fitzgerald@yale.edu .

PAGE 6

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, OCTOBER 8, 2021 · yaledailynews.com

ARTS 2020 Whiffenpoofs Release “Whiffs on Ice”

BY GAMZE KAZAKOGLU STAFF REPORTER The 2020 Whiffenpoofs, one of Yale’s most renowned singing groups, released their new album after a nearly 15-month delay due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Along with the “Whiffs on Ice”’ album release, the group hosted a livestreamed premiere event on Sept. 23. The project began as one of the trademarks of a normal Whiffenpoof year, which includes international and domestic touring followed by the release of an album. But they were cut off in March 2020 due to the COVID19 outbreak. Although the group toured the country for three weeks over the summer, they could only resume in-person album production after returning to Yale in the fall of 2021.

“We are really a year and three months late — after COVID-19 hit and touring became impossible, we really only had the album to look forward to, and really took our time with it,” Alex DiMeglio ’20+1, musical director of the Whiffenpoofs and co-producer of “Whiffs on Ice,” said.

The 2020 Whiffs recorded the album in two stages — one pre-pandemic and one post-pandemic. In the pre-pandemic stage, the group recorded in person at the home studio of Ed Boyer, a sound engineer in Connecticut. After the pandemic hit, recording with Boyer became impossible. But according to DiMeglio, beginning in November, the group could record in a New Haven studio called Firehouse 12 that had

“stringent” COVID-19 protocols. For instance, if the group was recording with three people at a time, each person was required to stay in a separate room, isolated from

had six arrangers, every member has a solo in the album and three songs feature all group members.

“Everyone also got to pick their own song, so the album as a whole

The Whiffs and all-senior soprano-alto group Whim ’n Rhythm are the only a cappella groups on campus whose members are replaced entirely each

COURTESY OF THE YALE WHIFFENPOOFS

After nearly 15 months of delay due to the COVID-19 pandemic, 2020 Whiffenpoofs finally release “Whiffs on Ice.” the others and singing into a microphone. According to DiMeglio, this was both in compliance with Yale’s health guidelines and a way to keep the group members safe.

“Whiffs on Ice” has 17 tracks, 10 of which were arranged by the members of the 2020 Whiffenpoofs and seven of which are older arrangements by previous members. Although the group officially

is representative of everyone as an individual,” said Scott Etan Feiner ’19+1, assistant music director of the Whiffenpoofs 2020 and co-producer of “Whiffs on Ice.” According to Feiner, the group’s inability to tour because of the pandemic extended its capabilities and provided extra time for the album to become a “statement” of the 2020 Whiffs.

year. According to Feiner, this allows everyone to have a hand in the album’s creation, since all the members were mutually on the same page and wanted the album to be an “expression” of the group.

The production of the album also allowed the members to stay in touch when it was impossible for them to be physically present with one another.

“Especially for me, I am a year older than everyone else in the group, so I was not on campus when everyone else was having their final pandemic year on campus,” Feiner said. “And it was nice to be able to come to New Haven to music-direct some recording sessions, to work on arrangements with other people, to get to do something musically collaborative in a time when that wasn’t happening.”

As business manager of the 2020 Whiffs, Mark Gustaferro ’20+1 was in charge of booking all the performances, prospective travel logistics and managing the group’s organizational and financial operations.

According to Gustaferro, the album was an “ambitious” project, given that much of the album consisted of new arrangements. He added that the album’s production is “awesome, and kind of a miracle,” given that the majority of the recording occurred during the group’s senior year after the 2020 Whiffs had been replaced by the class of 2021.

“I am personally very grateful to the people in my class of Whiffenpoofs who stepped up to help manage the complex logistical operations surrounding COVID-19 and record an album safely during a pandemic,” Gustaferro said. “In my humble opinion, I think the music is spectacular and Alex and Scott did an incredible job with [it].”

The Whiffenpoofs, established in 1909, are the oldest collegiate a cappella group in the country.

Contact GAMZE KAZAKOGLU at gamzekazakoglu@yale.edu .

New Music New Haven Returns to In-Person Performances

BY SARAH COOK CONTRIBUTING REPORTER After over a year of pre-recorded virtual concerts, the New Music New Haven concert series will return to live performances on Oct. 7 at 7:30 p.m. in Morse Recital Hall.

The New Music New Haven series highlights various student composers from the Yale School of Music over six concerts during the year, and also occasionally showcases works from faculty composers. Five of the concerts feature chamber music, and one of them includes pieces for orchestra performed by the Yale Philharmonia — an orchestra made up of School of Music students. The Oct. 7 concert, which will present pieces by four composers and two professors, will be livestreamed on the School of Music website.

Last year, the composers worked with the performers to put

together recordings which were then compiled into Youtube videos. Thursday’s concert will only be open to students, faculty and staff from the School of Music and Institute of Sacred Music.

“As a composer, I feel like not having music performed cuts off the oxygen,” Harriet Steinke MUS ’22 said. “In the past year, a lot of composers experienced that, so it’s a big deal to have this first in person concert.”

Steinke is one of the four students who will have works featured in Thursday’s concert. Her piece, titled “Second Suite for Two Cellos,” will be premiering — a piece she only began writing last month.

Steinke explained that when writing this piece, she thought back to the last piece she particularly enjoyed writing, which was her “First Suite for Two Cellos.”

Steinke said this piece is similar to the “First Suite for Two Cel-

los” in the way that the cellists’ bows move together in the same direction and how the unique sight of two cellists on stage creates a sense of “pomp and circumstance.” She also further explored the opportunities created by having two cellos on stage when writing her newest piece.

“Going in with more intentionality, I could experiment a little more with having [musicians’] bows always going in the same direction, having the sections that get louder go on for longer and really bathing in the parts of the music that I liked in the first one,” Steinke said.

Lila Meretzky’s MUS ’22 piece entitled “Sea Glass Partita” is a premiere of one of three iterations of the piece. It was inspired by Eleni Katz MUS ’21, a fellow School of Music student who wanted to highlight both her singing and bassoon playing in one piece. The first iteration

COURTESY OF SARAH COOK

After a year and a half of online performances, the Yale Dramat returns to in-person theater production with a premiere of an original coming-of-age play.

included Katz switching between singing and playing bassoon, and the title came from a poem Katz wrote during the pandemic.

Katz’s poem uses the central metaphor of a piece of sea glass to represent how changes and journeys one experiences do not take away from life’s ever-present beauty. Thursday’s concert will feature the third iteration, performed by a bassoonist and a singer.

Meretzky said two musicians playing the piece allows for larger textures than when one musician alternating between instruments had to switch between voices. Meretzky added that she is very excited to begin live performances again.

“Live performance is something different. it’s kind of thrilling, and I think none of us have been back in this space for a while,” Meretzky said. “I think there’ll be some nerves too, but that only makes these things more exciting.”

Sophia Pfleger MUS ’22’s piece entitled “When the sun is low” will also premiere at the concert.

Pfleger wrote this piece during the first week of this year for guitarist Jiji Kim MUS ’17 as a part of a composition challenge they created on Instagram.

According to Pfleger, the inspiration for the piece came from her home in Germany, which was under lockdown for the COVID-19 pandemic when she wrote the piece.

“In this wintry environment, it had a very calming effect for me personally,” Pfleger said. “I felt very well personally at that time, which was and is in total contrast to what is happening in the world right now. ‘When the sun is low’ captures this moment like a diary entry.”

Faculty composers Aaron Jay Kernis MUS ’83 and David Lang MUS ’83 will also have pieces performed at the upcoming concert.

Lang’s piece, “let me come in,” was

inspired by the Old Testament verse Song of Songs 5:2 and commissioned by the Los Angeles Opera and Fisher Center at Bard College. The piece features soprano, percussion, viola and cello, and it originally premiered in a video project created by filmmaker Bill Morrion. Oct. 7 will be the piece’s first in-person performance.

“As someone who had a moderately religious upbringing, I’m interested in what all of these texts mean to us, and in particular what they mean to me,” Lang said, “When you’re a composer you spend a lot of time with yourself. What you’re really doing with these pieces is trying to figure out who you are, what you like, what makes you tick and what makes you feel things.”

When researching the biblical text, Lang found 17 different interpretations from American religious groups. In this work, Lang tried not to “distinguish among the versions,” but rather attempted to make a “supertext” that treated all the interpretations equally.

Kernis’s piece “From a Dark Time” will also premiere on Oct. 7, after being composed in early 2020. Kernis originally composed the piece for his son’s high school piano trio. It begins with lyrical lines in the violin and cello, and contrasts with Kernis’ other piano trio piece, which is comedic in nature and features narration.

Kernis said this most recent piece’s title comes from the prevalence of gun violence and actions of the last presidential administration.

“When there had just been yet another gun massacre in America, and I just sat down and started this piece,” Kernis said. ‘’ It feels a little bit like it’s been preserved in amber.”

The next New Music New Haven concert will be on Nov. 4 and feature guest conductor Caroline Shaw.

Contact SARAH COOK at sarah.cook@yale.edu .

PAGE 7

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, OCTOBER 8, 2021 · yaledailynews.com

Yale Dramat presents ‘Not About Kyle,’ its first in-person production this year

BY TANIA TSUNIK STAFF REPORTER This weekend, the Yale University Dramatic Association will present “Not About Kyle” — its first in-person theater production this fall –– as a part of its 2021 Fall Ex. According to playwright Ann Zhang ’24, the play addresses the “coming-of-age” sentiments of confusion, guilt and acceptance, specifically tackling the experience of “being in one’s own head” and using fiction to forge one’s identity. The performances will run on Oct. 7 at 8 p.m., Oct. 8 at 8 p.m. and two shows on Oct. 9 at 2 p.m and 8 p.m. at the Yale Repertory Theatre. “[‘Not About Kyle’] is a play that tells what it’s like to be in your own head and feel isolated even around other people,” Zhang said.

“It is also about the baseline realization that people don’t merely exist in one’s head. They are fully fleshed out, nuanced and simply unable to fit into a small stereotypical box.

