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November October 2026 2023

The Magazine About Yale and New Haven

Volume Volume56, 59,Issue Issue21

FEATURE

What is the YCC even for? As the University considers settling with Trump, an emboldened Yale College Council tests the limits of its influence.

TheNewJournal October 2026

Letter from the Editors

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Dear readers,

Editors-in-Chief

We’re calling this our “Institutions Issue.” That’s somewhat ironic—many issues of The New Journal are institution-focused. But we think we can claim the theme, because in these pages our writers attempt to understand two unique and often misunderstood institutions at the cores of Yale and New Haven, respectively.

Executive Editor Managing Editor

In our cover story, Jean-Claude Pierre III ’28 writes a guide to the Yale College Council. He looks at what it means for their leaders to be in the spotlight as Yale considers a settlement with the Trump administration and how that newfound visibility affects student life. In another feature, Ethan Kan ’28 reflects on the mechanisms of the New Haven justice system. Following up on the story of Stefon Morant, a man wrongly imprisoned for 21 years, Kan examines how the NHPD is implicated and liable for restitution. Before or after reading their story, we recommend you revisit “Coming Home Convicted” from our September 2019 issue, which told the story of Morant’s return from prison and his pardon petition process.

Publisher Ethan Kan Creative Directors

Celina Qu Serina Yan

Verse Editor

Tina Li Josie Russell

Senior Editors Chloe Budakian Ella Piper Claffy Mia Rose Kohn Sabrina Thaler

Elsewhere in the magazine, Miye Sugino ’26 takes us down Chapel Street to Nails Plus where we meet and fall in love with with Nancy Nguyêt, Kiva Bank ’28 goes behind the curtain at the David Geffen School of Drama, and Anna Koontz ’29 relives this summer’s World Cup, one game at a time. Some thoughtful people, including our wonderful writers, stared down these institutions with us. We thank them for their patience. Turns out, institutions are complicated. We hope these articles help you see them with more clarity.

Olivia Barton Fiona Jin Sarea Leung Emily Pedroza

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Sincerely, Adele, Kelly, Margot, and Harry

Adele Haeg Kelly Kong Margot Kohn Harry Lowitz

October 2026 TheNewJournal

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Advisors: Neela Banerjee • Richard Bradley • Susan Braudy • Lincoln Caplan • Jay Carney • Joshua Civin • Richard Conniff • Ruth Conniff • Elisha Cooper • David Greenberg • Sophie Haigney • Daniel Kurtz-Phelan • Laura Pappano • Jennifer Pitts • Julia Preston • Lauren Rawbin • David Slifka • John Swansburg • Anya Kamenetz • Steven Weisman • Daniel Yergin

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Contents

The YCC Tests Its Limits cover story As Yale negotiates a settlement with the Trump administration, the Yale College Council tries out the national spotlight. By Jean-Claude Pierre III

No Budget for Justice feature Stefon Morant sued corrupt cops and the City of New Haven for his wrongful incarceration and won. What could his multimillion dollar award mean for the city? By Ethan Kan

profile

6 Florida A college student learns self-care from the busiest Vietnamese nail technician on Chapel Street. By Miye Sugino

4 NewsJournal flash fiction

11 Case Study

By Will Sussbauer

snapshot

12 Waiting in the Wings The David Geffen School of Drama at Yale became tuition-free for full-time students in 2021. Five years later, the starving artists are still starving. By Kiva Bank review

poems

23 Wolf-Whistling on the Tallahatchie River By Amaré Fields

28 Late Summer in Virginia By Morgan Vannell

22 Identity Trappings Reading R.F. Kuang’s Taipei Story, a writer looks for self in the protagonist. By Velvet Wu

crossword Supernova, by Margot Kohn

endnote

32 What the World Can’t Say A writer confronts two kinds of losses amid the World Cup in Argentina. By Anna Koontz

TheNewJournal October 2026

NewsJournal

NewsJournal Turning Point USA watchful eye, the blonde girl explained we published. accompany her answers. Under Jane’s

couldn’t specify the speaker in anything

that she was “interested in getting a betline of young men wrapped around ter understanding of where journalism in Hillhouse Avenue on a recent the United States is going.” Nick Shirley Tuesday afternoon, some in suits, oth- represents the new language of journalers in khakis, a handful in sweats. There ism to her. were a few women, mostly older, none “We all have our own phones,” she our age. Police stood guard, yellow lab- said. “So, we’re all our own journalists radors sniffing the air. All but one heavily in a way.” She told us she was raised to guarded entrance had been cordoned off take everything—including journalwith barricades. ism—with a grain of salt. In the end, she We were all in line to see Nick requested to stay anonymous. Shirley—an influencer and self-proObserving our interaction, Jane claimed independent journalist—talk warmed up to us and agreed to talk. For with Carlos Perez ’29, the president of her, the event was about “carrying on his Yale’s new Turning Point USA chap- legacy, because he was murdered by peoter. We’d seen the poster outside the ple that cannot tolerate a difference” she Women’s Center. “An Evening with says. She also emphasized her support of Nick Shirley,” it read, with a picture of “his stance”—“God-loving” and “believShirley in a gray hoodie, holding a sel- ing in Jesus; everyone is equal.” fie stick in front of anti-ICE protest Though she didn’t name him, it was signs. He sported a critical expression, as clear Jane was referencing Charlie Kirk, if to prove he truly was an independent who was murdered exactly a year ago journalist. at a Turning Point event at Utah Valley Shirley blew up on December 26th, University. 2025 when he posted a YouTube video We wandered through the line, askaccusing Somali-run daycare centers in ing attendees more questions. Many, Minnesota of government-assisted fraud. perhaps trying to avoid probing folIt currently has 4.2 million views. While low-ups, said they were just interested state officials affirmed there were ongo- in finding out more about Shirley. Toby ing investigations at four Minnesota ’29, said he just wanted to hear him out. child-care centers, the New York Times “It’s important to hear from different was unable to verify Shirley’s claims of people who otherwise might not have extensive fraud. That month, Trump the opportunity to give their perspecsent federal agents to crack down on tive,” said Lincoln ’30, a smartly dressed Minneapolis. Yale first-year. “And I think it’s interWe began talking to the people in esting to have the chance to ask peothe line. A neatly dressed blonde girl ple questions directly.” Also among the in her 20s whose gold cross necklace crowd were three campaigners carrying glinted in the sunlight gave us her name. stacks of pamphlets for Ryan Fazio, the A woman standing behind her inter- Republican state senator running to jected: “Where does that information replace Governor Ned Lamont this fall. go? Why would you need her name?” We The Sheffield-Sterling-Strathcona explained that we might write about her Hall auditorium filled up slowly as peofor The New Journal. The woman, who we ple trickled through security. The talk later learned was named Jane, remained started fifteen minutes late. When Nick unconvinced, her lips pursed, attempting Shirley walked on stage, half of the audia frown. ence stood and clapped. We reached a quasi-compromise: Attendees were asked to abide by the we would ask our questions and the girl Chatham House Rule—we could take would decide if she wanted her name to notes and record what was said, but we

Fraud is everywhere, an attendee told us once we were inside. In fact, he said, it’s even in New Haven. Just driving in today and looking out the window of his car, he could tell. What can we do about fraud? He said America needs to get back to its core values. These values were never named. “I really don’t think there was actually anybody at the time who actually knew what was happening in America better than I did,” Shirley bragged in a presentation at Harvard, which closely resembled his talk at Yale. Regarding his Minnesota video, he claimed no video had “ever created so much impact in America in the history of America.” One of his goals is “to become like one of the number one truth-tellers in America.” Shirley ended his Harvard talk with one of his favorite quotes: “The truth has no defense against a fool determined to believe a lie.” That’s one thing we can agree on.

October 2026 TheNewJournal

—Irene Kim and Caroline Toll are sophomores in Timothy Dwight and Benjamin Franklin Colleges. They are Associate Editors of The New Journal.

Take a Magazine, Leave a Magazine N A BUSY SIDE STREET, where downO town New Haven becomes East Rock, there’s a small house, less than two square feet, filled with magazines. The miniature building, mounted on a sanded tree trunk and sheltered by arching mulberry branches, is New Haven’s first and only magazine library. The library opened this September. For me, it’s been a long time coming. As I discovered during my first year at Yale, save for Haas Library, there’s really no place to get magazines around town. New Haven’s newsstands, like those

LAYOUT DESIGN BY CELINA QU

NewsJournal

magazine library. If the essential remit of the magazine is to combine the high and the low—if, that is, you believe Tina Brown, queen of print journalism’s final golden age—then the delightful concept of a magazine library seems, with all its variety, itself echt-magazine. Here’s the New York Review of Books; there’s Pottery Making Illustrated. I’m not sure people have caught on yet. On my first visit to the library, and one the day after, none of the New Haveners who passed by paid it any mind—save for a pair of terriers interested in a waterlogged New York Review of Books. Still, the magazine library now has at least one—or three—more fans than it did last week. The magazine library on Bradley Street.

across the country, have gone the way of the dodo. So I was grateful to learn of this new piece of civic infrastructure. I biked over to the library on an endof-summer afternoon and found a hefty pile of New Yorkers, plus one Fireball shooter on the ground—the result of a drive-by delivery, perhaps. A sign affixed to the library’s side reads “Take a magazine, leave a magazine.” Among the periodicals crammed inside the box itself, my eyes landed on an issue of Macworld, an Apple-focused publication from 1995. Glowing fiber optic cables crisscrossed a globe on the cover; the pages brimmed with garish gadgetry ads and End of History optimism: “You know the Internet is the place to be.” How ironic—a magazine dedicated to the technology that would eventually undermine the entire endeavor of print media. I’m a big fan of ‘90s Apple advertising, so I took Macworld and replaced it with a magazine I had at the bottom of my backpack: Shalom Y’all, a publication that covers Jewish life in the American South. I’d picked it up on a trip to Mississippi; I’m fairly confident it has never before graced the shelves of this

Photo by Angus Bruce

—Elijah Hurewitz-Ravitch is a junior in Ezra Stiles College.

