NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT · MONDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 2015 · VOL. CXXXVIII, NO. 40 · yaledailynews.com
INSIDE THE NEWS MORNING EVENING
SUNNY CLEAR
63 43
CROSS CAMPUS
LOSING TO LIONS FOOTBALL FALLS TO COLUMBIA
FLING FLANG FLUNG
Y-HAIRCUTS-HAP
YCC keeps Spring Fling on Saturday, despite Passover, athletics
YHHAP OFFERS TRIMS, DENTISTRY TO HOMELESS
PAGE B1 SPORTS
PAGE 3 UNIVERSITY
PAGE 5 CITY
Associate master’s email draws ire
No longer rivals. In a list of
1,275 colleges, The Economist ranked Yale 1,270th for alums’ performance in the job market. According to The Economist, Yale graduates ought to be earning $75,590 but are actually earning $66,000. The same ranking placed Harvard fourth. The top spot went to Washington and Lee University, and Cooper Union was ranked last.
Across the pond. At the
BAFTA Britannia Awards in London this weekend, Meryl Streep DRA ’75 was honored with the Stanley Kubrick Award for Excellence in Film, becoming the first woman to receive the award. “I am honored to receive this award that has been given to a distinguished group of men and men,” Streep quipped.
BRIANNA LOO/SENIOR PHOTOGRAPHER
An email from Silliman Associate Master Erika Christakis on Halloween costumes has triggered controversy. BY JOEY YE STAFF REPORTER A Friday email sent by Silliman College Associate Master Erika Christakis decrying the censure of costumes deemed culturally appropriating incited campus controversy over Halloween weekend. Christakis’ message, sent just after midnight Friday, came in response to an email the Intercul-
tural Affairs Council — a group of administrators from the cultural centers, Chaplain’s Office and other campus organizations — sent to the undergraduate student body on Wednesday. The council’s email asked students to be thoughtful about the cultural implications of their Halloween costumes, citing blackface and turbans as examples of details that could offend or belittle others. In Christakis’ email, she
A Vonnegut feeling.
James Franco’s GRD ’16 newest project, an audio version of Kurt Vonnegut’s “Slaughterhouse-Five” will be released tomorrow. Franco, who is pursuing a Ph.D. in English at Yale, told The Washington Post that the novel is his favorite by Vonnegut. The novel, though a 1969 classic, is in many ways “contemporary and postmodern,” Franco said. Suburban scare. Princeton’s
campus, located in a quiet New Jersey town, was shaken on Saturday after a student reported waking up with an intruder’s arm around her. The university tweeted out an alert in the morning, explaining the event. According to the tweet, the intruder ran off after the student screamed.
Speaking out. La Casa
will host “[Ad]dressing Appropriation and the Power of Language” — a conversation about free speech in the context of the experiences of students of color on campus — at the Af-Am House. The event, scheduled for 5:15 p.m., invites students to share personal stories.
Take me to Chipotle. Improv
group The Viola Question will fundraise at Chipotle this evening. A portion of the popular restaurant’s sales to customers that mention VQ when ordering from 6 to 10 p.m. will go to the group.
THIS DAY IN YALE HISTORY
1988 Following widespread concern among students regarding safety on Old Campus, Dean of Student Affairs Betty Trachtenberg announces increased security measures. Follow along for the News’ latest.
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Canine Cognition Center hosts dog Halloween celebration PAGE 7 SCI-TECH
SAE denies charges of racism BY JON VICTOR AND JOEY YE STAFF REPORTERS
A very Hillary Halloween.
Four-year-old Sullivan Wood of Charleston, South Carolina got a Halloween surprise at a rally for 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton LAW ’73 Saturday. When campaign aides saw that Wood was dressed as Clinton, she was brought backstage and introduced to the candidate.