All of that feels especially relevant now with the pandemic.”

The show — which was also co-produced

by Zhang — traces the story of Luce, a high schooler who is writing a book about a boy named Kyle. But as the title suggests, the play is not about Kyle. Rather, it is an exploration of Luce’s journey as she grapples with the common teenage issues related to friendship, romance, isolation, self-expression and self-discovery.

Zhang started writing the play during her senior year of high school and partly based the main character Luce’s “headspace” on her own experience. After finishing the script last year, Zhang assembled the production team and submitted her proposal to the Dramat in May. As soon as the play was approved to be a part of the Dramat’s 2021 Fall Ex, the team met regularly over Zoom to organize logistics during the summer.

Upon returning to campus in early September, the production team held auditions and prepared for the premiere in less than a month.

“It’s been a very fast production and we’ve been rehearsing on a very tight schedule,” said the play’s director Samantha Fisher ’24.

“But we’ve all been so excited for a revival of the in-person theater and got a lot done thanks to everyone’s enthusiasm.”

According to Soojin Park ’25, who plays Luce, the rehearsing times differed for the cast members based on their roles. As the main character, Park rehearsed four times a week for four hours a day — all while abiding by University health guidelines. The cast could not practice in the same space for over an hour and had to take “COVID-breaks” in between to air out the room. However, Park noted that these restrictions were not “too bothersome,” as they allowed more time for the team members to “connect” and get to know each other.

Other safety guidelines included mandatory masking for both the audience and performers on stage, despite the small cast of nine people.

“I was joking with the team that it’s a great year for people who can only act with the upper half of their face, which is not the case for our actors,” Zhang said. “So, I am a little sad that the audience will not be able to fully appreciate their wonderful work.”

Still, the team shared a sentiment of excitement and optimism. Fisher said

that she felt “extremely grateful” to have a chance to “personally” present the play to the audience and to “get its emotional message across.” Park also noted that the cast managed to “form connections” with each other and “maintain energy on stage,” regardless of some inconveniences related to health restrictions.

Park said that as a result of this collaborative work environment and the close-knit relations among members, the team produced a “very human and honest” comingof-age play in less than a month.

“It is a very personal play to a lot of people, as it focuses on discovering your sexuality and forging your own identity and touches upon a lot of very specific experiences that people have,” Fisher said. “But at the same time, it also feels really universal: Even if you don’t have these character-specific problems, we all struggle with growing up and figuring out who we are. So, what I’d love for the audience to take away from it is the feeling that we’re all connected and we’re all going through it together.”

“Not About Kyle” will run for about an hour without intermission. Tickets must be reserved online via the Dramat’s website.

Contact TANIA TSUNIK at tania.tsunik@yale.edu .

COURTESY OF JACK TRIPP

After a year and a half of online performances, the Yale Dramat returns to in-person theater production with a premiere of an original coming-of-age play.

Yale Professor wins 2021 MAAH Stone Book AwardforherhistoryofBlack,feministsound culture. The first half is a more traditional intellectual history, while the second half “breaks the fourth wall” and questions historiography itself. The second half is also more radical, featuring interviews from Brooks’ own mother. Brooks noted that she wanted her book’s unique style to be a “model” for From Bessie Smith to Beyoncé, Black feminine sound has younger readers and scholars in considering narratives and significantly contributed to the foundation of American music.

According to Daphne Brooks — an award-winresearch outside of traditional academia. ning author and University professor — the “We may want to pay attention to the peonames of many of these musicians, critics and ple in our own communities and our families as artists have been either lost to the ages or overgeniuses and as knowledge bearers of histories shadowed by their male and white counterparts. that have not been accounted for,” Brooks said.

Brooks — who is the William R. Kenan Jr. Brooks’ novel holds especially profound significance within the Yale community. professor of African American studies, AmerPia Baldwin Edwards ’25 said that reading ican studies, women’s, gender and sexuality studies and music — explores and rebuilds Brooks’ novel felt like “a revelation.” Baldwin the history of the Black women lost in music Edwards said that Brooks writes with “beaucriticism. Her book, “Liner Notes for the Revtifully musical prose” that she had never olution: The Intellectual Life of Black Femiencountered in her other classes. nist Sound,” was recently awarded the 2021 “The novel caused me to challenge my Museum of African American History Stone assumptions about the role of music,” Baldwin Edwards said. “I now see music as a way Book Award.

Black women have celebrated their com“I started thinking about what the history plexities and persisted through the denials of music would sound like if it were told from the viewpoint of women of color,” Brooks imposed on them by the music industry.” said. “Who might we value and who might we Brooks’ award-winning and distinctively want in the room for those conversations?” musical prose comes from a unique writing process called “critical karaoke,” developed Brooks, who hails from California’s Bay by her colleague Joshua Clover, a profesArea, explained that her inspiration for the sor of English at the University of Califorbook truly began during her youth spent in record stores. Her household was filled with nia Davis. In an article featured in the journal an amalgamation of sound, from her father’s Popular Music, Clover described his process. love of Duke Ellington to her mother’s affinity It includes a three minute meditation on a musical piece, followed by writing while lisfor the Spinners. She “developed a real kind of tening to the music to help writers extract passion” for rock criticism, yet it struck her that most of the popular critics in rock maga“lasting worth or cultural importance.” zines like Rolling Stone were white, male and Brooks said this process frees her from the primarily paid attention to music by artists constraints that come from “teaching in a buttoned-up and intellectually conservative similar to them.

“I wanted to write a book to honor the space,” found in prestigious universities. She intellectual conversations and ideas about added that it aids her ability to “write about Black women, musicians and revolutionmusic in conversation with the music itself.” ary artists, and to think about why it’s been McKinney described Brooks’ book as such a problem for mainstream music crit“monumental” and said it was one of the best books he has ever read. icism to pay attention to their contribuCOURTESY OF DR. VAN TRUONG tions,” Brooks said.

“By expanding our understanding of a musical Brooks applied for the award at the recom- Professor Daphne Brooks wins an award for her radical work on retelling musical criticism through archive, Brooks takes us on a vast and fascinating mendation of Jacqueline Goldsby, chair of the the long unappreciated lens of Black women in music. intellectual odyssey that significantly reshapes almost everything we’ve come to believe about African American Studies Department. The MAAH Stone Book Award, according to its website, aims in a variety of different ways.” the role Black women have played in the shaping of the nation’s to inspire, nurture and “recognize new literary work in the Charles McKinney, a member of the Stone Book Award sonic and intellectual landscapes,” said McKinney.

Jury and the chair of Africana Studies at Rhodes College, field of African American history and culture.”

The Stone Book Award ceremony will be held virtually on In its field, the award is also unique due to the large mon- said that the award is crucial in its centering of African Oct. 14 at 6:30 p.m. etary sum attached to it. Brooks said she was incredibly American history in the literary field. He said the study of “grateful” to the award committee for their recognition. African American history offers insights in “race, democContact ALESSIA DEGRAEVE at She also said that the large sum of money is culturally sig- racy, the perpetual search for meaning and value.” alessia.degraeve@yale.edu and Brooks’ book, which is broken up into sides A and B — like a nificant, since capitalism often associates cultural value MAIA DECKER at vinyl record — transcends the spaces of academia and popular with its monetary equivalent. maia.decker@yale.edu .

BY ALESSIA DEGRAEVE AND MAIA DECKER CONTRIBUTING REPORTER AND STAFF REPORTER

Brooks also noted that the prize recognizes an author’s ability to write in a way that makes academic writing accessible to all audiences.

“I think there’s real power in this award,” Brooks said. “[It is] an incentive for scholars to think about producing projects that reach out to all sorts of readers and touch them

PAGE 8

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, OCTOBER 8, 2021 · yaledailynews.com

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY Select Yale community members now eligible to receive Pfizer booster shot

BY VERONICA LEE AND BRIAN ZHANG STAFF REPORTER AND CONTRIBUTING REPORTER On Sept. 27, in a university-wide email, CEO of Yale Health Paul Genecin announced that Yale community members aged 65 and older or at increased risk for severe COVID-19 cases are now eligible to receive a booster dose of the Pfizer vaccine.

This announcement comes just five days after the FDA extended its Emergency Use Authorization on Sept. 22 for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine to include a third “booster” dose for select groups of individuals who received the second dose at least six months ago. The FDA previously gave the Pfizer vaccine full approval. The extension was “significant, as it allowed the CDC to recommend additional doses,” according to Richard Martinello, Medical Director for Infection Prevention at Yale New Haven Hospital.

People 65 and older, residents in longterm care settings and people between 50 and 64 years old with underlying medical conditions should receive the booster shot, the CDC announced on Friday. People between 18 and 49 years old with underlying medical conditions or “who are at increased risk for COVID19 exposure and transmission because of their occupational or institutional setting” may receive the booster shot, the CDC added. In preparation for increased demand for vaccinations, Yale has relocated its COVID-19 vaccine program to 310 Winchester Ave. “[Boosters are] significant for older individuals and younger individuals with compromised immune systems who now can receive a third shot as protection against severe disease, although only

if they received the Pfizer vaccine for the first two boosters,” associate professor of epidemiology Luke Davis wrote in an email to the News. “It may be significant for those living in countries with limited access to vaccines, as it may further delay their access.”

According to the CDC, the booster shot not only helps to better protect against the Delta variant, but also compensates for decreased protection against the virus over time from the “primary series” — or the first two vaccine doses. However, the Center “continues to recognize full vaccination to consist of just the two vaccination doses of Pfizer or Moderna, or one dose of Johnson & Johnson.”

The CDC has not released formal guidance about booster shots for people who received alternative vaccines, specifically the Moderna and Johnson & Johnson shots.

There are no recommendations for mixing doses from different companies.

“The FDA will reportedly rule on Moderna’s proposed boosters within days, and consider Johnson & Johnson’s application within the next few weeks,” Davis wrote.