A Note for Gloria Steinem and feminist icon JYaleournalist Gloria Steinem’s first recorded visit to was in 1971, two years after the first

women were admitted to Yale College. Steinem came to campus to give a talk about “Women’s Liberation” at the law school, an event co-sponsored by the Yale Women’s Organization and the Yale Newcomers Club. The Yale Daily News covered her visit, briefly. They reported that Steinem was on campus in a “non-official” capacity, having declined previous official invitations because of Yale club Mory’s “discriminatory policies towards women.” She was there for the Yale Women’s Organization, not Yale itself. In December 1974, she came back, this time to discuss “Feminism 101” at a Yale Political Union event in Battell Chapel. “Women are not taken seriously,” Steinem told students, according to the

YDN. “Women’s groups on this campus, I’m sure, are subject to all sorts of ridicule.” She concluded, “you might as well be feminist.” Forty-eight years after her first campus visit, former Yale president Peter Salovey awarded her an honorary degree, the highest honor the University bestows. Photos from the event show her smiling as she accepted her Doctor of Humane Letters, one of dozens of honors she received from colleges and universities across the country. The first woman to get an honorary degree from Yale was feminist and humanitarian Jane Addams, in 1910—over two centuries after Yale began awarding honorary degrees. Steinem passed away last month at 94. I read her 2016 memoir My Life on the Road over the summer, and when I heard the news of her death, I thought back to her stories about visiting college campuses across the country. Over the decades, several residential colleges brought her to speak—Ezra Stiles in 1981, Silliman in 1982, Timothy Dwight in 2007, Jonathan Edwards in 2010. Since her death, no Yale publication has written anything commemorating her. I’ve talked to too many people who don’t even know who she was. After accepting her honorary degree from Salovey in 2019, Steinem posted a photo of herself on Instagram, with the caption: “Though thankfully prepared remarks were not required (I still get so nervous I lose all my saliva), when I received the news of this Honorary Doctorate, Yale asked me if I had any words to share with the graduating class: I wish you work you would want to do, even if you were not paid, and friends who are chosen family. Then you can withstand all the storms of life and become who you uniquely are.” —Aria Lynn-Skov is a sophomore in Grace Hopper College.

TheNewJournal October 2026

Profile

Florida A college student learns self-care from the busiest Vietnamese nail technician on Chapel Street. By Miye Sugino

Inside Nail Plus on Chapel Street.

uring her BREAKS BETWEEN clients, Nguyet “Nancy” Miranda works out. “I don’t like sit down,” the Vietnamese woman in her late fifties tells me, dropping to a spry lunge in the middle of the nail salon. “When I sit down, I do nothing. I feel boring,” she says, with a giggle. Nancy wears a puffer vest over a pink-sleeved jacket. When she stands up, her head barely reaches my shoulders. She hoists herself onto the stool across from me, moving on to her next exercise set. She stares ahead in complete focus—with her dark hair pulled into a ponytail and glasses set squarely on her face—and kicks her feet rhythmically in the air. Sitting on the stool across from

October 2026 TheNewJournal

her, I imitate her movements like a child. Nancy and her older sister Julie run Nails Plus, a cash-only nail salon at the intersection of State and Chapel Streets in downtown New Haven. Wedged between a vape shop and a thrift store, the Nails Plus storefront is the length of three long strides—walk by too fast and you could miss it. Most of their clients are walk-ins. Too many have tried to pay for manicures with an empty credit card (hence the cash-only policy), or the false promise that their mothers were coming with cash, giving them a moment to bolt. Despite her daily exercises, Nancy says she is not strong enough to catch them. The culprits—“young girls who wanna

look pretty”—escape with long, beautiful nails. Nancy pulls down her mask to show me her open-mouthed shock, which turns into another giggle. The door jingles and in walks a woman wearing a blue jumpsuit, braids, and eyelash extensions. She asks for her usual and sits down across from Nancy at one of the long tables. They exchange small talk about broken nails as the woman fingers the rows of nail polish bottles. The inside of the salon is dim, so Nancy cradles the woman’s hands under the lamplight. “I smoke weed so make sure you paint this one black,” the woman says, lifting a finger. She explains that clear paint turned yellow when she smoked. LAYOUT DESIGN BY Amanda Brantley

Profile

Nancy nods as if to say sure, sure, low- his house. “That time we young, we little ering her glasses to file down her nail girl,” she says. “We don’t know what to beds with an electric drill. The woman do.” comments on Nancy’s eyebrows, which are tattooed—was it painful?—and rolls up her sleeves to expose her own tattoos: one for her mother, who she lost in 2021, “When Nancy first opened and the other for her father, in 2022. *** ancy and her sister Julie opened N the salon 24 years ago. Shortly before she came to New Haven, Nancy met an

American man in Vietnam. She didn’t know what to make of him at first—she had always preferred Vietnamese men. But she was entering her late thirties by then, and he offered to do the paperwork for her to come to the U.S. and join her siblings. Nancy accepted. She arrived in the summer of 2000 and opened Nails Plus that same year. Nancy was twelve when North Vietnamese forces took over South Vietnam, where she grew up. The Vietnam War ended in 1975 and the U.S. evacuated its personnel in defeat. South Vietnamese people with ties to the U.S. suffered repercussions under Communist rule; Nancy’s father, who worked for the U.S. military, lost everything, including

PHOTOS BY SAMARA GORTON

the salon, she found the work ‘so boring.’ She explains why: ‘We don’t know English much. We don’t know nothing at all. We don’t know nobody.’”

Growing up in South Vietnam, Nancy remembers watching her older siblings hunt rabbits in the countryside to survive under Communist rule. While her school curriculum became anti-American, she says that she and her family knew better than to trust it. “When my dad work for American, we have anything,” she told me. “And now the war come, we have zero. That way we can tell.” But Nancy was too afraid to try leaving Vietnam. Her older sister, Maria, made the first attempt on behalf of their

family. She was imprisoned. On her second attempt, Maria was pursued on foot but managed to hide in the woods. The third time, Maria joined the ranks of 800,000 Vietnamese “boat people” who successfully fled Vietnam by sea between 1975 and 1995. It is estimated that somewhere between 200,000 and 400,000 of those emigrants died at sea. Maria managed to reach a refugee camp in the Philippines and later immigrated to the U.S., where she worked to sponsor her family’s immigration. One by one, her siblings followed her there. When Nancy first opened the salon, she found the work “so boring.” She explains why: “We don’t know English much. We don’t know nothing at all. We don’t know nobody.” In Vietnam, she and her neighbors would walk the long way to work together. In the U.S., she observed that people commuted alone. After getting back home, she would fall asleep watching television in her room. Although her siblings had also immigrated to Connecticut, they had since retired in Florida, where it was warmer. Now only she and Julie were left. Nancy enrolled in cosmetology school because she saw her sisters making money in the nail industry. She went from never having heard of nail care in Vietnam to practicing on Julie’s nails

TheNewJournal October 2026

Profile

every night in the U.S. Many of the other women immigrating to the U.S. after the Vietnam War found themselves doing the same. Before they entered the industry, having one’s nails professionally done was a luxury reserved for the elite—like Hollywood actress Tippi Hedren. In 1975, Hedren was running a resettlement program for Vietnamese refugee women in northern California. When she saw the women take notice of her manicured nails, she flew in her manicurist to teach and license them. Nail care appealed to Vietnamese women whose English language abilities made it difficult to find work in other industries, and the low cost of their labor appealed to Americans who couldn’t otherwise afford to get their nails done. In the 1970s, around the time Hedren began running the resettlement program, manicures cost around $50, which is around about $450 today. But as Vietnamese-owned salons began offering manicures at much lower prices, basic manicures in the U.S. eventually fell into the $20 range; Nails Plus charges around $25. At these prices, Vietnamese-owned salons transformed nail care from an aristocratic luxury into an accessible form of “self-care.” But what once signaled the privilege of not having to work with one’s hands is now available only because people like Nancy work longer and harder hours with theirs. Nancy has not stopped working for 24 years. On Sundays, her day off, she spends the whole day in the kitchen. She tells me she makes separate meals for everyone: American food for her husband, Vietnamese food for herself, and for her daughters, she never knows what. They all have different tastes. “Home, work, still the same. Busy, busy,” she says, laughing. “Busy, you don’t think nothing, you don’t think—crazy things.” Nancy bends over to touch her toes, then performs her version of Russian twists on the stool. The door jingles.

Nail Plus on Chapel Street.

As they talk about Nancy’s experiences coming to the U.S. in Vietnamese—a language I don’t understand—Nancy’s laughter punctuates their conversation. Anh turns towards me: “She’s laughing about it, but it really is one of those things where when you arrive here at that age, you have no choice but to work. And so you spend your whole life working.” Later, Nancy remarks on how fluent my friend’s Vietnamese is, and it occurs to me how few Vietnamese people live in New Haven. After all, Nancy immigrated here to be with her siblings—who have since moved down to Florida—and not for the community. Nancy asks me again for my friend’s name. “Anh,” I tell her. For a moment, she says nothing. “When I talk to Nancy with “Anh,” Nancy tells me after a while, is the name of her friend from Vietnam whom an air of familiarity, I am she lost. always tentative about how Her friend Anh is not dead, but familiar I am allowed when Nancy returned toVietnam years after leaving, she could not find her. “I to feel.” *** don’t know her address, I don’t know her phone number, I don’t know nothing at talk to nancy in english the way all. And now I cannot find her house I talk to my grandmother, who immieither, because anything changed over grated to the U.S. from South Korea. I there. I lost her,” Nancy says. Then, as am used to talking to people whose always, she releases a short laugh. first language is not English: my words The next time I visit Nails Plus, I She asks for my friend’s name again. become simpler, my sentences abbrevi- bring one of my Vietnamese friends, She wants to make sure that her name ated. This way of speaking is not inten- Anh, to translate for us. Nancy, always is not the American “Anne.” “Anh,” I tional but almost instinctive, and might chatty with me, becomes even more ani- repeat. “Anh,” she says. admittedly sound insulting if she were mated in Vietnamese. Nancy calls her own parenting style

October 2026 TheNewJournal

not Asian. But because she is, and perhaps because of something more, it feels affectionate—at least to me. At the same time, when I talk to Nancy with an air of familiarity, I am always tentative about how familiar I am allowed to feel. I feel the distance between us more acutely when she uses the word “boring” to describe her work. Boredom means something else on campus, just blocks away from Nancy’s salon. When I say that I haven’t had time to do my nails in college, it is with a tinge of regret rather than self-importance.

