Social Justice On Campus: A Reflection On Yale And Missouri

Recently, a large section of the news has been a massive cloud of outcries for social justice across America’s college campuses. This cloud has become hazy and convoluted, and the individual situations that make up the cloud and its significance and motives have become indiscernible from case to case. It generally takes a little bit of effort to keep up with the news outside of Exeter, but keeping up with the past weeks of racial injustice that have been reported has been extremely challenging. So allow me to attempt to break down what’s been happening specifically at Yale and the University of Missouri for the past couple of weeks.

Let’s start with Yale. Before the beginnings of the Halloween festivities that took place on Yale’s campus, a school-wide email was sent out by the Yale Administration reminding students to be mindful and respectful when dressing up for Halloween. The email particularly attempted to target anyone on campus who might dress up in offensive costumes that might be considered cultural appropriation. Examples of this appropriation include blackface, wearing a feathered headdress resembling that of a Native American’s or dressing up as a geisha. The email was fairly standard, the main message asking the students on campus to be respectful. It instated no system of repercussion for students who disobeyed these reminders, and it did not directly infringe on anyone's free speech. The aim of the email was to remind people not to marginalize people’s races and cultures and not to generalize them into one massive stereotype via a costume.

The school-wide email provoked a response from Erika Christaki, the wife of the master of Silliman Residential College, one of the dormitories at Yale. her email, Christaki expressed her discontent with the fact that the email simply reminded students to be respectful. She said the language regarding cultural appropriation was actually stunting free speech on campus. She quoted her husband in the email, writing, “Nicholas says, ‘if you don’t like a costume someone is wearing, look away, or tell them you are offended. Talk to each other. Free speech and the ability to tolerate offense are the hallmarks of a free and open society.’” Christaki encouraged a different way to go about addressing cultural appropriation through open discussion and warned against the “consequences of an institutional exercise of implied racism.” Christaki also said, however, that she “doesn’t wish to trivialize genuine concerns about cultural and personal representation.”

Christakis’ email provoked a response from much of the student body that has been protesting on campus since then. Some of the student body also wrote a letter that reads as follows: “We are not asking to be coddled…[We] simply ask that our existences not be invalidated on campus. This is asking for basic respect of our cultures and our livelihood.” Many of the protests say that students should feel safe and respected on campus, and to a certain degree, the school should facilitate that. In the original email, the school didn’t take any concrete measures to eliminate racist costumes on campus, which, although disappointing from a student’s standpoint, essentially disproves what I think the implication of Christakis’ email that the school is infringing on students freedom of speech. Student protesters, set off by these emails and other racial injustices on campus, targeted Christakis and her husband; a video spread around the internet of students on campus circling Nick Christakis, yelling things like, “In your position as master [of the residential college] it is your job to create a place of comfort and home.” They point out the need for campus to be safe and inclusive for all students on campus.

Jumping west 1,100 miles to the University of Missouri, we encounter another set of student protests over racial injustice on campus that have been making headlines, for more reasons than you would think. The students are responding to many acts of racial injustice that have been reported across campus for the past months with a series of student protests that have rocked the school’s administration. Regardless of the months-long outcry from the students at Mizzou, the administration has offered no response—at least not until black members of the football team ceased all involvement with the team until the school’s president stepped down. The threats came before a game against Brigham Young University, and without the players who went on strike, it would have cost the school one million dollars. After months of silence, the President of the school, as well as the university’s chancellor, stepped down in just a few days.

The student outrage was not only in response to many racial injustices, but also in response to the lack of reaction from the administration. On one hand, it seems that Yale’s administration had some amount of response to cultural appropriation on campus in the school’s original email as well as Erika’s email, no matter how misled and inappropriate it was. However, Yale’s administration still lacks a firm position on the matter; the email originally sent out only asked students to be respectful of others, yet failed to instate any real consequences for violators. What it comes down to is the need for all students, including students of color, to feel safe and respected on their college campuses and the responsibility of their administrations to guarantee that.