In Genecin’s Monday email, the campus community was informed that the University’s COVID-19 program is now offering the Pfizer booster shot in its new location at 310 Winchester Ave., with accessible entrances on Winchester Avenue and Argyle Street.

Martinello attributes the relocation of the vaccine program to “Yale’s anticipat[ed] increased demand for vaccination” following the CDC’s announcement that the booster will become available to a wider population.

As of this morning, eligible Yale faculty, staff, students and Yale Health mem-

YALE DAILY NEWS

Some members of the Yale community can now qualify for the Pfizer booster dose, Yale Health CEO Paul Genecin wrote in a Monday email to the community. bers can and have started to schedule online appointments through the program’s vaccine portal. Existing logistical and COVID19 protocols are still in place; they require that visitors wear a mask and bring a photo ID and an insurance card. Visitors are required to stay for 15 minutes of observation following their shot.

Starting Sept. 29 and throughout October, the booster shot will be offered on select days in addition to every Wednesday, when other vaccine options and nonbooster shots are usually available. The clinic’s full schedule can be accessed here.

According to Davis, it is still not clear if boosters will be recommended for the general population. Although the Biden administration had announced in August that this could be a future possibility, regulators have declined to approve this, citing insufficient evidence.

According to Bloomberg, as of Sept. 27, 390 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine have been administered in the United States.

Contact VERONICA LEE at veronica.lee@yale.edu and BRIAN ZHANG at brian.zhang@yale.edu .

No vaccine, no work: Yale New Haven Health plans to begin terminating unvaccinated employees The YNHH website also outlines the COVID-19 vaccination policy for all employees of the hospital system. The requirements allow for medical and religious The Yale New Haven Health System has begun exemptions by application. issuing warnings of termination to the roughly 300 “Individuals may request a COVID vaccination employees who refused to get vaccinated against exemption or deferment (to a later date) for a medical COVID-19 before the Oct. 1 deadline passed. reason or sincerely held religious/spiritual belief,” reads Last summer, Yale New Haven Health made the a July 22 bulletin on the website. “The process, criteria decision to require COVID-19 vaccines for all of its and forms are available on Employee Self Service.” employees. Healthcare workers were given the opporThere are three types of exemptions, according to Richard Martinello, Medical Director of Infectunity to receive their vaccinations for free at local tion Prevention at Yale New Haven Health. The first YNHH clinics. Now that the Oct. 1 deadline for inocuis a medical exemption, such as an allergic reaction to lations has passed, YNHH has started issuing warnings a component in the vaccine. The second is a religious and preparing to terminate the roughly 300 employees who had yet to submit proof of vaccination as of Friday. exemption. The third is a medical deferment.

“The problem is, we’re not in a business where we “We allow religious exemptions for those who can sacrifice public good for personal concern,” said have sincerely held religious beliefs that would preThomas Balcezak, the Chief Medical Officer of YNHH. clude them from being vaccinated, and we have a process for adjudicating that,” Martinello told the “Our job is to take care of people and one of the most News. “The deferment has been for those who are important things in taking care of people is that we ensure that we do so in a way that keeps those peoeither pregnant or breastfeeding, and it allows them ple and their families safe. And we just have to defer receiving the vaccine until either decided that we simply cannot do that if our the pregnancy and/or the period of breaststaff are not vaccinated.” feeding was complete.”

According to Balcezak, YNHH announced He also noted that this policy was put in place its decision to proceed with a vaccine manbefore the Centers for Disease Control and Predate for all of its employees at a July 9 town vention gave clear guidance in August recomhall. The town hall was followed by a formal mending vaccinations for pregnant women. written communication on July 12, which According to Martinello, there are slight gave employees a timeline for completing variations among vaccination policies in their vaccination requirements. Since July hospitals across the state of Connecticut.

12, YNHH has operated 90 vaccination clinHowever, the Connecticut Hospital Assoics through which employees could schedule ciation came out with a memorandum on vaccine appointments or show up to the clinic June 24 that recommended that all hospitals without prior notice. in the state make vaccination a requirement For the employees who chose to receive one for staff, while allowing for medical and reliof the two-dose mRNA vaccines, Pfizer or gious exemptions.

Moderna, the deadline to get the first dose was Yale New Haven Health employs over 30,000 healthcare workers. Of those, the Aug. 31. The vaccines take more time to qualify strong majority were vaccinated before the someone as immunized since they require two doses and several weeks’ worth of waiting time mandate was enacted.

MARISA PERYER/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER between doses, according to Balcezak.

“The vast majority of people who are in After passing Oct. 1 vaccine mandate deadline, YNHH will terminate all healthcare recognize it’s the right thing to “Most of my friends and colleagues have employees who remain unvaccinated against COVID-19 by Oct. 18. do,” Balcezak said. “We spend an awful lot been receptive to vaccinations,” Elizabeth Garibaldi, a nurse practitioner at YNHH, wrote of time talking about the few who are makto the News. “I believe that the vaccine is a good step “[The] YNHH system announced several months ing noise, but the vast majority of our employees not towards prevention [of] COVID-19, but overall every- ago the policy mandating COVID vaccines for its health only got the vaccine, they are very active in trying one should have their own choice whether or not they care workers, and so this is no surprise,” McLean — the to get their colleagues who have not yet been vacciwant to be vaccinated. I have seen people be skeptical 2019-20 president of the American College of Phy- nated to get it as well.” towards the vaccine. It is understandable to be skeptical. sicians — wrote in an email to the News. “Employees Balcezak also mentioned that employee exhaustion … These vaccines are mRNA vaccines that do not inter- have been given ample time and opportunity to com- due to the pandemic is a real problem. fere with our DNA in any way.” ply. And this requirement is quite consistent with many According to him, the vast majority of YNHH recStarting the first weekend in September, Occupa- health care delivery systems across the country. And ognize the importance of vaccination and are tired of tional Health Services began offering the single-dose from my standpoint as a physician and an employee of treating patients whose illness could have been avoided.

Johnson & Johnson vaccine in pop-up clinics at all Yale Northeast Medical Group, the ambulatory network of “They’re tired. They’re tired of this pandemic.

New Haven Health sites, in addition to second-dose YNHH, it is most definitely the right decision.”

They’re tired of taking care of patients that don’t necclinics for the mRNA vaccines. The clinics afforded Balcezak added that employees who change their essarily have to be ill because there is a vaccine,” Balemployees with an additional opportunity to receive a minds and get vaccinated after termination on Oct. 18 cezak said. “The vast majority of patients that are still vaccine before the deadline. can return to their jobs “with open arms” and that there being admitted with COVID are unvaccinated people, The last day YNHH offered vaccines to its employ- is not a limit to how long this policy will be upheld. and they’re tired.” ees before the deadline was Sept. 30, Balcezak told the According to Balcezak, around 700 employees Yale New Haven Health now offers booster doses of News. As of Friday, Oct. 1, the deadline for vaccination, applied before the Aug. 1 deadline and were granted the Pfizer vaccine to eligible individuals.

300 employees had not submitted evidence proving exemptions or deferrals to the mandate. This figure their vaccination status and had not been approved for included about 70 medical deferrals and 300 approved Contact AISLINN KINSELLA at an exemption or deferral, according to Balcezak. exemptions for religious reasons, with the remainder aislinn.kinsella@yale.edu and “We’re really trying to encourage people, [...] as you coming from medical exemptions. Almost 300 appliSELIN NALBANTOGLU at can see from the time frame I outlined,” Balcezak said. cations for religious exemptions were also denied. selin.nalbantoglu@yale.edu .

BY AISLINN KINSELLA AND SELIN NALBANTOGLU STAFF REPORTER AND CONTRIBUTING REPORTER

“We’ve been very clear. We’ve been very communicative. We’ve been consistent, but we’ve tried to do so in a way that is transparent, non-punitive. It’s not our desire at all to have anyone leave our organization, so we’re trying to provide as many opportunities for people to become compliant. What we will not do, however, is change our policy.”

As the deadline approached, the hospital began instituting different warnings for its employees.

During the week of Sept. 27, employees who had not received one or both doses of the mRNA vaccines or the single dose of the J&J vaccine received verbal warnings from Human Resources. This week, the 300 unvaccinated employees will receive a formal written warning. YNHH will start suspensions without pay for non-compliance next week, on Oct. 11. Finally, employees who have not complied with the mandate by Oct. 18 will be terminated, according to Balcezak.

Robert McLean, New Haven Regional Medical Director of Northeast Medical Group of Yale New Haven Health, echoed Balcezak’s sentiment about transparency.

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, OCTOBER 8, 2021 · yaledailynews.com

NEWS

PAGE 9

“People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.”

GEORGE ORWELL ENGLISH NOVELIST

Study proves supposed oldest map of America fake, again

BY ANIKA SETH CONTRIBUTING REPORTER The so-called oldest map of North America — the Vinland Map — sits in Yale’s Beinecke collection in a slim volume along with a medieval manuscript. The map purports to show groundbreaking conclusions about Norse exploration into North America, with one glaring caveat: it’s a fake.

The Vinland Map first surfaced in 1957, when a London book dealer offered the 15th-century document to the British Museum.

The museum, however, rejected the offer, asserting that the map was forged.

Since then, a new study has emerged every few years deeming the map to be a fake: the British Museum in 1967, Yale itself in 1973, the University of California Davis in the 1980s, British researchers in 2002, and several more reports in the 21st century.

On Sept. 1, 2021 — 64 years since the British Museum first rejected the map — Yale released the latest of many studies proving the map is fake. This report is part of a nearly complete project that began in 2017 and has since involved at least 100 collective hours of research time, according to Yale conservation scientist and Vinland research team member Richard Hark.

Drawn on a 13-by-19-inch sheet of parchment, the Vinland Map depicts territories between Europe and Asia, known as Vinland or the New World. The document seems to challenge the common 20th-century narrative of Christoper Columbus’ voyage, suggesting that Norse explorers — not Mediterraneans — were the first Europeans to reach North America.

“The reason the Vinland Map would be important if it were genuine is that it’s the only map that shows both new [information] about Asia that Marco Polo had brought and the existence of territories standing between Europe and Asia,” history professor Paul Freedman told the News.