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“soft,” especially compared with her parents’. But she later tells me about the one time she put her foot down: when her eldest daughter Eunice asked if she could change her name. “If you change the name, maybe you forgot your dad,” she tells me. Nancy lost her father when she was in high school; she lost her mother after immigrating to the U.S. The thought of forgetting her family drives Nancy crazy. “The name— you have to remember the name—from your dad give the name. You have to keep forever.” When Nancy immigrated to the U.S., her brother-in-law took the first letter “N” from her birth name and suggested that she go by “Nancy.” But “Nancy” is not her legal name, only a nickname. She kept her birth name, thinking of her parents.

just relaxing,” I tell Nancy. “She better?” “She’s doing better, yeah. She’s painting her nails now. I’m jealous,” I joke. Nancy is one of the first people I tell that my younger sister—also a student at Yale—is going on medical leave. Over FaceTime, I find my sister painting her nails, which is how I know just how much time she has on her hands. Neither of us paints our nails unless we are truly bored. In the corner of the screen, I catch a flash of red that I learn, from Nancy, is called burgundy. Nancy asks how I am doing, and I tell her that, honestly, I’m just keeping busy for now. She nods in understanding. “Working, working, working, or your thoughts become kind of crazy,” she says. Nancy twists the bottle cap back on. She is finished. I try to hand her a tip, but she presses *** the bill back into my hand, telling me to go make money first. Positioning a ANCY NOTICES THE BIRTHMARK ON mini-fan over my damp feet to dry the the bottom of my foot as she gives nail polish, she retreats to the corner of me my pedicure. “Easy life, means you the salon to watch YouTube. Underneath will have,” she says, poking her finger the fan, my lavender-painted toes slowly into it. She clicks on a lamp over my feet. begin to feel frozen. “Good life. You won’t have to work hard.” When Nancy called her work at the She tells me to come back when I’m rich nail salon “boring,” I did not understand. so I can tell her she was right (and tip, I thought that one could only be bored she jokes). Nancy throws a bag of blue when there was nothing to do. “Boring,” salt in the tub and waits for the water I realized, did not ever quite mean idleto bubble. I watch the blue water swirl ness to Nancy. “Boring—how do you around my ankles, and I think about how say,” Nancy had said, searching for a betrarely I have done this. ter word in English. “Exhausting, tiring,” “My sister—she’s at home now. She’s Anh translated for her. “Hard.”

ANCY and julie hope to eventuN ally retire in Florida. Until then, they visit their siblings there as often as they

can afford to. While there, they all wake up at six in the morning to walk along the shore. The water is startlingly blue and warm. Nancy and her sisters never learned to swim, so they walk in the water. “We exercise, we talk something funny, we laugh and go inside,” she says. When Nancy remembers Florida, her voice becomes wistful. Just once, Nancy visited Florida by herself. “I buy ticket one-way. And I stay there. For how long?” she asks, barely containing her laughter. “For two months!” Julie and her customers kept asking when she would return. “And I say soon, soon, soon—because I buy one-way,” she says, her laughs growing into wheezes, tears in her eyes now. Since then, Julie has made sure to buy roundtrip tickets with Nancy to keep her from taking indeterminately long breaks. “We know what time we go, we know what time we go back,” Nancy says. But Nancy did not want to come back. “Over there, you don’t have to do nothing,” she says with a giggle. Somewhere between watching Nancy keep herself busy with lunges and Russian twists during her breaks and hearing her insist that doing nothing is “boring,” it dawns on me that Florida promises Nancy more than freedom from work. Florida promises the freedom to be with the people she loves. Nancy files my nails down with an electric drill. Stripped one layer, my nails feel naked. As she coats a layer of clear polish, it cools and hardens into something artificial. I catch a whiff of the smell—sharply chemical—and turn away. As I watch Nancy work, I ask her if she ever had a dream job. She giggles, thinking I mean now. “Yeah, when I young,” she says. “Now—I don’t want to work anymore. That why I don’t dream about.” She waves a hand as if to dispel the smell, and her laughs become almost hysterical. “What I want to be? No more. No more thinking about that.” Miye Sugino graduated in May 2026. She was in Grace Hopper College.

Cash only sign in Nail Plus.

TheNewJournal October 2026

Flash Fiction

Case Study By Will Sussbauer

veryone else in the waiting room sat slumped over their phones. It was Charlie’s first time in an ER waiting room. He wanted to win the waiting room. He wanted to be the most griefstricken and worried boyfriend possible so when the door swung open and the doctors came out with bad news, they’d know he really, deeply cared. Also, his book was in the car. It was Home, the companion to Gilead. He hadn’t started it yet, but he always carried a book in his bag, just in case. He’d said that to Sylvia this morning. “Just in case.” “In what cases?” she’d asked. “If we’re going to go out for lunch, then go for a hike, then come right back here, when would you have time to read anything?” Maybe they’d come to a really, really beautiful place and sit awhile and relish each others’ love and company in the open air for a while, but then Sylvia would get antsy and want to explore, but he wouldn’t want to, so she’d go off and he’d want something to do other than get anxious

about not wanting to go exploring with her, about preferring to be the sort of man who wants to sit at a beautiful place in nature and read. “I don’t know,” he said instead. “He’s always done that,” called his mom from the other room. “Always,” she said, padding towards the mudroom from her office, hair in a loose bun. The strap of her left sandal was broken, and thwapped against the ground as she walked. “He’d always say the same thing, ‘just in case!’ In what case, I’d always think, just like you said. In what case!” And they all laughed together at his silly fears of being caught in boredom, and they slipped on their sneakers and hopped into the car and Charlie put his tote into the backseat and it still had his book in it. Now, sitting bookless in the hospital waiting room, he had found such a case. It felt karmic. Divine power forcing him to change, to trust that life will occupy him. It all happened because he brought his book: Sylvia running from him, clambering over the gate, climbing four rungs up the power

line ladder before her foot slipped and she fell, in a cracking heap, her arms crinkling to her sides and her head thumping against the grass and her legs crumpling at such unnatural angles it made vomit erupt into Charlie’s throat now, in the waiting room, just thinking about the pain. He’d grabbed her arms and tried to help her up. Her jaw steeled, as if she’d hated him for helping her, him for witnessing her failure. She couldn’t move without him, though. Every time she tried, she cried out. He laid her on the grass beneath the power lines and called for help, and waited with her, trying to soothe her as she, despite her best efforts, whimpered in pain. This was the worst moment of his life, he thought. She was in too much pain to think the same. Charlie looked down at his feet now, tapping on the waiting room carpet. He refused to go outside and get his book, just in case. Will Sussbauer is a senior in Jonathan Edwards College.

illustration by jane callanan

October 2026 TheNewJournal

Poem

Wolf-Whistling on the Tallahatchie River an elegy for the Black Martyr Floating downstream is a mudcat. Lips bruised from eating the candied shells of crustaceans, face swollen as though allergic to the sweetmeats of Mississippi 1955. It is summer now, so heat beats Till the cold leaves the critter’s mouth. Currents torrent, grabbing at the waists of branches grown from the roots of the same rotting soil. It must have been the Southern wind. The river is three days behind. Its waters crooning debris from ancient, dusky banks. Debris, mutilating brown, covering the mucus-tainting skin, winding wire around the neck of mudcat, yellowcat, catfish, cat calling with a colorless howl for mercy. The river is cold to the touch. But it is summer. And the mudcat is floating again.

—Amaré Fields

ILLUSTRATION BY Pim Pim Ongphiphadhanakul

TheTheNewJournal October New Journal October 2026 2026

Snapshot

Waiting in the Wings The David Geffen School of Drama at Yale became tuition-free for full-time students in 2021. Five years later, the starving artists are still starving. By Kiva Bank

The entrance to the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale.

HILE DIRECTING A SHOW for the Yale Cabaret this April, Ruben Carrazana went two weeks without any income. One night after rehearsal for You Sit Down and You Cry, a play he wrote, he found himself near tears. “I looked at my bank account, I sat down, I did the math, and I was like, I can’t do that. This number actually isn’t possible,” the second-year directing student at the David Geffen School of Drama said. For those few days, Carrazana figured out how to use points and promotional offers to pay $1.50 for a McDonald’s meal—cheeseburger, fries, and soda—that would usually have cost around $13. He budgeted his time, too; between rehearsals, he allotted fifteen 12

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minutes to walk to McDonald’s, fifteen minutes to order and eat, and fifteen minutes to return to the theater. That semester, Carrazana was more broke than he had ever been in his life. “That impacted me mentally, emotionally, like going into class and only thinking about food. I’m in class, and that’s where my mind is, and my stomach hurts,” Carrazana said in an interview last spring. “I can’t focus.” Yet, he was willing to endure the hunger. “Theater is the only thing that I know how to do,” Carrazana said. “It is the only outlet that I have to share myself with the world.” For decades, elite MFA theater programs have been prohibitively expensive; tuition at the drama school was $32,800 in the 2019-20 academic year. In 2021,

however, entertainment mogul David Geffen donated $150 million to the school for it to become tuition-free for all full-time students for the foreseeable future. The school subsequently changed its name to the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale, or DGSD. A tuition-free DGSD seemed to open the doors of elite MFA programs to applicants of any financial means. Peter Salovey, Yale’s president at the time, said Geffen’s generosity allows “artists of extraordinary potential from all socioeconomic backgrounds” to cultivate their talent at Yale. But as Raekwon Fuller, a thirdyear theater management student, puts it, “tuition free does not mean cost free.” Today, the school still estimates living expenses of $28,028 for each academic LAYOUT DESIGN BY amanda brantley

year. Its conservatory-style model, with thirteen-hour days of classes and rehearsals, makes it difficult to earn a livable income. Even more, with parental assests factored into financial aid calculations, independent students find themselves without adequate support, leaving many like Carrazana struggling to make do. *** or the past two years, the DGSD F administration has gifted new students glass tupperware at orientation

with the words “DAVID GEFFEN SCHOOL OF DRAMA AT YALE” branded on the plastic lid. At first, Carrazana thought it was an odd gift. Within his first few days, he realized it was essential. When free food appears on campus, he sees students rush to grab some for their tupperware. “People fill it up, and that’s gonna be your lunch for the day or for tomorrow,” Carrazana said. “The schools know that the students are hungry.” The cost of living in New Haven— rent, groceries, transportation, healthcare—adds up quickly. Fuller said that

students often go through their savings in the first year. Nancy Yao, the DGSD’s assistant dean of student life, said she knows students don’t always have the time—or money—to cook, so the student life deans allocate part of their budget to bring food in for events. Hence the gift of tupperware.

is definitely part of our everyday practice, to try to make sure people are having a good meal.” The prospect of free tuition led Carrazana to apply to DGSD, but he also looked at Northwestern’s MFA program, where all students receive tuition waivers and living stipends of more than $30,000 per year. DGSD, on the other hand, tries to alleviate the $28,028 estimated living expense for each student by providing living-expense scholarships. 67 percent of students at DGSD receive needs-based aid, according to the “‘I looked at my bank school’s website. Online resources made account, I sat down, I did the financial aid process feel transparent to Carrazana. What he didn’t know the math, and I was like, I was how the school would determine his can’t do that. This number financial need. DGSD requires students to subactually isn’t possible.’” mit financial information through the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) and College Scholarship Service (CSS) profiles, which take into account both students’ and their parYao said DGSD sends a schoolwide ents’ finances. But Carrazana is 34, the email whenever they have extra food son of Cuban immigrants. His father is from an event. “It says ‘There’s food in a retired construction worker, and his the August Wilson lounge. Come down. mother, who was diagnosed with lateBring your Tupperware,’” she said. “That stage dementia, does not work. They rely

