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personal calling.” MAYA LIN AMERICAN DESIGNER AND SCULPTOR

YPD confirms new details in Kline graffiti case

VANDALISM FROM PAGE 1

sometime over the weekend of Sept. 17, and the second on Oct. 4.

The first incident: Septempber 17-20, 2021

When workers from the contracted construction company came into work Monday morning on Sept. 20, they noticed swastikas and the N-word spray-painted inside the building. The graffiti also covered one employee’s project materials. The next day, they notified the YPD, who opened an investigation.

“The first incident was not captured on camera because there were no cameras,” Chief Campbell told the News. He said without camera footage it would have been difficult to find success with such an investigation.

The YPD then began camera installation at the site. In an email released to the University community on Oct. 5, former YPD Chief and Associate Vice President of Yale Public Safety and Community Engagement Ronnell Higgins wrote that Yale Facilities and the construction company had installed security cameras and strengthened the perimeter fencing and access gates around the site.

The construction and facilities teams worked to scrub off and paint over the graffiti by the end of the day on Sept. 21. But two weeks later, the perpetrators struck again, defacing the site with fresh hate-based graffiti.

The second incident: October 4, 2021

As soon as YPD caught word that the graffiti was back, officers documented and photographed the antisemitic and racist messages before once again scrubbing and repainting the area.

“We had suggested to the construction company that we really [thought they] should put some cameras there,” explained Campbell. “They did. And the cameras captured the entirety of the incident.”

With the full incident on camera, Higgins alerted the University in a public safety advisory email and posted photos of the perpetrators on the YPD website one day after the incident on Oct. 5. Those photos have since been removed from the website. Higgins wrote in the email that he was posting the photos to get help from the public in identifying the individuals captured on video.

According to Campbell, posting those photos worked.

From the sweatshirt to the arrest

Someone who had seen the photos circulating through local news outlets was able to identify a local high school’s emblem on one of the perpetrator’s sweatshirts. Detectives then went to that high school, showing photos to school employees to help identify the teens.

An employee was able to recognize one of the teens, according to Campbell, providing detectives with their identity. “Once we had that, we spoke to that individual and we were able to get all the other individuals,” Campbell said.

Within two weeks, the YPD had identified all five suspects, who then came to police headquarters with their parents and their lawyers. Campbell said they all admitted to spray painting the graffiti.

According to YPD Assistant Chief Von Narcisse, five individuals were arrested on Nov. 10 and Nov. 13, 2021. Narcisse noted that none of the arrestees were affiliated with Yale.

The vandals were charged with different combinations of criminal mischief in the second degree, intimidation based on bigotry or bias, conspiracy to commit burglary in the third degree, conspiracy to commit criminal mischief in the second degree and conspiracy to commit intimidation based on bigotry or bias in the third degree. At the time, the incident prompted a swirl of media attention and responses from public officials including Mayor Elicker / Tim Tai, Photography Editor

The aftermath

At the time, the incident prompted a swirl of media attention and responses from public officials including New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker and U.S. Representative for Connecticut’s third district Rosa DeLauro, who both condemned the incident.

The Anti-Defamation League reported in April that the number of antisemitic incidents in the US reached an all-time high in 2021 climbing up by 34 percent rise from 2020. This rise has ripped across college campuses in particular, as a recent ADL and Hillel International report found that one in three Jewish college students had personally experienced antisemitic hate on campus in the last year. That report was released just weeks after the Kline Biology Tower vandalism.

“It was certainly a highly unfortunate incident both for and beyond the Jewish community,” said Slifka Center Executive Director Uri Cohen. “I am optimistic about the communication and coordination between the authorities and Slifka Center in future such instances should they occur.”

Antisemitic graffiti was found outside the Yale Law School steps between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur in early October 2019. Still-unidentified perpetrators sculpted swastikas in patches of snow on trees in 2008 and scrawled swastikas in chalk on Old Campus in 2014.

Contact SOPHIE SONNENFELD at sophie.sonnenfeld@yale.edu .

YCC continues perennial effort to make laundry free

LAUNDRY FROM PAGE 1

college laundry rooms. Laundry services then appeared on many Senate candidates’ platforms in last April’s elections.

On Sept. 30, a group of senators met with Associate Director for Student Financial Services Heather Abati, as well as a representative from CSC Serviceworks, the company that services and maintains all machines on campus.