“The fact that it’s a fake is unfortunate because it’s wonderful to think somebody had started to put together the puzzle before the 16th century.”

History of mystery Historians have long voiced doubts about the map’s validity.

In 1957 — the same year that the British Museum rejected the document — Connecticut-based book dealer and Yale alumnus Laurence Witten ’51 purchased the map and manuscript for $3,500 and offered the work to his alma mater. The University, like the museum, remained skeptical of the documents’ credibility.

But just one year later, the curator of medieval and renaissance literature for Yale’s library acquired another medieval manuscript. When Witten saw and analyzed the seemingly unrelated piece, he found that his map and manuscript were penned by the same hand as the library’s document, implying that the Vinland Map must be real.

Yale was unable to afford Witten’s asking price, so another alumnus — Paul Mellon ’29 — agreed to buy the map for nearly $300,000 and gift it to the University if the document could be verified. Given the map’s potentially monumental significance, Mellon was adamant that the map’s existence be kept under wraps until a book about the map could be published. Thus, only three scholars were allowed to engage with the authentication process, and consultation with specialists was out of the question. The text was published in 1965 and the map was subsequently released for public view.

Elizabeth Rowe, an associate professor of Scandinavian history at the University of Cambridge, explained that historians worldwide remained doubtful of the map’s historical accuracy, with a controversial conference about the map held at the Smithsonian Institute barely a year after its publicization. Rowe described four main reasons for historians’ skepticism of the map’s validity: geographical accuracy exceeding 15th-century knowledge levels, inscriptions employing 17th-century instead of 15th-century Latin, phrases drawing from 19th-century scholarship and what seemed to be intentional efforts to make the document appear older.

The document involves two pieces glued together, which is supposed to give the impression that the map was “folded and unfolded so many times that two pieces came apart and had to be taped back together again,” she told the News.

However, Rowe said historians do not buy this theory because there is no writing that stretches across the break in pages. Instead, the text is “very carefully placed” along the left and right of the page break.

Rowe specifically explained that 15th-century scholars had no way of knowing Greenland was an island, but the map shows both Greenland as an island and a coastline, which seems too accurate for the time period.

“Because of the sea ice, and the shipping and maritime technology that they had in the 1440s, nobody thinks that anybody could have circumnavigated Greenland at the time that the map is supposed to be from,” Rowe said. “Also, the depiction of the coast is really remarkably accurate.”

Yale’s most recent study, conducted by two Yale University Library conservators in conjunction with a team of three scientists — including Hark — at the Institute for the Preservation of Cultural Heritage on Yale’s West Campus, was published on Sept. 1.

It confirms the map’s falseness by reiterating that the map’s ink contains a certain titanium compound first made commercially available in the 1920s, centuries after the map was supposedly drawn.

Per the University’s statement, this analysis differs from previous work due to the use of X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy — a non-destructive method of identifying elemental distribution that was only recently made usable for scanning entire

YALE NEWS

After New York Times picked up Yale’s latest study into map’s origins, news again swirls that the Vinland Map was forged. two-dimensional objects, such as the Vinland Map. “Probably the biggest tool that was different [since the 1973 study] is… they were only able to do what’s called pinpoint analysis,” Clemens told the News. “So they would choose a particular spot, and they would check the ink at that spot. But that spot was a few microns in diameter, so a very, very small sample. And they did that in several different places throughout the map, and they had consistent results. The big difference is that we have a tool now called scanning XRF… [so] rather than just doing a few pinpoint analyses, we can set up a matrix and do the entire map… and we were able to show using that tool that every place that there was ink on the map, there was this modern form of titanium.”

In an interview with the News, Hark said the estimated cost for the latest study is “really difficult to pin down with any level of certainty,” but did note that there was no additional expense beyond the use of existing instruments and cost of labor, which amounted to at least 100 hours across all researchers.

Hark clarified that the project began in 2017 and, though ongoing, is nearly complete. “A few more samples of parchment need to be analyzed that have been collected and then we need to write up our results for publication in peer-reviewed journals,” he told the News.

Why the attention?

In Clemens’ view, the University-funded 1973 analysis provided sufficient evidence of the Vinland Map being a fake. But some skeptics continued to assert the map was authentic, Clemens said, even as study after study repeatedly confirmed evidence that its production was dated after the 15th-century.

“The skeptics had said, ‘Well, if you tested over here rather than over here, you would have had this answer,’ and so what this [new study] did was say, ‘Okay, we’ve tested every spot on the map,’”

Clemens explained. “But to be honest with you, there wasn’t some new element that was found.

It’s the same anatase, or titanium dioxide, that we had before.”

He said many academics still try to fit the map into their historical narratives just in case it ends up being real — but this leads to the production and dispersion of inaccurate conclusions.

“One of the things that often gets missed when the popular press does something like this is that there are academics who write on the history of cartography… and keep trying to fit it into the history just in case it happens to be real, and they don’t want to look foolish for having excluded it,” Clemens explained. “But we know it’s a modern forgery. Why are we sticking it here and confusing people that are first coming to the field or trying to make it look like there’s a possibility that it might be a 15th-century map?”

Another reason for the significant attention around the Vinland Map is the challenge it presents to Columbus’ status as the first European to reach North America, especially when taken in the context of race relations in the United States at the time of the map’s release.

“In the 1960s, southern Europeans were not considered to be white,” Clemens explained. “So there was a real sense that what was going on here was an attempt to invalidate Columbus’s discovery and to say that ‘No, no, no, it was always northern Europeans that were ahead of the southern Europeans.’ And so even though in our sense it’s not racial, in the 1960s sense it was.”

In fact, according to a 2018 Yale News statement about the map, the University’s unveiling of the map in 1965 “triggered outrage among New Haven’s Italian-American community, which celebrated Columbus as an emblem of Italian culture and a hero of the European Age of Discovery.”

This is why the map will continue to reside at Yale in the Beinecke Rare Book & Manu-

scripts Library — according to Clemens. Though the document is a fake, it nonetheless had — and continues to have — a great impact on the history of global cartography and ethnic relations within New Haven, he said.

Who and why?

Since Yale’s publication of its most recent study on Sept. 1, multiple mainstream news outlets have heralded the study as groundbreaking. But since historians have generally agreed since the 1960s that the map was fake, Yale’s study does not change the scientific community’s understanding of Norse travels, Rowe said.

However, she said the study offered new information about the origin of the forgery, as the research team concluded that the identified anatase compound closely resembles a pigment commercially produced in Norway in 1923.

“When you combine the information about the closest parallel to these pigments with the particular Scandinavian perspective on North American geography, it really looks as though this is Norwegian forgery,” Rowe told the News.

On the other hand, Clemens does not believe this is Norwegian forgery, but rather a map inspired by an Italian document. More specifically, he doubts that anyone north of Paris was involved in its production.

Freedman remains interested in who created the map and why.

“Somebody must have made some money off of this, but who and when still remains a mystery,” he told the News. “Where did they get this extraordinary skill so that 100 years later, they’re still fussing over whether it’s genuine or not?”

As the Vinland Map continues to reside in Yale’s collection, it will be used to potentially answer these questions of where and when the forgery occurred.

The map is located along with the accompanying manuscripts at the Beinecke Museum at 121 Wall St. Contact ANIKA SETH at anika.seth@yale.edu .

PAGE 10

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, OCTOBER 8, 2021 · yaledailynews.com

SPORTS

“Just play. Have fun. Enjoy the game.”

MICHAEL JORDAN PROFESSIONAL BASKETBALL PLAYER

Yale Ph.D. student “Jeopardy!” streak second all-time

COURTESY OF JEOPARDY PRODUCTIONS

Amodio, a Ph.D student in computer science at Yale, passes James Holzhauer and extends winning streak to 36 consecutive Jeopardy games.

JEOPARDY FROM PAGE 14 which he won $16,600 — he now sits at 36 consecutive wins.

“It feels incredible,” Amodio wrote about his run in an email to the News.

“I don't feel like I'm good enough to be considered [among] the greats, but I try to imagine what it would be like for me to read my stats as if they were somebody else's. I know I would be impressed by someone doing what I've been doing, so I try to let myself feel proud of that.”

Since the 38th season of “Jeopardy!” began on Sept. 13, Amodio has surpassed many of the show’s milestones. He crossed $1,000,000 in total earnings on Sept. 24 after his 28th win and gave his 1,000th correct response on Sept. 29.

With the recent buzz around Amodio’s accomplishments, the talk show “Good Morning America” invited him to discuss his “Jeopardy!” win streak on Oct. 4.

“I have a few more interviews to do now than I used to,” Amodio told the News. “But other than squeezing some more “Jeopardy!” into my already busy workdays, things have stayed relatively normal for me.”

On Oct. 1, Amodio’s win streak surpassed the incumbent second-place holder, James Holzhauer. But Holzhauer still maintains a lead over Amodio in all-time winnings.

As Amodio approached 32 wins, Holzhauer posted a meme on Twitter showing Amodio’s supposed underwhelming earnings compared to himself after they had both played 23 games.

“Must be nice having time to throw shade on Twitter,” Amodio playfully fired back. “Us Jeopardy champions with 0 career losses have actual work to do.”

Amodio told the News that he personally enjoys engaging with Holzhauer’s sense of humor and public persona. He described their banter as a kind of “trash-talking” he would do with friends and family. Amodio said he is pleased that despite never meeting Holzhauer,

he can be on the same wavelength and have a connection with someone he sees as an idol.

On Monday, Amodio collected a personal best of $83,000, as he notched his 34th victory and 30th runaway — a term used by longtime “Jeopardy!” host Alex Trebek for games in which the result is decided before the “Final Jeopardy” round. The Medina, Ohio native explained to the News that his hot streaks are directly associated with his timing on the buzzer. According to his personal stat keeping, Amodio has a “very small variance” in the number of questions he knows on a per-game basis, but how “in-sync” he is with the buzzer changes “drastically.”