The kitchen in DGSD’s green room. PHOTOS BY margot kohn

TheNewJournal October 2026

Snapshot

on Social Security and rental income of the Yale Repertory Theatre. “And I from two apartments to make ends meet. said, ‘That’s your family’s choice.’” Some Carrazana has supported himself inde- families, however, don’t have that choice. pendently for years freelancing as an “We’re beholden to the entire spectrum actor and director after graduating col- of potential students.” lege in 2013. The average student now graduHis parents’ assets counted against ates with about $16,000 in debt, 50 perhim anyway. Carrazana’s financial aid cent less than the average in 1982 and package only consisted of standard work- 80 percent less than in 2005, according study and the $9,500 loan offered to most to Bundy. Evan Yionoulis, the current incoming first-year students who apply dean of DGSD, wrote in an email that for aid—but no living expense scholar- the school also has increased its livship. Still paying back undergraduate ing-expense budget by 46 percent since it loans, Carrazana didn’t want to take on became tuition free in 2021. more debt. “I wasn’t going to come here The cost of living, however, is also unless I could afford to pay rent,” he said. rising. Bella Orobaton, who graduated He secured an extension to con- from the acting program last spring, sider his offer, then spent weeks negoti- knew her parents were not going to help ating with the financial aid office for a her pay for graduate school, but expected scholarship. to pay her living expenses with savings Students like Carrazana often ques- from three years of work after college. tion why the drama school uses the CSS Profile, which considers financial assets held by parents regardless of a student’s age, independence, or marital status. “‘You get people to come Applicants can petition to have a parent’s financial information waived, but here, they don’t pay approval is rare—it generally requires tuition, and you think documented extenuating circumstances, that’s enough,’ Fuller such as estrangement, lack of contact, or incarceration. A parent’s unwillingsaid of DGSD’s financial ness to pay is not sufficient grounds for aid package. ‘But you a waiver. also don’t give them “You get people to come here, they don’t pay tuition, and you think that’s sustainable living enough,” Fuller said of DGSD’s finanstipends or sustainable cial aid package. “But you also don’t give them sustainable living stipends or susliving wages for them.’” tainable living wages for them.” The administration defends their financial aid policy as a matter of fairness. Chantal Rodriguez, the associate artistic director at the Yale Repertory Theatre, “The school had some sort of expecsaid the school distributed over $11 mil- tation that my parents would be lion in financial aid in the 2025-26 aca- chipping in, because they were in demic year, prioritizing the people with a financial bracket that poten“the most demonstrated need.” tially could,” she said. “My “We have a responsibility to really parents are in their late 60s. understand the resources that are poten- They’re going to retire soon, tially available to everyone,” she said. the money that they have “Socioeconomic status can be more than saved up is for the rest of just income, and sometimes your tax their lives, not for me to returns don’t tell the full story.” go to grad school.” She As a result, the school considers used up her savings in generational wealth, and, by extension, her first two years. parental assets when assessing finanAfter weeks of back cial need. “When we made the decision and forth, the school ultito start assessing parental assets, there mately offered Carrazana was a faculty member who said, ‘But I an $8,000 living expense scholwouldn’t pay for my children’s graduate arship for the year. He knew it education,’” said James Bundy, the for- was not sufficient, especially with mer DGSD dean and artistic director $2,000 automatically going toward his 14

October 2026 TheNewJournal

Yale health insurance. But it was enough to get him through at least the first few months of school. “They were offering the bare minimum,” Carrazana said. *** he drama school’s website T describes its relationship with the Yale Repertory Theatre as “analogous to

that of a medical school and a teaching hospital.” The intense work structure is built into the school—a student’s day consists of classes, from 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. during the week, followed by the rehearsal period from 3:00 to 10:00 p.m. Students are often in a rehearsal or completing homework on Saturday. Sunday is their only day off. Under this model, work-study is the only way that students like Carrazana can cover rent and food costs without taking out loans. During Carrazana’s first year, students at the drama school were assigned 200 hours of work-study at a rate of $22 per hour, totaling $4,400 if that they log those hours. Financial aid counselors told Carrazana that he could take on additional work-study if he needs more money. He thought he could make it work. What Carrazana didn’t realize was that DGSD’s work-study program is not a stable system of employment, but a scramble for scattered shifts. “It’s these little gigs that you pick up here and there. You have to piece it together,” Carrazana said. “Here’s an hour putting up posters for Yale Rep. Here’s an hour cleaning up after some luncheon.” Still, Carrazana logged nearly 400

Snapshot

the gap. So, he sought out alternatives. “I’m very lucky that I was able to get SNAP benefits,” Fuller said. “It greatly helped me be able to afford groceries and know where my next meal is coming from and things of that nature.” SNAP may not be a solution to the financial strain all students face, but Fuller also acknowledged that there is no broad overnight solution. “I think people wish it was better,” Fuller added. “I wish it was better. I do think that the school is trying the best they can.” Food insecurity and the need to constantly chase work-study has taken a toll on Carrazana, affecting his ability to focus on his academic and artistic work in his first year. Both faculty members and classmates noticed the strain and frequently asked whether he was okay. The mannequins in a DGSD hallway. He came to the school to hone his hours in his first year—double the work-study opportunities. The response craft, he said, not to usher or staple proguaranteed amount—by leveraging his he receives is overwhelming. “You can grams. Still, Carrazana said the strugcarpentry and electrician skills, and have 20 people respond in two minutes gle was worth it. In an interview this building relationships with supervisors because they need money,” Fuller said. September, he said that he would tell his who reached out to him directly with For a weekend show at the Cabaret, past self that it’s doable because there gigs. But between those shifts and thir- he asked his colleague to send out a call was an end in sight. Now a second year teen-hour days of rehearsal and classes, for a bartender, prep chef, server, and student, he is receiving a greater living he was left with little spare time. house manager. The email got about ten expense scholarship—$9,500 direct aid This year, to promote “equal access” to twenty responses each, and “even days instead of the loan offered to him in his for elective work-study, most opportu- after we’re still getting responses,” he first-year—and is one step closer to getnities are announced to all students each said. Responses were frantic, like “‘I’ll do ting his degree. “When I graduate from morning via email at 8:00 a.m., accord- it, I’ll do it, I’ll do it, I’ll do it, I need it, I here, doors will open and emails will ing to Yionoulis. But demand remains can be here, I can be here,’” Fuller said. get answered that before wouldn’t get high. Fuller works as the managing Fuller receives a $20,000 living answered.” director for the Yale Cabaret for his expense scholarship, and even with assigned work-study hours. Part of his the income from his professional work Kiva Bank is a junior in job entails communicating about elective assignment, he said it isn’t enough to fill Pauli Murray College.

TheNewJournal October 2026

The YCC Tests Its Limits As Yale negotiates a settlement with the Trump administration, the Yale College Council tries out the national spotlight. By Jean-Claude Pierre III PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE YALE COLLEGE COUNCIL LAYOUT DESIGN BY CELINA QU

October 2026 TheNewJournal

layout design by xxx

TheNewJournal October 2026

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ameras clicked and flashed as Alex Chen ’28 stepped forward in a white dress shirt, his sleeves rolled up. He approached a podium set up outside Yale Law School, surrounded by Mayor Justin Elicker, Senator Richard Blumenthal, as well as students, professors, and reporters from local and national outlets. Chen greeted the crowd and introduced himself as the president of the Yale College Council before making his remarks: “We soundly reject any settlement that bargains away our rights, whether that’s our free speech, the safety of our international classmates, our student records, our curriculum and academic freedom, or the integrity of our cultural institutions here on campus.” On June 26, the Times reported that Yale was negotiating a settlement with the the Trump administration after it had accused the medical school of violating Title VI of the Civil Rights Act through Yale’s race-conscious admissions policy. The Justice Department was also investigating undergraduate and law school admissions practices, according to the Times. After the news came out, the YCC helped organize a coalition of students and alumni to protest and urge Yale not to settle. They phone-banked, hosted a roundtable, and kept students informed about settlement proceedings through emails. The YCC, Chen said, should be a “visible public figure.” During a candidate debate before his election in April, he argued the group “should be going to alum offices, donor offices, or the footsteps of the Capitol to demand change.” When I talked with in September, Chen said he believed the settlement would be “the first real test” for him and vice president Michelle Jimenez ’28. “I think it’s fair to say that we jumped very quickly on it,” he said. There are dozens of other issues under the YCC’s purview. It funds Yale-registered student

Alex Chen, President of the Yale College Council.

October 2026 TheNewJournal

clubs and plans events for undergraduates, notably the Spring Fling concert. It tries to foster a positive relationship between Yale and New Haven. Most significantly, the YCC acts as an advocacy group on behalf of Yale’s entire undergraduate student population, seeking to “lend a voice to student concerns and opinions,” “shape University policy,” and “protect student rights and freedoms,” according to its constitution. But to what extent can the YCC effect meaningful change? Institutionally, the organization is the most powerful body for student voice at Yale. But despite its symbolic significance, the YCC holds little to no real power in the Yale administration’s decision making process. Most of the 23 YCC affiliates and Yale advocates I spoke to this summer agree with this assessment. They all acknowledged the YCC as a platform for protecting vulnerable students and holding the administration accountable. Few believed it has been effective. And even fewer agreed on how it could go about doing better. As the current co-president of Publius, Yale’s joint-opinion publication, I was involved in writing an endorsement of Chen and Jimenez for YCC president and vice president in April. Publius argued that Chen was best suited for “success in breaking long-formed cycles of YCC stagnation.” Many I interviewed over the past three months agreed. Many more did not. Chen and Jimenez, however, believe their new strategy—which students began to see in action this summer—will yield new results. With the school year underway and a potential settlement looming, they now have a chance to prove it. *** hy should students give a damn about the W Yale College Council?” former YCC chairman Hal Segall wrote in a 1977 Yale Daily News editorial.