LET THE DOGS OUT
defended students’ rights to wear potentially offensive costumes as an expression of free speech, arguing that the ability to tolerate affront is one of the hallmarks of a free and open society. Her email compared adults selecting costumes to children playing dress up, and she asserted that imagination should be encouraged and not constrained. SEE EMAIL PAGE 4
Yale’s chapter of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity has denied allegations that brothers racially discriminated against students of color during a party held Friday at the fraternity’s off-campus house. On Oct. 31, the day after the party in question, Neema Githere ’18 posted a status on her personal Facebook profile recounting the experience of a group of women of color which she said were denied entrance to SAE on Friday on the basis of race. Though Githere was not part of that group herself and was not in attendance Friday, she noted in the post that a similar incident had happened to her last year and invited others who had been discriminated against by SAE to comment with their stories. Since it was published, her post has received over 600 likes and almost 100 shares. “I’d just like to take a moment to give a shoutout to the member of Yale’s SAE chapter who turned away a group of girls from their party last night, explaining that admittance was on
a ‘White Girls Only’ basis,” her post read. Members of SAE have categorically denied the accusations. Yale SAE President Grant Mueller ’17 said he has been in contact with Yale administrators and representatives from SAE’s national organization about the incident to repudiate charges that SAE members engaged in racist behavior when deciding whom to admit to the party. “Obviously I was shocked and flabbergasted [at the idea] that anyone in SAE would even have these words come from their mouths,” Mueller said. “It’s just kind of upsetting for me because we try to be so incredibly accepting and take pride in our diversity.” Mueller said he was notified of Githere’s post around 8 p.m. on Saturday and immediately contacted Dean of Student Engagement Burgwell Howard, as well as his residential college dean, in order to address the complaints. Howard already knew about the post, Mueller said. Mueller and Howard met on Saturday night and spoke SEE SAE PAGE 4
Economy dominates final mayoral debate BY NOAH DAPONTE-SMITH STAFF REPORTER Disputes over New Haven’s finances and economy flared Saturday morning, as the three mayoral candidates clashed in their last debate of the campaign season. Taxes, unemployment and economic development took center stage in the debate between Mayor Toni Harp and her petitioning challengers, plumbing company owner Sun-
diata Keitazulu and former city clerk Ron Smith. Coming under attack from Smith for the city’s high taxes and from Keitazulu for persistent unemployment among racial minorities, Harp defended her two-year-long record. Harp, the heavy favorite in Tuesday’s election, said her administration has worked to run budget surpluses, seek municipal funding reform from the state and stabilize the mill rate — the tax rate per $1,000 of property value.
Higgins promoted to new role BY SARA SEYMOUR STAFF REPORTER Yale Police Department Chief Ronnell Higgins will become Yale’s director of public safety on Nov. 16 while maintaining his role as chief, University officials announced Thursday. As director of public safety and chief of police at Yale, Higgins’ new responsibilities will include managing police officers, security operations and security systems, according to Janet Lindner, deputy vice president for human resources and administration. She explained that Higgins’ promotion to the newly created position is part of Yale’s ongoing efforts to integrate and upgrade security on campus. “I am truly humbled,” Higgins said, in reference to his upcoming appointment. “It is an extraordinary opportunity.” Dan Killen, the director of Yale Security Operations, and George Hines, the director of Yale Security Systems, will retain their positions, Lindner said. But Killen and Hines will now report to Higgins, who will continue to report to Lindner. Lindner cited Higgins’ leadership skills, SEE HIGGINS PAGE 6
Smith and Keitazulu, though unified in their criticism of Harp, disagreed with each other on how best to reduce unemployment in the Elm City. For his part, Smith said the city’s high taxes are stifling growth and preventing small businesses from thriving. “Taxes are so high that we can barely make it — pay our house taxes, buy our food, pay our rent,” Smith said. “In a poor city, we’re paying way too much, and the legislators we’re voting
in need to look at this because they represent us.” Meanwhile, Keitazulu said he would raise taxes by 2 percent and look into a 0.5 percent budget cut in all city departments. The savings from those strategies would then be used to increase funding for education, he said. Keitazulu identified the city’s low-performing schools as a prime contributor to the unemployment vexing the city. He said he would increase the
amount of vocational training in schools, adding that job training must be a component of education in the city. “We need funding to get this job done,” he said. “And I know people are talking about cutting taxes, but sometimes you have to make sacrifices. People made sacrifices to go to war. People made sacrifices for George Marshall’s recovery of Europe. We need a recovery in our own city.” SEE DEBATE PAGE 6
Calhoun Master weighs in on college name BY DAVID YAFFE-BELLANY CONTRIBUTING REPORTER Last week, Calhoun College Master Julia Adams broke her silence on the ongoing campuswide debate over the name of Calhoun, the same day that Yale College Dean Jonathan Holloway announced for the first time a deadline for resolving the dispute. Adams, who had previously declined to take a public position in the dispute, called for the college to be rechristened Calhoun-Douglass College, after the 19th-century African-American abolitionist Frederick Douglass. She presented her proposal Thursday evening at a Silliman College forum led by MIT history professor Craig Wilder, the author of “Ebony and Ivy,” a recent book about racism in the Ivy League. The controversy over Calhoun — named for outspoken slavery advocate and white supremacist John C. Calhoun, class of 1804 — began in earnest this summer after the June massacre of nine AfricanAmerican churchgoers in Charleston, South Carolina, triggered a national conversation about racially charged symbols. In August, University President Peter Salovey used his freshman welcome address to encourage a campus debate over the
naming issue. “As the most important black American intellectual of the 19th century, Frederick Douglass is a formidable, indeed towering, complement to Calhoun,” Adams said to the audience of around 30 students. “It’s also a good thing from a pedagogical perspective … to have a
meaningful renaming that launches us toward the future without erasing a past that is still powerfully influential.” Yale College Dean Jonathan Holloway, who also spoke at the event, announced that Salovey would subSEE CALHOUN PAGE 6
KEN YANAGISAWA/SENIOR PHOTOGRAPHER
Master Julia Adams has spoken for appending “Douglass” to the college’s name.