“There is one Jeopardy staff member who presses a button to open up the buzzer, so being good on the timing means you and that person are in-sync,” Amodio explained. “To get out-of-sync could mean you are doing something different, or it could just mean your target is doing something different! When the buzzer is going well I don't really understand why, and when the buzzer isn't going well I don't really know why.”

A longstanding “Jeopardy!” tradition has been for each contestant to share a brief anecdote from their life with the host after the first commercial break. Amodio’s 36 games mean he has also shared 36 life stories with a national audience. Amodio told the News that he is “way past the point of having interesting anecdotes to tell,” but that he likes putting a humanizing touch on his stories.

“I'm just a normal guy who lives a normal life,” Amodio said.

“Not that much interesting happens to me.”

Amodio has won $1,417,401 on the show so far.

Contact JAMES RICHARDSON at james.richardson@yale.edu , DEAN CENTA at dean.centa@yale.edu and LOUIE LU at louie.lu@yale.edu .

Team ties Hartford on the road MEN'S SOCCER FROM PAGE 14 proud of our resilience in getting an equalizer after conceding late.

If we keep putting teams under pressure and just make a few more plays, we will get back to winning.”

The Elis jumped out to a quick start, earning two corner kicks in the first four minutes alone.

But Yale was unable to convert, and the game remained scoreless until minutes before the end of the half. In the 41st minute, the Hawks’ right midfielder served a ball on the ground into the box.

As the ball bounced around in the box, Gryczewski struck a low, hard ball on target with his left foot. The ball zipped past Yale keeper Elian Haddock ’23 and into the back of the net.

After the break, the Blue and White responded with a goal of their own. From a corner kick on the right side, midfielder Sigfus Arnason ’23 whipped a ball in with his left foot. Forward Paolo Carroll ’23 headed the ball, but it deflected off of a teammate’s head and landed at the feet of a Hawks’ defender. A failed clearance left the ball at the feet of Pelle, who drove a shot into the left corner for his first career goal.

In line with the back-andforth nature of the game, the Hawks responded with a goal

Contact DREW BECKMEN at drew.beckmen@yale.edu and ALESSA KIM-PANERO at alessa.kim-panero@yale.edu .

COURTESY OF NINA LINDBERG

VOLLEYBALL FROM PAGE 14

Rugby dominant at home pitch RUGBY FROM PAGE 14

COURTESY OF MUSCO SPORTS PHOTOS

On the heels of a two-game winning streak, Yale looks to defend its conference title and take on Dartmouth and archrival Harvard. been beyond expectation," outside hitter Kathryn Attar ’22 wrote to the News. "Everyone genuinely loves and supports each other, and just wants to see our team succeed."

In its quest for a repeat performance of last weekend, the Yale volleyball team will count on both their seasoned veterans and talented young core. As of Sep. 30, libero Maile Somera ’24 ranked third in the League in digs per set, while setter Carly Diehl ’25 ranked third in assists per set. Outside hitter Mila Yarich ’25 was recognized last week as the Ivy League Rookie of the Week, while Bostic was

the Big Green has struggled to put victories on the board.

Dartmouth has only won its most recent match against University of Albany. The Big Green had a chance to open up their Ivy season with a win, but narrowly lost to Princeton 3–2 in double overtime.

This weekend’s men’s and women’s soccer games will be jointly hosted by La Casa Cultural in honor of Latinx Heritage Month, which is celebrated from Sep. 15 to Oct. 15 this year. The first 100 Yale students at each game will receive a free t-shirt and tickets to be used at various food trucks at Reese Stadium. According to Jordi Bertrán Ramírez ’24, a peer liaison for La Casa, the soccer team reached out to facilitate the partnership.

“This is hopefully the first of many collaborations between Yale Athletics and La Casa this year,” Bertrán Ramírez said. “I’m thrilled that members of the Yale community get to celebrate Latinx Heritage Month while supporting the men and women’s soccer teams.”

Yale kicks off against Dartmouth at 7 p.m on Saturday.

In non-conference game, Yale draws Hartford after battling back from deficit.

Volleyball aims for Harvard, Dartmouth faced Harvard was on Nov. 2, 2019, while the last time they faced off against Dartmouth was on Nov. 1, 2019. Both matches were away matches.

During the 2019 matchup, Yale lost to Harvard 1–3. Prior to that, the Bulldogs swept the Crimson in straight sets in three consecutive matchups. Since 2007, Yale has won 20 matches and only lost seven. The Blue and White will be hoping to best the Crimson, who most recently fell in a 2–3 loss against Princeton.

"The rivalry between Harvard and Yale is the oldest rivalry in college athletics, so of course it's important," Yale volleyball head coach Erin Appleman told the News. "But you have to win more than you lose to win a championship. Every team counts the same."

In contrast to their record against Harvard, the Bulldogs currently have a nine-game winning streak against the Big Green.

The last match between the two teams ended in a 3–0 sweep in favor of the Elis. Dartmouth also currently has a losing streak, as they have fallen to Harvard, Princeton and Penn in the past two weeks.

"Our team chemistry has

in the 77th minute. Gryczewski received a long ball while being defended by both Yale center backs. Gryczewski allowed the ball to run past him, breaking free from both defenders in the process. The Hartford first year deftly tucked a right-footed shot into the corner of the net for his second of the game.

But the scoring did not end there. The Elis equalized on a second set-piece goal with just two minutes remaining in regulation. Arnason — now providing service from a free kick rather than a corner — once again tallied an assist as Lagos beat the Hawks’ keeper to the ball and headed it home. A late save from Haddock denied the Hawks any final opportunities before the game progressed to extra time.

Just like its 0–0 draw against Harvard, Yale neither scored nor conceded in extra time.

Although Hartford outshot the visitors 4–1 during the two 10-minute periods, the Bulldogs remained sound on defense to come home with a draw.

The Bulldogs will return to their home field Saturday night to take on Dartmouth in their second Ivy contest of the season.

Yale last played Dartmouth in October 2019 and collected a 3–1 win, its seventh consecutive victory at the time. This season,

named to the Honor Roll of the Ivy League Volleyball Weekly Awards.

"I'm looking forward to being home again. Hopefully we're getting a good crowd," Appleman said about the matches this weekend. "And also [I'm looking forward to] just continuing to improve. That's what we're always trying to work on, [on] getting better every time we get out there."

The last time Yale hosted the Crimson almost 700 people were in attendance.

Contact WEI-TING SHIH at wei-ting.shih@yale.edu .

“We fought very hard throughout the entire match, and grinded out a big win. From the initial kickoff to the very last scrum, every single guy out there gave it his all.”

This past weekend, the Bulldogs opened Ivy play against Columbia.

Yale took the lead under the lights and headed into the second half up 14-7. Despite several key defensive stops late in the second half, the Lions scored off a blocked kick and a deep scrum to take the lead. Although a late try from Pankey would bring the Bulldogs back into the game, Yale eventually fell 21-19 in a battle that was hard-fought until the 80th minute.

Yale will look to redeem itself

next week against Brown.

“Everyone fought hard — tackling, rucking and carrying,” Large said. “Our sophomore and first-year rookies stepped up and made plays, and our older players, who lost 18 months of Yale Rugby, led and carried the team. There’s a lot to take away from this loss, so we’ll make sure we learn from it and hit it hard this week to prepare for the next game.”

The 2020-21 season marks the 147th campaign for Yale men’s rugby, making it one of the oldest North American collegiate sports teams.

Reporter Akshar Agarwal is on the Men’s Rugby team roster.

Contact AKSHAR AGARWAL at akshar.agarwal@yale.edu .

AKSHAR AGARWAL/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

After two years of remote practices, conditioning and team bonding, Yale's men's rugby team returns to the pitch with a win.

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, OCTOBER 8, 2021 · yaledailynews.com

NEWS

PAGE 11

“One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.” VIRGINIA WOOLF ENGLISH WRITER

Three Yale alumni recognized as 2021 MacArthur Fellows

BY EDA AKER STAFF REPORTER Reginald Dwayne Betts LAW ’16 GRD ’21 told the News that he laughed in surprise when an anonymous caller notified him of an award that he won — the MacArthur Fellowship.

University alumni who also received the honor include Jordan Casteel ART ’14 and Monica Muñoz Martinez GRD ’12.

The MacArthur fellowship, commonly known as the genius grant, is annually awarded to 25 individuals who demonstrate exceptional creativity in their respective fields of work and achievements. The three alumni won the award for their achievements in poetry and law, art and public history, respectively. Each received a five-year grant of $625,000, paid in quarterly installments, to pursue their work in whichever way they deem fit.

“I laughed because it was so unexpected and then I was still, I am still developing what my reaction is,” Betts said. “I will use [the grant] to build relationships and to build a foundation of support for what I want to do going forward.”

The selective and secretive nomination process for the award involves nominations by a “changing pool of invited external nominators.” None of the three had ever anticipated being nominated for the award, let alone winning it, they said.

Betts is a poet, lawyer and a current doctoral candidate in Law at Yale. He has worked to promote the rights of individuals who are or have been previously incarcerated. At age 16, Betts himself was tried as an adult for carjacking and has since then written as a poet to reflect on experiences with the justice system. After his time at the University, Betts worked as a lawyer to end cash bail, limit sentence lengths and prohibit juvenile sentencing to adult prisons.

Currently, as part of the Yale Law School Justice Collaboratory, Betts works as director of the non-profit Freedom Reads — creating book circles, donating books and curating book lists for incarcerated individuals. Betts founded

Freedom Reads with the goal of widening the horizons of incarcerated people through access to books in prison libraries.

Elsa Hardy LAW ‘23 also shared with the News her delight at hearing that Betts won the MacArthur Fellowship. Hardy has worked with Betts since before the founding of Freedom Reads and was his “right hand person.” She said that she could sense Betts’ “innovative” and “boundary pushing” qualities “in the air around him.”

Hardy gave the example of Freedom Reads’ bookshelf building project as one that illustrates Betts’ execution of a vision.