“The YCC is the only organization at Yale designed to guarantee that the interests of all students are taken into account by Yale decision makers,” he answered. The YCC was founded in 1972 by Floyd Bradley ’73 during what he called “a turbulent period” of Yale’s history: “With attention consumed by the advent of coeducation, the war in Vietnam, the Bobby Seale trial, Kent State, the Moratorium, the proliferation of drugs on campus, and other emotional topics, very few people knew of or cared about either the existence or the history of student government at Yale,” Bradley wrote in a 1982 history of the YCC. At the time, Yale’s residential college councils were divided and often defunct, leaving them unable to respond cohesively to events like the 1971 Bobby Seale trial that took place in New Haven. Each council disagreed over how to handle the “influx of outsiders” that poured onto the city’s streets, resulting in “frustration over the lack of a proper avenue for adequate information.” To

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remedy the disunity, Bradley’s Saybrook and memUsing this access, the YCC is most effective bers of other councils formed a “federation.” And so, in moments where the interests of students and the YCC was born. administrators align. This often results in low-fricBradley is a cheery man with chalky white tion improvements on student life. “They fill in an hair and starry eyes, well into his seventies, who info gap for admin,” said Joseph Elsayyid ’26, forreminisces about the YCC the mer senator. “Admin generally way a grandfather speaks of his doesn’t have that information most exciting years. He said for a certain thing that they one of his top priorities was would be willing to change.” Many students and balancing the ratio of male to At the end of former YCC YCC members I spoke female students. “We finally leaders Andrew Boanoh ‘27 to emphasized the do a petition,” he recalled. “It and Jalen Bradley ‘27’s tenure was literally a piece of paper in May, they announced their importance of the YCC’s with lines on it on each dinsuccess in obtaining free launrelationship with Yale ing room entrance.” With a dry for every undergraduate leaders: “No other student Manila folder full of hundreds on campus. In August, under of pages of signatures, he went Chen and Jimenez’s new organization at Yale has on to meet with Yale President administration, YCC introthe same level of access to Kingman Brewster for 30 duced menu rotation across those in seats of power.” minutes. dining halls and new sta“I mean, if you look at today, tions at Commons. They also and it’s a 50-50 ratio, I guess restored summer storage for we were successful,” Bradley low-income students, which said with a playful smile. He said he thought YCC had been phased out earlier in the year. advocacy made a difference on campus. “Did we More meaningful change, however, doesn’t start something? I think so.” seem to be happening. Of the 30 policy proposals On paper, the YCC can advocate for students and two open letters passed by the YCC senate in through policy proposals, petitions, public state- the 2025-26 year, less than seven have led to tanments or resolutions. They also endorse open let- gible changes in Yale policy. Had more YCC polters, written by students and addressed to relevant icy proposals been accepted by Yale administration, administrators. Once submitted, the 28 YCC sena- undergraduates could have digitized IDs, a Black tors, two from each residential college, vote during Studies certificate, and 150 extra points on all meal weekly Senate meetings on whether to pass these plans. Pham’s proposal for a Disability Cultural documents. Center was never realized either. For instance, on October 27, 2024, Sovy Pham And the YCC’s statements and open letters ’26 published an open letter advocating for the from last year concerning larger questions of Yale’s establishment of a Yale Disability Cultural Center. ethics within the broader world—including a call In it, the YCC said its members “unequivocally to join the Fair Food Program and a condemnation support,” the establishment of the center, believing of Yale’s $1 million donor-advised contribution to it would be a “crucial step towards ensuring equity Friends of IDF—have not led to visible change. and accessibility for all Yale community mem- “Just like in our normal government, it takes a lot bers.” After passing in the Senate, the letter was for a policy, once it gets approved, to actually be sent to Mcinnis, Dean Pericles Lewis, and Dean of implemented,” said Kumar. Many proposals, open Academic Affairs George Levesque. letters, and public statements are spoken into a void, The documents are a means to initiate deeper receiving perfunctory responses before being forconversation in meetings with Yale admin. “It gives gotten to time. them backing,” said Surabhi Kumar ’26, a former In her first year, Eleanor Kandoll advocated YCC chief of staff. “This is representative of the for fairer financial aid policies for rural students. student body saying that we are in need of attention Kandoll grew up in Petersburg, Alaska, a small for this problem. And we want to say we should do town of about 3,000 people. In a rural town surthis.” rounded by water, fishing is how Eleanor’s family, Many students and YCC members I spoke to along with many others, have made their living. emphasized the importance of the YCC’s relationYale, however, had counted her family’s fishship with Yale leaders. “No other student organiza- ing boat as an eligible asset to be used to pay tuition at Yale has the same level of access to those in tion. Despite making under $75,000 a year in total seats of power,” said Emily Hettinger ’26, a four- income, her family was ineligible for any financial year officer of the YCC. “The YCC, they meet with aid. If nothing were to change, it was very likely Dean Lewis all the time. They meet with the pres- that Kandoll would no longer be able to attend Yale ident of the University, they even meet with the in her second year. Board of Trustees.” That institutional standing gives So, she sought help from the YCC. “I heard the YCC a channel to regularly bring student issues through a friend in the YCC that you could get directly to Yale administrators. YCC support,” Kandoll told me. “I did so with the TheNewJournal October 2026

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The high executive board of the YCC, from left to right: Brendan Kaminski ’28, Alex Chen ’28, Michelle Jimenez ’28, and Kyler Parker ’29

open letter.” She drafted the letter, and attended a hen and Jimenez started their term in May YCC Senate meeting to explain her situation and thinking they were going to have a quiet sumencourage signatures on it. She also came to find mer of behind-the-scenes preparation. They both “nearly a dozen” other Yale students caught in the had full-time jobs, but were on Zoom every night on same situation. “The more I search for a solution to weekdays and eight hours a day on weekends doing my problem, the more I discover that I’m far from YCC work. the only one facing it,” she wrote in the letter pub“The biggest error that is repeated every single lished in November 2025. year is that no actual substantive work was done Signed by 150 students, the letter was then sent over the summer,” Chen said. “We’re putting ourto McInnis, Lewis, undergraduate admissions dean selves in a position where we can deliver things relJeremiah Quinlan ’03, financial aid director Karensa atively soon.” DiFonzo, and Provost Scott Strobel. Kandoll said Then came reports of the settlement in June. they offered no real response. “They claimed that “There’s something in the news, and I see the because they had talked to me about the open letter word Yale,” Chen recalled. “And it’s like okay, we before I submitted it, that counted as a response.” need to think carefully about the repercussions of Quinlan wrote in an email that he met with this.” The clock was ticking, and the student body Kandoll twice last year. “I also make it regular prac- was at risk for losing their rights. “Alex and I really tice to meet with a group of YCC leaders inter- thought about how the settlement was going to ested in financial aid policy. I usually meet with the affect students,” said Jimenez. “We thought we YCC group 4-5 times/year and we have already met should respond in order to protect our fellow stutwice in the past few months this academic year.” dents or do what was right by students.” McInnis, Lewis, DiFonzo, and Strobel did not Alongside Stand Up For Yale, an alumni advorespond to requests for comment. cacy group, YCC was the first student organizaKandoll’s enrollment at Yale remained imper- tion to take a stand against the settlement, said iled, but not much else happened through the YCC Chen. He noted YCC’s role in building “a coalion her behalf. The next Senate meeting would focus tion between people who’ve never talked before”— on Canvas course registration worksheets, constitu- alumni from years back, Yale College Democrats, tional amendments, and a potential ASL certificate. the American Association of University Professors, Kandoll is currently at home on a gap year, reevalu- and other groups. He added that the YCC was ating her options. “engaging press in a way that I don’t think other— “Honestly, I feel that the YCC doesn’t actu- at least in recent memory—student governments ally do much,” she told me. “In the time that I’ve beyond Yale are doing.” been here, I’ve come to believe that they’re more of McInnis’s first reported response to the talks a mouthpiece for administration than they are for of a settlement was an email to Chen and Jimenez, students.” which has not been made public. On July 23, they had a private meeting with McInnis. Soon after, Jimenez wrote to Yale Daily News that she was not 20

October 2026 TheNewJournal

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assured by the meeting, and that McInnis did not administration decide not to engage in conversadirectly address their concerns. tion with the YCC, she said, then before the the The jury “is still out as to whether or not we smaller, tangible problems “we do want to address handled that the right way,” Chen said. Of the set- immediately, they have that leverage then to say, tlement, he said there “could be any range of out- ‘we’re not going to do that.’” comes. We might not even see an outcome this year at this rate. No one really knows.” *** For now, however, the YCC is focused on using the things at its disposal to build pressure on the t another corner of the activism scene, Elis administration. “One of the YCC’s most credible for Rachael, a mental health advocacy group tools is the noise it can make,” Chen said. Using that implemented historic medical leave reforms in media presence, alumni involvement, and public 2023 through national media attention and a lawprotests—all part of what Chen called “perfor- suit, believes escalation is the only way to get Yale mance”—Chen and Jimenez hope to leverage that to listen. “The two levers that I think of as the only visibility in their negotiations with Yale’s deci- ones that Yale responds to are money and reputation,” sion-makers. “None of this exists in a vacuum,” said Paul Johansen ’88, the group’s president. “We hit Chen said. “Part of this perthem in the reputation zone.” formance, again, will trickle A crux of college advocacy, out to things that are not setas Viktor Kagan ’24, a past YCC tlement related.” senator, puts it, is its inherent “This time-bound endeavor Leaders before Chen transience. “Everything operates and Jimenez, however, took in at most a 4 year cycle,” he said. is in part why Chen said he notably different approaches, “Then they don’t have to have to and Jimenez have taken often opting to work within worry about you being that pasa near ‘obsessive’ and the establishment’s forsionate advocate.” mal powers. They primarily Chen and Jimenez’s ten‘psychotic’ approach to focused on Senate legislation ure ends in seven months, and their work—‘I only have and meetings with adminthey will graduate in 2028. The basically a year to push istrators to effect change. In questions and obstacles that surthe past four years, no YCC round their roles, however, will through with this,’ he said.” president other than Chen outlive their time at Yale. This has appeared on national time-bound endeavor is in part media. Former presidents why Chen said he and Jimenez Mimi Papathanasopoulos have taken a near “obsessive” ’26 and Boanoh did not respond to requests for an and “psychotic” approach to their work—“I only interview; former vice presidents Esha Garg ’26 and have basically a year to push through with this,” Bradley also declined to comment for this article. Chen said. “And I hope that a successor adopts a This form of leadership is largely informed by similar philosophy,” the belief that building goodwill and trust with To fight against this “loss of institutional memadministrators is more effective in negotiation ory,” as Chen put it, they are letting their voice than escalatory pressure. Andrew Cedar ’06, YCC ring far beyond unfinished campaigns and forgotPresident in 2004-05, stood by this method over ten policies—even beyond Yale. As for whether it direct confrontation. “I believed that having really works? “The verdict is still out,” Chen said. “We good relationships with the Yale corporation, with might not even see an outcome this year at this rate. the president, with the dean were important parts No one really knows.” of getting stuff done,” he said. Cedar brought up the example of his advocacy for Yale’s responsible energy use. “We didn’t show Jean-Claude Pierre III is a junior in up banging on pots and pans,” he said. “We walked Berkeley College. into Rick Levin’s office in Woodbridge Hall, and we knew more about the energy consumption patterns and procurement of Yale University than probably anybody outside of the facilities department.” Levin, Yale’s president at the time, thus viewed them not as activists, Cedar said, but as students who had come prepared to work toward solutions. Yale announced in October 2005 that it would commit to cut its emissions to ten percent below its 1990 levels over the next 15 years, which it did. Cedar believed his advocacy had contributed to this change. Kumar, former YCC Chief of Staff, also believes an adversarial approach can interfere with Yale College Council meeting, 1997. the YCC’s ability to negotiate day-to-day issues. If