The aim of the meeting, YCC Speaker of the Senate Ryan Smith ’24 told the News, was to gather more information about the stipulations of the contract between Yale and CSC — a contract that is confidential, they were informed.

“It’s a frustrating issue, because Yale is entangled in various legal contracts, and we’ve been working on it for at least two years,” Smith wrote in an email to the News. “But we now know more about Yale’s laundry system than we ever have before and I’m hopeful that we can make progress.”

Yale College Dean Pericles Lewis declined to comment for this article.

A perennial issue

Laundry is by no means a new issue. Successive slates of senators have worked on laundry accessibility for at least the past three years based on perennial student complaints over cost, broken machines, servicing delays and laundry room cleanliness.

Emma Madsen ’25, a sophomore in Silliman, frequently finds her college’s laundry machines broken.

“It’s not just paying for laundry,” Madsen explained. “It’s that the laundry machines themselves are really bad, and they break down a lot in Silliman. It’s not really appropriate to only have four working washing machines and four working dryers for a college of five hundred kids.”

The News obtained previous proposals for free laundry presented to administrators by two previous slates of senators. The proposals focused on different aspects of the issue — from the fiscal impacts on University budget to the condition of laundry rooms and machines. Senators last year incorporated direct student testimony and pictures of laundry rooms to demonstrate their points.

But the Council’s high turnover rate has hindered meaningful progress.

“Because YCC did not have institutional memory on the issue, each year, a new group of senators made the same mistakes,” wrote Pierson senator Viktor Kagan ’24.

Kagan says senators this year are more aware of previous efforts, which could lead to a more effective strategy this year.

The language of Yale’s contract with CSC Serviceworks is confidential. But Jonathan Oates ’23, who worked on laundry accessibility as a senator two years ago, said he was able to get a gist of what the contract stated when he advocated that the administration make laundry free.

Oates explained that, per the contract, CSC owns the machines and is responsible for making all repairs and replacements when units break. Yale Facilities is responsible for maintenance of the laundry rooms.

The contract also states that Yale is responsible for collecting the payments from the machines, which is then split between Yale and CSC per the details of the contract. Yale loses money in the process, Oates claimed.

“It should be noted that on-campus laundry operates at a deficit, meaning Yale pays CSC ServiceWorks more than they bring in through fees,” Oates explained. “Yale continues to work with CSC ServiceWorks because it is cheaper to rent the machines than buy and maintain new ones. The question is: If Yale can operate at a deficit … why can’t they simply increase the subsidy?”

Hidden costs

Some students said they felt that Yale’s refusal to pay for laundry was emblematic of larger accessibility problems in the University.

“I think having us pay for laundry is symbolic of Yale’s approach to undergraduate life,” Sourav Roy ’25 wrote in an email to the News. “It always feels like they skimp a bit on the silliest things.”

Roy added that paying for laundry is like “having a 15 dollar monthly Successive slates of senators have worked on laundry accessibility for at least the past three years / Xander DeVries, Contributing Photographer

subscription to a service” that should be subsidized by the University.

Five other students agreed, highlighting the disparities that these “subscriptions” can create within the Yale community. These hidden living fees, they say, pile on top of the room and board charges.

“Whenever you put a price on something, you’re making the implicit statement that it’s OK for somebody to go without it,” Nina Grigg ’24 wrote in an email to News. “It just adds to the invisible burden that [first-generation students] have to carry that other students might not even realize.”

Aaliyah Thomas ’26, who identifies as FGLI, was surprised to find that laundry costs money when she came to campus. She was under the impression that Yale, like multiple other universities, would cover that cost for students.

“So many other institutions have free laundry with way less money and resources, so Yale not having it is a bit ridiculous,” Thomas wrote in an email to the News. “I think it definitely poses accessibility issues for low-income students. I’ve seen many people do things like pool their laundry together in one load to get past it, and they shouldn’t have to do that.”

The road ahead

YCC delegates believe they are now on stronger footing than in previous years.

“In the past, the YCC has been trying to work on this issue without all the necessary information, and this [Sept. 30] meeting with administration was helpful to inform our future plans,” Smith explained.

For now, senators are optimistic that laundry could become one of this Senate’s signature wins. Kagan told the News that he is determined to overcome the issues that the YCC has faced on the matter in the past.

All Yale campus laundry machines can be operated through CSCPay Mobile App.