Most would think of building bookshelves in prison as “crazy,” and the few that would think of doing so would build them in prison libraries, she said. But Betts, by building bookshelves in prison housing units with MASS Design Group, was able to expand the scope of readers the project reached.

“Dwayne is the kind of leader who doesn’t get trapped by habit or laziness into the more convenient way, or even trapped in the battling of inconveniences; he is an ultimate stepper back to imagine a truer, more interesting, more ambitious solution,” Freedom Reads project manager Tess Wheelwright told the News. “Also, he never fails to interrupt any meeting for a call from family or from prison. I think this combination of giant vision and fierce loyalty are why people … are inspired by and trust Dwayne.”

Martinez, another recipient, is a public historian who has raised awareness of racial violence along the Texas-Mexico border. Having grown up in South Texas, Martinez shared with the News her desire for a more widely accessible and “truthful Texas history.”

Currently, through her work with the Mapping Violence project, Martinez works to build a digital archive of “truthful Texas history” to supplement the more commonly found myths and archives that are “often corrupt” in cases of “state-sanctioned violence” targeting various

RYAN CHIAO/SENIOR PHOTOGRAPHER

The MacArthur ‘Genius Grant’ is awarded yearly for creativity in various artistic fields. racial groups in the early 1900s.

She investigates overlooked records and connects with individuals who have preserved their histories with personal records — such as photographs — and plans to use the grant to further contribute to the Mapping Violence project, with the belief that “reckoning with the past is intertwined with current efforts for social justice.”

“What most impressed me [about Martinez] was that she had really close relationships with descendant communities… the children and grandchildren of people who had either survived these horrific instances of violence or lost their lives … and [Martinez] was able to not only bring them into the conversation, but bring them to the table,” Benjamin Johnson GRD ’00 said.

Johnson met Martinez after graduating from Yale and has worked with her on Refusing to Forget — an award winning nonprofit Martinez and Johnson co-founded alongside fellow academics — to bring public awareness to violence towards Mexican Americans in Texas, according to

the organization’s website. Johnson shared that what is most remarkable about Martinez is her all-inclusive and collaborative approach to “build bridges” and her “generosity of spirit.”

Casteel, the third recipient, is a painter who has worked to encapsulate the proximity of the people and environments — ranging from the New York subway to classrooms— in art. She often depicts people of color in her work and addresses relevant social issues. Many of her paintings are created based off of photographs and depict her subjects in forward-facing positions conveying intimacy. Casteel’s artistic style is also notable for its unique use of vibrant colors. Her work has been featured in solo exhibitions at the New Museum in New York, permanent collections of the Denver Art Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles and The Museum of Modern Art, New York, among many others.

“In our one on one and group conversations about politics, color and space, Jordan Casteel was always attentive, open

minded, and grounded,” Anoka Faruqee, director of graduate studies in Painting and Printmaking, told the News.

Currently, Casteel is installing her new exhibition at the Massimo De Carlo gallery in London, a gallery that brings together the works of prominent artists around the world.

She continues to strive to use art as a medium to reflect upon our “shared humanity.”

“We couldn’t be happier for [Casteel] on the incredible achievement of MacArthur,” Veronica Levitt, who works at the Casey Kaplan gallery where Casteel’s work is displayed, wrote in an email to the News. “We’ve had the privilege of witnessing the evolution of Jordan’s painting practice, but also the unwavering commitment to the nuanced language around the work, which is integral in valuing the people and landscapes depicted.”

MacArthur is one of the largest independent foundations in the United States.

Contact EDA AKER at eda.aker@yale.edu .

Exhibit opens honoring life and art of Winfred Rembert Long-time New Haven resident honored at New York City gallery

BY SYLVAN LEBRUN STAFF REPORTER On Thursday evening, “Winfred Rembert: 1945-2021” opened to the public at the Fort Gansevoort Art Gallery in New York City. The exhibit is a three-floor solo retrospective of former New Haven resident Rembert’s portraits of the joy and trauma of Black life in the South, completed just over six months after his death earlier this year.

Winfred Rembert was born in Cuthbert, Georgia, where he was imprisoned as a young man while demonstrating for civil rights. His story is one of impossible survival — he lived through a near-lynching and afterwards spent seven years on a chain gang, during which time he met his wife, Patsy Rembert, and learned from a fellow inmate how to tool leather. After his release from prison, he moved north with his wife, eventually settling in New

Haven where he lived and worked as an artist for more than 30 years.

Rembert’s retrospective at Fort Gansevoort was in the works prior to his passing in March. It emerged as a collaboration between Rembert, his wife and the gallery’s owner, Adam Shopkorn. It consists of a chronological series of Rembert’s leather paintings, accompanied by text taken from his recently published autobiography. The exhibit will be on display until Dec. 18.

“These pictures that [Rembert has] done … some of them brought him joy, some of them brought him pain,” Patsy Rembert said at a Wednesday morning press preview. “This was something that he needed to do in order to leave a legacy behind to teach people what happened to him, what happened to a lot of others. He was lucky enough and blessed enough to be able to express himself and to tell his story that I thought needed to be told.”

Patsy Rembert led a walk-through of the gallery at the preview, discussing each painting and the events from Rembert’s life that inspired them. The works are arranged by the dates of the scenes depicted, taking the viewer from Rembert’s early

COURTESY OF ALJA FREIER

Rembert strove to reveal the horrors of racism through autobiographical leatherwork up until his passing earlier this year.

childhood up until his years of incarceration and labor in Georgia.

The collection begins on the first floor with a painting titled “The Beginning” that portrays the artist as an infant, accompanied by other works set in the schoolhouse, his home kitchen, a local river and the cotton fields where Rembert and his neighbors worked.

Paintings on the second floor capture the events within a relatively short frame of time that led to Rembert’s arrest, near-lynching and reincarceration. “The Getaway” depicts him stealing a car in order to escape two white men who chased him with guns while he was protesting for civil rights, an act that he was then jailed for.

Illustrated in the consequent works, Rembert escaped the jail cell by overpowering a guard but was then recaptured and taken by a mob to be lynched. This is the scene pictured in “Wingtips,” a painting named after the wingtip shoes of the man who finally ordered for the mob to stop.

“Now this man, I don’t know who he was,” reads the quote from Rembert on the painting’s placard. “The only thing I know is this: He had power. He said don’t do it and they didn’t do it, even though they wanted to.”

After this near-death experience, Rembert was sentenced to a prison term of hard labor, a seven-year period which dominates almost the entire third floor of the exhibit.

Patsy Rembert explained that they met while he and his fellow inmates were working on a bridge next to her house, a chance encounter that led to a marriage of 46 years.

The couple moved to New Haven soon after Rembert was freed, living first in the Dwight neighborhood and then in Newhallville. According to Patsy Rembert, this was “the best move they could have made.”

It was in the Elm City that Rembert developed his artistic passions, using the leatherworking skills that he learned during his time on the chain gang to create detailed carved

paintings, his wife said. After selling his first work with the help of Hamden antiquarian bookstore owner Phil McBlain, he started to do a number of small shows in the city.

Jock Reynolds, former director of the Yale University Art Gallery, was another one of Rembert’s mentors. Soon after the two met in 2000, Reynolds offered him a solo show at the YUAG — the gallery still holds his triptych “The Lynching, After the Lynching, The Burial.”

The opening of the Fort Gansevoort retrospective comes just after the release of Rembert’s autobiography, a story he dictated to co-writer Erin Kelly over the course of four years. The book, which was published on Sept. 7, is called “Chasing Me to My Grave: An Artist’s Memoir of the Jim Crow South” — a title that the artist came up with himself as a reference to the memories of past traumas that haunted him up until his death, Patsy Rembert explained.

“He always would wake up fighting or running, he jumped completely out of the bed … because he would be fighting trying to save his life,” Patsy Rembert said.

Adam Shopkorn, the owner of Fort Gansevoort, shared how he began working together with Rembert to create the exhibition during the last 90 days of the artist’s life, spending time with Patsy Rembert and their children as well.

He had first seen one of Rembert’s works four years prior in Atlanta at the High Museum of Art. Shopkorn shared that Rembert’s painting “The Dirty Spoon Cafe” made him “stop in his tracks,” memorizing the artist’s name for the future. By the summer of 2020, plans for a Rembert retrospective at his gallery had begun to materialize.

“His entire life story is told through his paintings,” Shopkorn said. “There’s trauma in these paintings but there’s also great joy and great love. … I did want to show some of the more dramatic paintings, so it can really be in your face,

so people could really understand what happened without sugarcoating everything.”

Shopkorn described the curatorial process for this exhibit as a “wild goose chase” as he tried to convince the owners of Rembert’s works to lend them to be shown. He wanted to highlight the events of his arrest and near-death as the “heart of the show.”

Though Rembert has many lighthearted paintings — one of which, a riverside scene called “The Curvey,” is on view in the gallery — Shopkorn said that he and his team ultimately decided that their priority was to portray the artist’s story of suffering and survival.

“I think those more celebratory or joyful pictures take on more meaning when you know this story,” Andrea Schwan, the communications consultant for the show, said during the walk-through. “You can’t really just start with those. You have to start with the life of the artist, because that’s everything he’s showing.”

The centerpiece of the exhibition, located on the far side of the third floor and coming last in the chronological order of paintings, is an imagined self-portrait titled “Almost Me.” The work shows a young Rembert unconscious and hanging from a noose, a glimpse into what would have happened if his lynching had not been stopped.

Next to it on the blank white wall, there is a printed block of text from Rembert’s autobiography, an excerpt of which is included below.

“And when I die, I didn’t die by the rope,” the excerpt reads. “I just died from being an old man. I lived my life out. My children, when I’m gone, can read about it, and that picture will be there to speak for me.

If you stand and look at it, the picture will talk to you.”

To see Rembert’s work, visit Fort Gansevoort at 5 9th Ave. in New York City.

Contact SYLVAN LEBRUN at sylvan.lebrun@yale.edu .