TheNewJournal October 2026

Review

been steeped in as I’ve been mourning, and feelings I think are familiar to anyone in a diaspora family web,” Kuang wrote on her Substack in April. After a week of reading about Lily’s friend drama and tourist adventures, it became clear that feelings of insufficiency and shame do play an important role in shaping Lily—unfortunately, they also make up her entire character. From the very first page, Lily makes a distinction between “real” Chinese people and Chinese Americans: the latter, with their summer tans and ruddy cheeks, “always looked like Chinese people put through a broiler.” When she begins to visit some of Taipei’s most popular tourist destinations with In R.F. Kuang’s Taipei Story, a reader looks for her peers, her lack of cultural authority self in the protagonist. consumes her. Lily imagines embarrassing herself while ordering food in By Velvet Wu Mandarin, wondering how cashiers can tell she is American before she opens her utside the open door of a mouth. These details, coupled with a few Humanities Quadrangle lecture descriptions of her strained familial relaroom, I had, like every other person tionships constitute Lily’s entire characstraining their neck to catch a glimpse ter in the first half of the novel. of the podium, arrived too late to secure Why, then, does Lily want to learn one of its 187 seats. We were jostling to Mandarin? A generic statement about see award-winning novelist Rebecca F. “trying to reconnect with heritage” is all Kuang, also a doctoral candidate in Yale’s that Kuang does to set up the stakes of East Asian Languages and Literatures Lily’s summer before the novel reaches department and, in Spring 2025, an its climax, when her grandfather passes. instructor of the popular essay-writing Despite Lily’s desire to become more seminar, English 1020. There was already culturally fluent, she is unable, in Kuang’s a group of spectators sitting cross-legged own words, to think about Taiwan’s geoon the floor at the back of the audito- political history “beyond binary ideologrium, and the mass of eager students was ical frameworks.” While visiting Beitou, still growing behind me. a region once colonized by the Japanese, I was there partly to get credit for Lily remembers one of her teachers my creative writing seminar and partly explaining that, in comparison to mainbecause I had read some of Kuang’s work. land China, Taiwan experienced relaKuang’s seventh novel, Taipei Story, was tive peace and order under the Japanese released on September 8. I had found regime. When it comes to forming her some of her past novels, like Babel and own judgement on this claim, howYellowface, to be somewhat overengi- ever, she quickly defers to teachings of neered. But, as a Chinese American Yale her previous history classes—who was student figuring herself out, I had hoped she to say that any colonizer was better that Taipei Story, a novel about a Chinese than another when she had already been American Yale student figuring herself taught that “colonialism was bad and out, might especially resonate with me. self-determination was good”? The story is based on Kuang’s own In the middle of a friendship fallexperience as a child of Chinese immi- ing-out, Lily’s mother informs her via grants, grieving the death of her grand- text that her Gonggong has passed away. father while abroad. Like her protagonist Now, Lily cries on the floor until her ribs Lily Chen, Kuang processed her loss hurt, and she can’t sit up straight. She during an intensive Mandarin program blows her nose until she feels “like a at National Taiwan University. Taipei spoon had dug out everything wet and Story grew partially from diary entries dirty inside.” Her Popo, or grandmother, she wrote during her time abroad. “The can barely speak because of a stroke, and novel is written from a place of insuffi- Lily can feel her slipping away. She wresciency, regret, and shame—feelings I’ve tles with the thought that she may never

Identity Trappings

October 2026 TheNewJournal

be able to recollect her family’s history. Her grief finally allows us to understand the real stakes of the novel, which are Lily’s dreams of making her family whole again. Unfortunately, these revelations come too little and too late. In 2018, Kuang told the South China Morning Post that she found it difficult to get her family to speak about the past. Lily’s character growth echoes Kuang’s own attempts to learn about her family history during grief. Kuang’s maternal grandfather fought for Chiang Kai-shek, and her father’s family experienced the Japanese occupation of Hunan. Like both Kuang and Lily, I grew up the daughter of first-generation Chinese immigrants. As a kid, I felt ashamed of looking so Chinese yet not speaking fluent Mandarin. It’s the impulse to be recognized as the person she is assumed to be—adequently Chinese—that drives Lily’s desire to establish the missing cultural authority in herself. That very understanding of her as a person, however, makes me wish all the more that Kuang portrayed her as a full human being from the start. Diaspora children may very well feel out of place in the home countries of their families. And yes, they are stuck in a limbo trying to assimilate into both the cultures their parents have immigrated to and the cultures they left. But what Kuang fails to demonstrate is that none of these things are what should make Lily who she is. Even the details of Lily’s trauma, which make her whole in the minds of readers, don’t make up for real personality traits, beliefs, hobbies, or interests, because all trauma is unique. We don’t even learn what Lily studies at Yale. I ended up leaving Kuang’s lecture on language learning early. I had already been marked for attendance for my creative writing seminar and was getting tired of peering through the gaps between people’s bodies just to catch the edge of Kuang’s jet black hair. To be honest, much of what Kuang was saying about symbolic systems of language was getting tedious. When Taipei Story was released, Kuang published another Substack article. In defense of her character, Kuang wrote that Lily is “just a girl.” I can’t help but wish that she could have given this girl just a bit more. Velvet Wu is a junior in Davenport College. illustration by jane callanan

Poem

Late Summer in Virginia The creak and then the call, like monks in pews, These green priests roar at heat’s low antiphon, Tight wound cicadas—now shrieks one, now two, Now millions—hid under apples high strung And still light in their mean and young, tart starch. From the elm tree nooks and the slight dog-wood Nests, new squirrels hurry down and bend the arched Branches to sniff and shake in a new mood— Whole trees shifting with the same silent weight. So dandelions all retire in The summer heat, and blown bleak willows wait Too, with every thin green stem, for the wind To ripe and reel and break wide all in white The seedy world, like a wedding dress Or the moon at night. — Morgan Vannell

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TheNewJournal October 2026

No Budget for Justice Stefon Morant sued corrupt cops and the City of New Haven for his wrongful incarceration and won. What could his multimillion dollar award mean for the city? By Ethan Kan

October 2026 TheNewJournal

layout design by serina yan photo by angus bruce

n april, Stefon Morant and the former police detective who wrongfully imprisoned him for twenty-one years entered a windowless federal courtroom in Hartford, Connecticut. Morant, dressed in a striped shirt and black blazer, took a seat at the plaintiff ’s table with his lawyers. A few feet away sat former detective Vincent Raucci, the defendant. Stefon Morant v. City of New Haven opened with an argument from one of Morant’s attorneys, Nick Brustin. “Almost exactly 32 years ago Stefon Morant was wrongfully convicted for a New Haven double homicide he had nothing to do with and knew nothing about,” he said. The charges Brustin raised against Raucci were serious: fabricating statements, coercing witnesses, and hiding evidence of Morant’s innocence. Brustin also argued that the city had a “widespread practice” of suppressing exculpatory evidence, or evidence favorable to criminal defendants, as he said Raucci had done in Morant’s case. Morant and his lawyers Commons banquet, early 1900s. Photo Credit: Detroit Publishing Co. had an F.B.I. investigation, forensic analysis, and Hartford’s Abraham A. Ribicoff United States Courthouse. eyewitness testimony to back them up. Morant was seeking millions in damages from in the city’s history, after a $45 million settlement the city of New Haven. Morant spent twenty-one to Randy Cox, who was paralyzed in a police van years in prison, “locked in a cage, away from his chil- in 2022. Because the city did not have insurance at dren, his family, his life,” Brustin said. “This trial will the time of Morant’s conviction, it would have to be an important step forward.” pay every dime. Thirty-eight million dollars is over The city’s counsel, Thomas Gerarde, argued that six times what New Haven budgeted for its public there was no evidence of libraries this year, and more than police misconduct. He said half of what’s allocated to the New Morant was guilty. “This is Haven Police Department. not a case of wrongful conThe city has already paid over “‘The city and its residents viction. There is no basis $1 million in legal fees related to for the award of any money Morant’s lawsuit. Four other wrongshould not be made to pay damages,” he said. ful conviction lawsuits against the damages for the actions of On May 29, after a city are pending, with plaintiffs hoptwo officers who knowingly month in trial and twoing to recover damages in the tens, or and-a-half days of delibereven hundreds of millions. wrongfully engaged in ation, the jury found that Morant, who The New Journal isolated, unsanctioned the city of New Haven interviewed in 2021, declined to actions’over 35 years ago.’” had a pattern of suppressspeak for this story. Instead, I talked ing exculpatory evidence. to city officials, law experts, civil When the judge asked the rights attorneys, former police detecforeperson how much the tives, and other men incarcerated for jury would award in damages, he looked directly at crimes they didn’t commit. As the costs of these setMorant and said, “$38 million.” tlements begin to add up, New Haven is reckoning Morant banged his fist on the plaintiff ’s table with whether today’s taxpayers should have to pay so and began to tear up. He emerged from the court- much for the police department’s crimes. As for the house with his family and attorneys. “Hopefully I men who spent most of their lives in prison because can move on with my life from this point,” he told an of NHPD misconduct: will any amount of compenNBC television crew outside. sation be enough? The city immediately announced it would appeal the verdict. “The city and its residents should not *** be made to pay damages for the actions of two officers who knowingly wrongfully engaged in isolated, n a cold night in January 1990, Raucci—a unsanctioned actions over 35 years ago,” Mayor Justin veteran officer known in the department as Elicker wrote in a press release published later that “Vinny”—took Morant to a room at the police day. “That is unfair to the hard-working residents station. On the table, Raucci had two typed witand taxpayers of New Haven.” ness statements implicating Morant and his friend, Pending the city’s post-judgment motions for an Scott Lewis, for the murder of former alderman appeal, the award could become the second largest Ricardo Turner and his partner three months earlier.

TheNewJournal October 2026 TheNewJournal

Stefon Morant outside the courthouse. Credit: Mona Mahadevan, the New Haven Independent. Scott Lewis. Credit: Mona Mahadevan, the New Haven Independent.

