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Although Halloween festivities came to a close nearly two weeks ago, Yale students remain in the midst of a heated debate regarding an email sent by administrators concerning cultural appropriation and Halloween costumes. The content of the email, however, is not the cause of uproar but rather the response of faculty member Erika Christakis remains the focus of students’ protests.
Christakis, an early childhood educator working as an associate master at Silliman College of Yale, sent a response to the email to students living in her residence hall. In her email she details her frustration with universities for becoming “places of censure and prohibition,” and calls for the revival of a time in which students were able to make mistakes in college, regardless of whom those mistakes may offend. Christakis outlines that she feels it is not the proper place for any adult to dictate the actions, or Halloween costumes, of any adolescent or fellow adult. Instead, Christakis states that people must push boundaries in order to understand where lines must be drawn.
Since its creation, the email has sparked mass debate across the Yale campus. Students have congregated in an effort to not only condemn Christakis’ seemingly traditional, ignorant statements, but also to clamor for her resignation. Many students have since staged protests across the campus in an effort to highlight their beliefs, namely that Christakis’ message turns a blind eye to ongoing cultural insensitivity and racism across both the college campus and our nation as a whole. Students also assembled around Nicholas Christakis (Erika Christakis’ husband, who is also a master at Silliman College) and demanded an apology for the sentiments his wife expressed in her email. Mr. Christakis, however, was not receptive to said request. Students to began angrily questioning the motives behind his hiring as well as his lack of advocacy and protection for diverse students. A video of the altercation was posted to YouTube soon thereafter, and has since garnered nearly 600,000 views. Christakis’ email not only illustrates an enduring lack of cultural sensitivity present on Yale, and also the seeming increase in frequency of racially charge debates on college campuses nationwide. Just this past week, University of Missouri football players stated they would boycott school athletics until the university’s president resigned due to previous handlings of incidents regarding race on the campus. In addition, during this past week, an African American undergraduate student at Yale University accused Sigma Alpha Epsilon, a fraternity on campus, of barring her from entering a party at their house due to her race.
This accusation, along with the controversial email from Christakis, adds to the fairly racially insensitive background surrounding Yale University as a whole. According to the New York Times, the university continues to have a residential hall named in honor of John C. Calhoun, the South Carolina politician of the nineteenth century who was a candid white supremacist. Minority students have since stated that they now feel uncomfortable on the Yale campus, a place that is meant to be their home away from home. Many students highlight that although stating ongoing ignorance of diversity is permissible, college personnel such as Christakis have destroyed the sense of a ‘safe space’ that campuses are meant to represent.
Johnathan Holloway, Yale College’s Dean, stated that he remains “fully in support” of the original email requesting Halloween costumes to be respectful for all and claims to be investigating the accusations against Sigma Alpha Epsilon in detail. In the meantime, minority students remain on edge about niversities’ seeming lack of defense on their part. Across the country, students are finding a growing power in the voice of change.