PAGE 12

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, OCTOBER 8, 2021 · yaledailynews.com

THROUGH THE LENS

A

fresh coat of paint serving as a reminder of an institution that takes more than it gives from the city it calls home.

A simple demand spelled out at the intersection of Prospect and Grove YALE: RESPECT NEW HAVEN Zoe Berg reports.

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, OCTOBER 8, 2021 · yaledailynews.com

PAGE 13

NEWS

“I’ll sleep when I’m dead.” WARREN ZEVON AMERICAN SINGER-SONGWRITER

Beverly Gage and fellow Yale faculty sound alarm on academic freedom

BY PHILIP MOUSAVIZADEH AND ISAAC YU STAFF REPORTERS After announcing her resignation from the Grand Strategy program, history professor Beverly Gage expressed concerns about the influence donors have over academic expression at Yale.

While her fellow faculty have sounded alarms about academic freedom, University President Peter Salovey has pledged to more rigorously evaluate the University’s approach to donations.

Gage, who resigned last week, attributed her decision to leave the program to ultimately successful attempts by Nicholas Brady ’52 and Charles Johnson ’54 — who endowed the Grand Strategy program in 2006 — to pressure administrative officials to name a conservative majority to a newly-implemented advisory board to oversee program appointments. She told the News that other special programs like Grand Strategy, whose endowments lie outside of Yale’s academic departments and general streams of funding, are particularly vulnerable to pressure from donors. Greater transparency and accountability should be added to the donation process in order to protect academic freedom in the future, she said.

Salovey told the News that the administration plans to make limited systemic or procedural changes to the donor process. The University needs to ensure, he said that “everybody has a shared understanding of where the lines are, what is appropriate involvement by donors and what would be inappropriate involvement by donors.”

He further explained that the University has to balance its obligations both to its faculty and to its donors.

“There’s probably two principles that are really important to honor,” Salovey said. “The first is [that] academic freedom to teach and do scholarship in an unfettered way … is sacrosanct at the University.”

The second principle, he added, is that the University “[has] an

obligation to our donors to meet the agreements to honor the agreements we make with them.”

In the days since the announcement of her resignation, Gage has seen a “surge” of encouragement from dozens of faculty members and historians, she told the News. Individual professors have expressed disappointment with the University on Twitter and the History Department released a statement of support for Gage on Friday.

“The last few days have been really heartening to me to see how seriously people take the question of academic freedom, to see the level of attention that it’s gotten and the response that was solicited from the University,” Gage said.

The Faculty of Arts & Sciences Senate, which released a statement of its own on Friday, will begin an investigation this week.

The executive council plans to meet with both Gage and Salovey this week and determine appropriate measures to prevent future incidents, Senate chair Valerie Horsley told the News.

When asked about specific policies that would shore up protections for academic freedom, Gage suggested that a University official could be designated as an ombudsman, or neutral third party, in disputes. Increased transparency requirements surrounding donor agreements and administrative actions could also help, she said.

Meanwhile, Gage’s colleagues continue to express concerns that academic freedom is under threat.

“It seems like a textbook violation of academic freedom,” professor of philosophy Jason Stanley told the News. “The University is an extremely wealthy institution, and we have an enormous endowment. There is no reason we should be even hinting to donors that they can have control over our curriculum.”

University President Peter Salovey accepted responsibility last Friday, saying in a statement that he “should have tried harder

COURTESY OF BEVERLY GAGE

Gage’s resignation has prompted professors to call on Yale to recommit to protect academia from donor influences. to improve the situation.” Still, as the News reported last week, Vice Provost of Academic Affairs Pericles Lewis denied that the donors exerted undue influence on the program and reiterated that the new board only has influence over practitioner appointments, rather than curriculum decisions.

Gage said that she was briefly shown a portion of the 2006 gift agreement outlining the five-member advisory board, and appointment powers to the Grand Strategy advisory board were explicitly granted to the University president. The News has not reviewed the 2006 gift agreement.

According to emerita professor of history Glenda Gilmore, the University “catastrophically”

failed to properly balance these two principles.

“Academic freedom is sacrosanct, yet Salovey’s and Lewis’s comments suggest that they tried to please the donors while trying to persuade Gage to acquiesce to their interference,” Gilmore wrote in an email. “At the donors’ first complaint, whether about Bryan [Garsten’s] op-ed or Gage’s lesson plans, they should have unequivocally made it clear that such conversations were inappropriate and would be off limits in the future.”

“If there is one thing that the administration owes the faculty, it is the protection of academic freedom. If they got this so wrong, what else might happen?”

Gilmore added.

Stanley further noted that public universities in various states are currently facing outside influence when it comes to teaching topics like critical race theory. A wealthy, private institution like Yale, he said, has “no excuse” to allow outside pressure on academia.

Salovey wrote in his original statement that he has been hearing the concerns from faculty and alumni regarding academic freedom, and pledged to make changes accordingly.

The Grand Strategy program was established in 2000.

Contact PHILIP MOUSAVIZADEH at philip.mousavizadeh@yale.edu and ISAAC YU at isaac.yu@yale.edu .

Yale grants licenses to Zara, H&M and Pacsun

ANNELISA LEINBACH/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

The University offers licenses to companies that wish to incorporate Yale logos into their products.

BY PIA BALDWIN EDWARDS CONTRIBUTING REPORTER Scores of sweatshirts, sweatpants, t-shirts and other products that bear Yale’s name can be found in the catalogs of international clothing companies not directly affiliated with the University. Some sell for upwards of $700, with royalty fees supporting the University’s various costs.

H&M, Forever 21, Pacsun and Zara are among the brands that currently have the license to print and sell Yale products. Together, they offer a wide array of shirts and sweatshirts, selling for less than $50 to more than $500. The University grants special licenses to companies who wish to brand their products with the Yale name. While the terms of the con-

tracts vary across companies, Yale grants access to the University’s insignia — as long as the companies maintain the “integrity of the Yale marks,” said Paul Murawski, director of marketing and trademark licensing.

“If Yale is for sale to the highest bidder, that should be made clear,” French lecturer Ruth Koizim said. “This should not be something that people discover thumbing through an online catalog. This is just another example of where there is a woeful lack of transparency.”

The University collects royalty fees from many of the Yalebranded items that companies sell, according to Murawski. He added that the fees are funneled directly into the University’s general fund.

When a company approaches Yale to obtain a license, they must first demonstrate their reputation, Murawski said. This entails sharing their company history, other licensees they work with, product categories and channels of distribution.

In addition, companies must fill out an application, submit product samples, show proof of membership to either the Fair Labor Association or the Ethical Trade Initiative and submit a certificate of insurance to support the high quality of their product, according to Murawski.

But Koizim said she was surprised that the University was licensing its logo to companies, saying that she should have been made more aware of this decision given her status as a faculty member. She first discovered that Zara

was selling University products from her 29-year-old son, who “stumbled upon” a Yale sweatshirt on the website.

According to Murawski, the University grants licenses for a variety of reasons — not strictly financial.

“Our global licensing program bolsters awareness of the University — especially overseas — and strengthens our ability to stop misuse of the Yale name and marks,” Murawski wrote in an email to the News.

Still, Koizim called Calvin Klein’s Yale sweater — which costs over $700 — “classist and exclusionary.” One student similarly expressed discontent, describing the licensing agreement as a seemingly corporate move.

“Marketing the Yale logo as a fashion accessory emphasizes the

idea that Yale is more of a brand name than a University,” Dorothea Robertson ’25 said.

But Alessia Degraeve ’25 was excited about the Yale merchandise. Zara, the clothing brand, currently sells both children’s and adult apparel featuring the Yale name — reaching a broad customer base worldwide.

“I got to Yale to find out my roommate had the same Zara Yale sweatpants as I did!” Alessia Degraeve ’25 said.

Major terms of the licensing contracts include product category, channels of distribution, approved marks and length of agreement.

Contact PIA BALDWIN EDWARDS at pia.baldwinedwards@yale.edu .

W. SOCCER Princeton 3 Dartmouth 0

VOLLEYBALL Columbia 3 Cornell 1

M. SOCCER Cornell 3 Penn 0

SPORTS

FOOTBALL Harvard 38 Holy Cross 13

FIELD HOCKEY Dartmouth 3 Brown 0 FOR MORE SPORTS CONTENT, VISIT OUR WEB SITE goydn.com/YDNsports Twitter: @YDNSports

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, OCTOBER 8, 2021 · yaledailynews.com

MEN’S GOLF STORMY WEATHER IN THE HAMPTONS The Yale men’s golf team placed sixth out of twelve teams at the Hamptons Invitational in New York. Ben Carpenter ’25 led the team with a final score of 3 over par to finish 14th overall.

FOOTBALL RUNNING RIOT AT LEHIGH Yale shutout lehigh 34–0 in the team’s first road tilt of the season, with Griffin O’Connor ’23 and Nolan Grooms ’24 combining for 245 yards and three touchdowns. Elis cruised to victory.

FOOTBALL Princeton 24 Columbia 7

Matt Amodio extends Jeopardy streak JEOPARDY

“I’m just a normal guy who lives a normal life. Not that much interesting happens to me.”

MATT AMODIO GRD ’23 SECOND PLACE ALL-TIME "JEOPARDY!" WINNER

Bulldogs draw match after late game heroics

BY DREW BECKMEN AND ALESSA KIM-PANERO STAFF REPORTERS The Yale men’s soccer team battled back from two deficits to earn a draw against non-conference opponent Hartford on Tuesday night.

MEN'S SOCCER Yale (3–4–2, 0–0–1 Ivy) traveled to the state capital to face off against the Hartford Hawks (3–6–3, 1–2–0 America East) for a midweek non-conference battle. The Hawks, who entered the game on a two-game winning streak, jumped out in front as midfielder Patrick Gryczewski struck a loose ball into the

net minutes before halftime. The Elis equalized early in the second half as first-year midfielder Sandor Pelle ’25 knocked home his first career goal. Both teams exchanged goals once more with the Bulldogs’ equalizing goal coming on an acrobatic header from forward Eric Lagos ’24 with two minutes left in the contest.