According to the statements, Morant had driven was the basis for his warrant. Two years later, a jury Lewis to the couple’s apartment, where Lewis ran found him guilty on two counts of felony murder, upstairs and shot the two in their bedroom. Morant and he was sentenced to seventy years in prison. “My and Lewis then drove off and threw the gun into the whole body just rocked,” Morant recounted on a Mill River, the statements said. radio show of his reaction to the verdict. Morant had an alibi—he’d been visiting famYears passed before the full extent of Raucci’s ily in North Carolina when the murders happened, misconduct emerged. In 1995, Morant’s supposed he said—but Raucci forced him to confess anyway. co-conspirator Lewis, who was being held in the If he refused, Raucci told Morant he would get a New Haven Community Correctional Center, made million-dollar bond, or worse, a request “to speak to an F.B.I. the electric chair. Morant had agent about police corruption,” planned to go to the club that according to F.B.I. records. Lewis night, and he couldn’t think tipped off agents who later found “Raucci forced him to confess straight under the marijuana, evidence of a drug distribution beer, and Cisco, a fortified network Raucci ran with another anyway. If he refused, Raucci wine also known as “liquid known dealer, Frank Parese. They told Morant he would get crack” he had taken before also found he had been “involved a million-dollar bond, or Raucci picked him up. After in the ‘set up’ of Lewis and two or three hours, he gave in. Morant,” and had used coercive worse, the electric chair.” Raucci, joined by another interrogation techniques in other detective, Vaughn Maher, cases—the same he’d used on turned on the analog recorder. Morant and the five other witWhen Morant said something nesses in his case. wrong, Raucci would stop the tape, rewind it, correct With all the evidence against Raucci from the Morant, and start recording again. A later analysis 1995 F.B.I. report, Lewis and Morant tried to appeal by an F.B.I. forensic expert revealed at least nine their convictions. Only in 2013, 21 years after they instances of stops and starts in Morant’s tape. In were first arrested, did a federal judge finally order trial testimony, Raucci denied ever coercing a witness. Lewis’ release from prison, unless the state wanted (He did not reply to several requests for an interview. to retry him, which they didn’t. He was fully exonerHis lawyer, James Tallberg, said he was not available ated in 2015. That same year, Morant got his sentence to comment due to pending litigation.) reduced from 70 to 25 years and returned home from Morant was arrested in February 1992. The forced prison before being granted an absolute pardon in confession, along with the two witness statements, 2021. Under Connecticut’s compensation statute for 26

October 2026 TheNewJournal

Feature

wrongful incarceration, Morant was paid $5.8 million who spoke for this story said they never directly witin 2025. nessed any wrongdoing in the New Haven Police Both went on to sue the city of New Haven and Department. One of them, Chris Mahon, retired as the cops who’d framed them. In 2016, Lewis filed a sergeant in 2007. For him, the question of whether suit, making the case for the city’s liability. Their law- the force had a culture of misconduct provable under yers quickly settled for $9.5 million. On a radio show, Monell was complicated. Some misconduct might then–Mayor Toni Harp explained that the city set- have been unintentional, Mahon said. “Sloppy and tled because it could have risked paying a lot more at lazy don’t necessarily equate to bad intent.” trial. “It’s unfortunate,” she said, John Velleca retired as act“and we’re paying for it.” ing chief of police in 2012 after In 2022, it was Morant’s twenty years at the NHPD. turn to sue. Morant and the city He said that detectives in the were unable to reach an agreenineties were informally split ment that year—later, Mayor into two camps: the A-team “‘Now, all the taxpayers have Elicker would tell the press that and the B-team. The A-team Morant’s proposed settlements was known for solving cases by to pay that price, and we then were “well beyond” reaany means necessary—includsacrifice our moral clarity.”’ sonable and the city could not ing coerced confessions and come to an agreement with his suppressing exculpatory evilawyers. The proceedings are dence. Supervisors gave them confidential. high-profile cases. “It was more The city tried to win sumlike, ‘Go get this done. I don’t mary judgment—ending the care how you do it. And I don’t lawsuit before it went to trial—arguing that the want to know how you do it,’” he said. According to judge should rule in its favor because the evidence for Velleca, the B-team received fewer cases because they Morant’s municipal liability claims was insufficient. refused to use A-team tactics. In the fall of 2025, the judge denied its motions. Both Velleca was hesitant to say that the entire NHPD the city and Morant prepared to face off in court. had a culture of misconduct, but as far as the A-team Civil rights attorney Alex Taubes, who rep- was concerned—“Yes, absolutely,” he said. “We knew resents alder Troy Streater in another wrongful con- one day, eventually, that this stuff was going to come viction suit, said the city should have settled with around.” Morant when it had the chance to. “There was no reason to take the case to trial except to gamble the city’s dollars at the expense of its soul,” he said. “Now, *** all the taxpayers have to pay that price, and we sacrifice our moral clarity.” (Gerarde, the city’s lawyer, did ome observers of Morant v. City of New Haven not reply to several requests for an interview.) were surprised by the city’s decision to align itself Morant sued the city under the Monell doc- with Raucci. Allegations in this case aside, Raucci had trine, which holds that local government entities resigned from the NHPD before he could be fired for and municipalities can be two unrelated internal affairs cases, according to the liable for their employees’ New Haven Independent. Two years prior, he had been constitutional violations. detained in New Mexico for trafficking drugs. Proving Monell liabilOn the stand, Raucci did not prove a reliable witity, however, is difficult— ness. When Brustin pressed him on why he’d failed rather than finding an to investigate the previous prime suspect, Michael individual police officer or Cardwell, Raucci offered five explanations. Some detective guilty, one must seemed benign, like how he couldn’t find the invesprove that a government’s tigative file. Others had never been mentioned in the official policy, unwritten case’s 30-year history, like how he had interviewed custom, or policymaker the hotel clerk that Cardwell claimed saw him that caused a city employee to night. violate victims’ rights. “It’s “Is that the one you want to stick with?” Brustin a post-hoc remedy,” said asked Raucci. Yale Law School professor “Which one would you choose?” Raucci Miriam Gohara of Monell. responded. “For a person who’s been To prove that the police department had had a convicted and lost decades widespread practice of suppressing exculpatory eviof their life, that’s a cold dence, Morant’s legal team compiled an extensive comfort. But hopefully history of other cases involving similar misconduct. it also prevents the same Two former officers also testified that it was custom behavior from happening to leave out exculpatory or impeachment evidence again.” from police reports. When Charles Drago, a police Five former officers practices expert called to testify by Morant’s attorneys,

TheNewJournal October 2026

Feature

Morant (left) and Lewis (right) in 2015. Credit: Paul Bass, the New Haven Independent.

was asked if he’d ever seen such a blatant admission the curtains closed because he doesn’t want to look to suppressing evidence of innocence, he said, “I have out the window. “I have to sit in the dark with Stefon never seen it to that extent, no.” sometimes, and I ask myself, oh my Lord, who’s The city could prove it had procedures to prevent going to live life like this?” she said. His psychiatrist, the mishandling of evidence in place at the time. It Adeyinka Akinsulure Smith, diagnosed the problem was less clear whether those rules had been properly in clinical terms: chronic post-traumatic stress disorfollowed. For the trial, a police practices expert hired der and dysthymia, or low-grade depression. “These by the city, Jerry Rodriguez, sent in a stipulation of are scars, these are wounds that will remain,” she said. facts—a list of facts that both sides agree are true— On the day that Morant testified, he revealed that stating that the NHPD’s policies “met the require- he was turning fifty-eight. He was bald and his thick ments” for a police department’s beard was graying. “Mr. Morant,” code of conduct. It did not the judge said as she wrapped comment on whether they had up proceedings that morning, “I adhered these policies. just wanted to wish you a happy The trial’s final three days birthday.” were reserved for assessing “I have to sit in the dark with Morant’s damages. This was Stefon sometimes, and I ask when Morant finally testified *** myself, ‘oh my Lord, who’s on the stand. At MacDougall Correctional Facility, he said, n closing arguments, going to live life like this?’” his cellmates were murderGerarde’s opening-day coners, arsonists, and rapists. His viction of Morant’s guilt was second name was prison numconspicuously absent. The jury ber 129982, and he was often returned the verdict of $38 million, subjected to degrading strip and the city protested it: “That is searches. He spent eleven months in solitary confine- just too much of a burden for our residents, and we ment. While he was in prison, his father and brother can’t just accept that high a number,” Elicker said in died. He told the jury, “I was never able to properly an interview with NBC Connecticut. When I asked mourn anybody’s death.” Elicker for comment through city spokesperson, Morant’s family also testified. His daughter, Lenny Speiller, he pointed me to Elicker’s previous Twyla Stephenson, remembered crying at the end statements. of every fifteen-minute phone call with her dad. His In late June, the city filed two post-judgment son, Julian Sobin, listed off every milestone Morant motions. In one of them, they asked the judge for a hadn’t been there for: communions, parties, gradua- new trial or to lower the damages to a maximum of tions— “anything you can think of, he’s missed,” he $16 million. In another filing—a renewed motion for said. His wife, Kimberly Morant, said that he keeps judgment—the city asked the judge to override the

October 2026 TheNewJournal

Feature

jury by arguing that Morant had insufficient evidence are more liabilities, he said, and lenders impose to prove a culture of misconduct at the NHPD. higher interest rates when they worry about not The city also argued that it was not responsible being paid back. Nevertheless, McCarthy said for indemnifying Raucci. Under state law, cities are that the payouts would not seriously compromise liable for civil rights infringements committed by an the city’s financial health. “The money is relatively employee unless the employee’s actions were “willeasy to figure out,” he said. “The politics are a lot ful or wanton.” Raucci’s misconduct, they said, was squishier.” intentional. If the judge agrees with the city, it could The city may not want to pay, but some think be left up to Raucci and Maher to pay. “I don’t know it must. Paul Bass ‘82, journalist and founder of the how that will be worked out, the who-pays-what New Haven Independent, said that by maintaining part,” said Karen Blum, an expert that Morant was guilty, the city in police misconduct litigation. returned “to the darkest chapter At the time of Morant’s verof our history.” “They told the dict award, there were six other entire Black community, the wrongly imprisoned men still people who went to prison for actively litigating against the city. decades and their families, that “‘The money is relatively easy Marquis Jackson and Vernon we are fine with what we did to figure out,’ he said. ‘The Horn’s joint trial was set for to them,” he said of the city’s politics are a lot squishier.’” September, and Adam Carmon opening arguments. “In that had one in January. Troy Streater’s moment, we told all the police lawsuit and that of George Gould officers to stop trying to police and Ronald Taylor’s estates were better and just lock up Black still gathering evidence. Other people on no basis for the rest people who were wrongfully conof their lives.” victed might also file suit one day. If all of them go Elicker later said the city’s arguments at the to trial, the city runs the risk of equally high—if not beginning of the trial were “not what was agreed higher—payouts. upon beforehand.” Allison Jacobs, the city’s Kevin McCarthy, a retired policy analyst for Corporation Counsel, wrote in an email that trial Connecticut’s state legislature, said that in the long strategy is “typically handled by the attorneys, term, the city’s increased “risk exposure” could make often without live input or oversight by the parit more expensive to borrow money for capital investties.” In early August, the city let Gerarde go and ments. Insurers charge a higher premium when there hired new lawyers for all of its pending lawsuits. Nobody knew what legal strategy it would pursue next. Then, on August 12, the city did in Jackson and Horn’s case what it had not done in Morant’s: it decided to settle. *** n may, Marquis Jackson sat in the Hartford IMorant courthouse as Morant delivered his testimony. had been Jackson’s camp counselor at