After two scoreless 10-minute overtime periods, the Bulldogs left Hartford with their second tie in a row.

“We were all disappointed to come home with a tie, even though Hartford had a good team,” defender Sam Harshe ’25 said. “We weren’t sharp enough in a few key moments and that was the difference. We fought hard, though, and I am very

COURTESY OF JEOPARDY PRODUCTIONS

Amodio, a fifth-year computer science Ph.D. candidate, now sits behind only Ken Jennings in consecutive “Jeopardy!” wins.

BY JAMES RICHARDSON, DEAN CENTA AND LOUIE LU STAFF REPORTER AND CONTRIBUTING REPORTERS After winning his 33rd consecutive game on the quiz show “Jeop-

ardy!” on Friday, Yale fifth-year computer science doctoral candidate Matt Amodio GRD ’23 moved into second place all-time for consecutive wins in the show’s history.

Since “Jeopardy!” lifted the five-game limit for contestants

in 2003, only Ken Jennings’ 2004 streak of 74 consecutive wins is higher than Amodio’s current run. Amodio’s streak is still active, and as of Wednesday’s game — in SEE JEOPARDY PAGE 10

COURTESY OF MUSCO SPORTS PHOTOS

The Yale men’s soccer team scored a goal late in the second half of its Tuesday night contest to tie with the Hartford Hawks 2–2.

Bulldogs aim to extend Men's rugby plays first games in two years winning streak against Ivies

BY AKSHAR AGARWAL STAFF REPORTER

For the first time since March 2020, the Yale Men’s Rugby team (1-1) played an official regular season game last Saturday in New Haven. The Blue and White defeated American International College (0-1), winning 36-24, to officially commence its 147th season. While there was only a light breeze on Saturday at Tufts, the wind picked up on Sunday to make for an exciting finish to the weekend competition.

RUGBY

COURTESY OF MUSCO SPORTS PHOTOS

The Yale volleyball team will seek to extend its winning streak as they face Harvard and Dartmouth in the last home match-ups of the month.

BY WEI-TING SHIH STAFF REPORTER As the defending Ivy League champions, the Bulldogs are looking to extend their two-game winning streak and improve their conference record at their last home matchups of the month.

VOLLEYBALL This weekend, the Yale volleyball team (9–3–0, 2–1–0 Ivy) is set to face Harvard (5–7–0, 2–1–0 Ivy) on Friday at 7 p.m. and Dartmouth (8–4–0, 0–3–0 Ivy) on Saturday at 5 p.m. The Bulldogs are going into the match-

ups with significant momentum after sweeping Columbia and Cornell in straight sets just last weekend. Harvard sits fourth in the current Ivy League volleyball rankings, just after Yale, while Dartmouth sits at seventh place.

"We are looking forward to another good weekend of competitive matches," outside hitter Bonnie Bostic ’24 wrote to the News.

"Regardless of the competition we bring our best."

This will be the first time the Bulldogs face off against the Crimson and Big Green in almost two years. The last time the Elis

STAT OF THE WEEK

SEE VOLLEYBALL PAGE 10

28.86

The win comes nearly two years after its previous game, in which the Bulldogs took on Oxford and Cambridge during an international tour in March 2020. The squad retained several key members from its previous starting XV. Combined with a few rookies, the team was able to control the pace for much of the opener. Despite having just a few short weeks to prepare for the contest, it was clear that the Bulldogs’ conditioning was still there despite the long break.

“We had to get creative to keep the team active and engaged during the pandemic,” captain and inside center Henry Large ’23 said. “We kept with the team motto of ‘No Excuses,’ to emphasize that we wouldn’t let the challenges we faced stop or slow us.

We had somewhat of a hybrid season in the spring with weekly Zoom meetings, at home workouts and socially distanced outdoor sessions for players in New Haven. We were proud of how the

team made the most out of difficult circumstances and still managed to grow and improve.”

In addition to the weekly strength and conditioning workouts, the team hosted film sessions led by players, alumni and professional rugby players and coaches. Large emphasized that it was important for the team to stay sharp during its time away from the pitch, and believed that it would make the difference once competition finally resumed.

Once students returned to campus, a new challenge presented itself — recruiting. While the team saw some of its players take academic leaves of absence, many of its key players graduated and left a void for the team to fill. Winger and president Mahlon Sorenson ’22 rose to the occasion and led a massive recruiting initiative that saw the team’s roster numbers nearly double from previous years.

In addition to solidifying the team’s backups, several of the new recruits have quickly meshed into the program’s culture and now have a place on the starting squad.

“Our recruiting has been off the charts this year,” Sorenson

said. “Everyone on the team recognized that we needed to make a concerted effort to get new members onto the team, but we never could have expected the turnout we got. To have 60 guys on the roster is a dream come true. The energy from our new players has been instrumental in this regard, though I think everyone is just happy to have the opportunity to suit up and play rugby for Yale.”

Large opened up scoring against AIC, followed in short succession by another try from Drew Ward ’23. After a few defensive breakdowns, the Elis found themselves down 17-10 but that would be the only time Yale played from behind throughout the entire contest.

With additional tries from Luke Pankey ’23, Lucas Wiseman ’23, Clay Thames ’22 and Ariel Melendez ’23, the Bulldogs emerged victorious against the regional powerhouse that boasts several Major League Rugby draft picks.

“It felt very good to pick up such a huge win against a team which most outsiders expected to beat us,” prop Ethan Coyle ’24 said.

SEE RUGBY PAGE 10

AKSHAR AGARWAL/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

Having not played a single game since the start of the pandemic, the Elis made a commanding return to the pitch.

NUMBER OF YARDS PER CATCH MADE BY MASON TIPTON ’24 THIS SEASON, WHICH RANKS HIM NO. 1 IN THE NATION AMONG QUALIFIED WIDE RECEIVERS.

PAGE B1

YALE DAILY NEWS · FRIDAY, OCTOBER 8, 2021 · yaledailynews.com

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 8, 2021

WEEKEND

// DORA GUO

MISS GUIDED // BY COLBY BLADOW In every icebreaker game of Two Truths and a Lie, I weaponize my most unbelievable fun fact: I competed for Miss America. Twice.

I never expected to be associated with the pageant community — and I certainly never expected to use the phrase “pageant community” unironically. I competed for a local “Outstanding Teen” competition on a whim, channeling my competitive dance background and affinity for public speaking into what I expected to be a weekend-long pageant stint. It wasn’t until the stage lights dimmed on competition night before the winner reveal that I suddenly realized there was a decent chance they might call my name. For me, “Shut Up and Dance” isn’t just a pop relic of the mid-2010s, the song is a reminder of the long 30 seconds I spent squatting at the front of the stage while an outgoing titleholder pinned a rhinestone crown on the top of my teased hair.

My initial shock at being named “Miss Yorba Linda’s Outstanding Teen” was quickly surpassed when I found out that, as a local titleholder, I would compete again at the Miss California statewide competition. I was warned about the contestant pool, which was dominated by veteran competitors who returned year after year with hopes of walking away with the state

title, many of them homeschooled so they could focus on their pageant prospects. I soon faced 50 of these crown-chasers, each vying for the esteemed state title — think “Lord of the Flies” with platform heels and spray tans. The backseat of my mom’s car overflowed with cocktail dresses, strappy sandals and rhinestone jewelry as we made the five-hour road trip through central California farmland to Fresno.

I can remember the feeling of my heels clicking as I approached the neon taped X-mark on the center of the stage.

I raised the mic up to my lip-lined smile to announce myself: “Colby Bladow, Miss Yorba Linda’s Outstanding Teen!” Like a modernized “Last Supper,” a long judge’s table was set up at the front of the theater, each place had a score sheet and pen, arming them to score my walking and talking out of ten.

I knew how crazy this was. I rolled my eyes when women with names like Ashleigh Grace and Lily Mae — in the pageant circuit, superfluous second names or creative spellings of generic girly names are as common as eyelash extensions — told me that walking on a stage in a swimsuit is the most empowering thing they have ever done.

Still, I learned to confidently walk in

platform heels. I can solve the world’s greatest issues in a 30 second response to an onstage question — alas, I never fulfilled my dream of integrating the phrase “world peace” into one of these answers. I know how to hairspray a leotard onto my body so it doesn’t budge. I have been sprayed with layers of tanning solution while completely nude, to prevent the disaster of “disappearing onstage” if my skin was too pale.

I was constantly frustrated, exhausted and irked during competition. I experienced more gossip and backstabbing than I had ever experienced before. I was subjected to power-hungry stage managers and program directors who reprimanded us for the most minor of missteps. I felt silly gluing caterpillar-like fake eyelashes onto my eyelids, pinning a crown onto my head for photo opportunities and waving at the crowd each night, having been taught to use four sweeping motions: elbow, elbow, wrist, wrist — arm nearly straightened to avoid any unwanted upper arm jiggle.

I could write a very different piece about how pageants affected me: they took up two formative years of my teenage life, they told me that I was only presentable in a full face of makeup, they convinced me that eating bread could only end in per-

sonal disaster and they let me take people who said things like “Your gown would look so much better if you just lost a half a pound!” seriously. At Miss California, our phones were snatched away for the week to push us to make real connections with the “sisters” we were competing against; really, this just made me suffocate in clouds of hairspray and passive aggression without a link to the outside world.

I knew what to expect for the finale of the pageant: the emcee would list each runner-up in descending order. She would announce the winner last. I joked with my family that I hoped to earn the first runner-up spot, second place to the crown. “All of the glory, none of the commitment,” I told them. As I stood on stage, awaiting the pageant results, I realized I wanted my name to be called last. No matter how trivial or superficial pageantry seemed, I wanted to win. I wanted a bigger crown and a flashier title.

I wanted congratulatory cheers and confetti thrown on the stage in my honor.

And after a few years and a lot of reflection, I’m proud to reveal: I got second place.

Contact COLBY BLADOW at colby.bladow@yale.edu .