Camp Farnam in Durham, Connecticut, when Jackson was eleven or twelve; in prison, the two had crossed paths. Jackson had a joint trial with Vernon Horn scheduled for September. In 1999, police officers had coerced witnesses and concealed evidence to convict them of a murder they didn’t commit. Horn spent 17 years in prison, Jackson 19. Jackson dreaded testifying for his upcoming trial. “I didn’t want to relive my incarceration for another jury to look at me and weigh me,” he said. “I didn’t want to be weighed again.” But after Morant’s verdict, Jackson said that the city, with its new lawyers, seemed more amenable to a settlement. “It was a Hail Mary, ‘please help us do this,’ and it didn’t work out,” he said of Elicker’s post-verdict denial of the city’s liability. “I think they understand that now.” The city paid Jackson and Horn $15.25 million apiece. Five of the total $30.5 million is covered TheNewJournal October 2026

and apologized for his situation. “It meant a lot to me that the city is recognizing its wrongdoing,” he said. In prison, Jackson didn’t know if he would ever have children. He has two girls now, one six years old and the other eighteen months. He’s engaged and planning a wedding for next year. His settlement will allow him to travel and go into real estate. “It makes me smile just thinking about my prospects for the future, what I can do, how I can help people,” he said. He still loves New Haven and hopes to give back to the city where his friends and family live. He’s even considering a run for aldership. *** n legal jargon, to be “made whole” is to be fully Imoney compensated for injury and losses. No amount of could make up for lost time. Lewis said that

Vernon Horn (left) and Marquis Jackson (right) outside the New Haven County Courthouse. Credit: Tom Breen, the New Haven Independent.

by insurance. To pay the rest, the city sent an ordinance to the Board of Alders, requesting permission to borrow $27 million. On September 14, the Board of Alders Finance Committee met and approved the request. “Every single committee member agreed that it was the right thing to do to pay this settlement,” said Adam Marchand, the Finance Committee chair. “It was more a question of the right mechanism, so we soften as much as possible the impact on our budget and our taxpayers.” The bigger problem, he recognized, was the accumulated liability the city might incur down the line. Marchand said that the Finance Committee is exploring its options, including soliciting state funding. Speiller, spokesperson for the mayor, said that the city is discussing “possible additional coverage for these settlements” with its carriers. Marchand noted, however, that no insurer would cover the entirety of a multimillion-dollar settlement. Jackson thought it was unfortunate that the taxpayers would have to pay, but he saw his lawsuit as an opportunity to hold the city accountable. “If you don’t sue, it’s like it never happened because they could brush things under the rug,” he said. Jackson thought of the settlement as an apology. He was touched when Elicker shook his hand, looked him in the eye, 30

October 2026 TheNewJournal

his $9 million settlement could not bring back the nineteen years he’d spent in prison. Jackson said no sum could heal the hurt he’d endured. One wrongly convicted man, who spoke to me on the condition of anonymity, is still working with his lawyer to clear his name. Until that happens, he cannot be compensated. But he said the money wasn’t important to him. “I want justice,” he said. “I want the people who did me dirty locked up as well.” In a civil suit, a settlement is the closest a plaintiff can get to justice. The city’s appeal in Morant’s case has not yet been decided, and until then, the judge has paused the $38 million payment. As for the other lawsuits, Elicker said in a public statement that “we evaluate each case and the merits of each case.” “There’s probably a slew of people who are in jail who shouldn’t be, who are never going to get a payday and who are never going to get help,” said Velleca, the former assistant police chief. “That’s just the reality.” Ethan Kan is a junior in Saybrook College and publisher of The New Journal.

TheNewJournal October 2026

Endnote

What the World Can’t Say A writer confronts two kinds of losses amid the World Cup in Argentina. By Anna Koontz

y sister and I are biking along the Hudson, our blue and white #10 jerseys sticky with sweat. Across the river is New Jersey, and somewhere in New Jersey is the MetLife Stadium, and somewhere in the stadium is Messi himself warming up for the World Cup final. An albiceleste blur zooms by. “¡Vamos Argentina!” I yell. The fans return the greeting. We pull over at Pier 86, one of New York’s outdoor watch party sites. The park is flooded with Argentine and Spanish flags, faces smeared with red and blue paint, and heated Spanglish conversations. Everyone cheers as the players kick off, and the championship match begins. I have just returned from two months studying abroad in Buenos Aires. Glancing back at the river, it is surreal to realize that I am now in such proximity to the players who dominated the street art, ads, and conversations of Argentina’s capital city. I went to Buenos Aires to learn Spanish. When I arrived, I thought that meant memorizing translations. I hadn’t yet experienced how words bundle contexts and connotations that don’t always pair with an English meaning. I also didn’t expect to be learning to process grief when, a few weeks before the opening match, a friend from home passed away. I knew fútbol meant soccer, but I didn’t understand why the sport would inspire city-wide cheers sustained for minutes after every goal. I knew death was inevitable, but I didn’t understand how a life could be so fleeting. From June to July in Buenos Aires and New York, I followed each of Argentina’s 2026 World Cup matches. I watched in a midday classroom, listened in a late-evening car ride, and cheered in 32

October 2026 TheNewJournal

a midnight plaza. Every game propelled Argentina towards defending their championship and expanded my own outlook and language for making sense of the world around me. But what if the team fell short, or if words couldn’t suffice?

on a public bus. I didn’t bow to Messi, but I could identify the impulse: bowing makes oneself smaller to be a part of something greater. Argentina won, and we poured back to the street. Adrift in a surging crowd and shrieking voices, I wonder what I would be willing to make myself small for. JUNE 22, ARGENTINA VS. AUSTRIA charcuterie board arrived Taltyhesometime after Messi missed his penshot and before he broke a world

record. Teachers and students slowly got up, filled plates with cheese and berries, and made small talk while keeping an eye on the screen. Watching a 2 p.m. game in the study center lounge was not as thrilling as a midnight party. In a calmer setting, however, I paid more attention to the match. A pass to JUNE 16, ARGENTINA VS. Messi. An eruption of cheers. During ALGERIA the replay we watched the ball soar in slow motion, defying physics and the essi silently watched my class- clump of opposing players. mates and I meander through the The second goal happened during night. His face peered out from murals stoppage time. With only two minutes on the walls, posters in shop windows, to spare, Austria blocked an Argentine and t-shirts of fans filling the streets. attempt. The ball flew between players, a Eventually we were absorbed into the kick, a twist, another handful of cheese mob, funneled through metal detectors, and berries. Messi charged forward, and spat into a plaza dense with antici- missed a shot, rebounded, and suddenly pation for Argentina’s first game. everyone was standing in celebration. Our stumbling laughter blended Afterward, our teacher shared a easily into the chaos. Crowds swarmed a piece by Argentine writer Leila Sucari, ring of food trucks and drones swooped “Fútbol también es poesía.” Soccer also is overhead. A stranger painted glit- poetry. ter on our faces. In the darkness, I felt We read aloud Sucari’s journey from bioluminescent. indifference to enamoration during the I took off my jacket to blanket 2022 World Cup. Watching the beauty muddy grass. Winter air seeped into my of the players’ movements was “épico” or skin, but the crush of bodies generated epic, a word whose origin she traces back a temporary warmth. On the screen, a to ancient Greek dramas. few men in another continent chased a “Si la poesía – como el amor – es eso ball, and the thousands of people sur- que abre, que irrumpe, que toca una fibra rounding me reacted as if they shared a íntima capaz de generar un movimiento spiritual connection. When a close-up sísmico… el fútbol de la Scaloneta es highlighted Messi, rows of people began pura poesía,” Sucari wrote. If poetry – like to bow. love – is that that opens, that bursts, that At first, the scene seemed ridiculous. strikes a deep chord able to generate a seismic Bending down before a digital projec- movement… the soccer of Argentina’s team tion of a 39-year-old? Punching the sky is pure poetry. with every goal? But even as an outsider That day’s match had been dynamic. to the Argentine fandom, the need for But Sucari’s description conjured another catharsis was something I could recog- image of my friend and her violin. From nize. I knew it from the weight of my powerful arpeggios to tender melodies, friend’s embrace backstage and the tears she would relax into the music: closthat had recently streamed down my face ing her eyes as she performed, jokingly

LAYOUT DESIGN BY Anna Koontz

spinning circles in rehearsal while still sustaining beautiful sound. Her music was pure poetry. If notes sung from an instrument could be so moving, maybe a player’s grace on the soccer pitch could merit similar admiration. A flash of beauty that passes in an instant, the afterimage beneath my eyes lingering from a light too bright.

be in the sky tens of thousands of feet over South America. Or that’s what I expected, until I saw red flash across the airport timetable: Vuelo cancelado. Cancelled flight. With no available flights for the next two days, my host parents kindly invited me to return. I retraced my steps through migration and security, then found myself stranded on the curb with a crowd awaiting Ubers. The steady flow of cars suddenly thinned as the match JULY 11, ARGENTINA VS. began. SWITZERLAND By then, it shouldn’t have surprised me that the World Cup distorts daily life. t was 10:28pm and i had been stand- I had seen shops shutter during midday ing in front of the airport for almost matches and hospitalizations spike from forty minutes. My Uber was nowhere in game-induced stress. When Argentina sight. I blamed Messi. beat Cabo Verde, the restaurant I was in During the past couple days, I had erupted into literal sobs of relief and an prepared for my flight home. I packed impromptu dance party lasting over half my suitcase and enjoyed the last meals an hour. No one had eaten any dinner yet. with my host family. The news, playing Grief, too, could bend time and priin the background of our dinner conver- orities. During many nights, I wondered sations, fixated on a different upcoming about death, thinking about what should event: the Argentina-Switzerland match. matter in a finite life. There was no way Reporters spoke about team statistics to determine or explain the length of a and Swiss chocolate bans in local ice lifespan; I couldn’t even control the timcream shops. ing of the fútbol schedule. When the players kicked off, I would

Eventually a car arrived. Radio commentators relayed the game as we sped through vacant streets. I listened from the backseat, watching darkness streak past windowpanes. JULY 19, ARGENTINA VS. SPAIN nd so here I am in New York, A Argentine colors swiped across my cheeks, roasting under blazing sun,

shoved against thousands of bodies in a watch party with a half-hour entrance line. A couple months ago, my only experience with the sport had been doing math homework in middle school bleachers. A couple months ago, I texted my friend for what I didn’t realize was the last time. The game starts slow. Players tease the ball. Formations dissolve as the field shuffles. After ninety minutes no one has scored, but Spain has fifteen attempts, and Argentina none. During overtime, the fans surrounding me scream Spanish curses. Spain scores in the 106th minute. Argentina, down one player, can’t keep up. The final

Above: Maia Ettinger and her off-campus “household.” Below: a Yalesbians party invitation.

Illustration by maia wilson

TheNewJournal October 2026

Endnote

beautiful and brave. I don’t have a word for this in English or in Spanish, but I know the feeling on a different scale.

I had hoped that during the following weeks I’d be able to better articulate my reflections on life and death, as well as keep up with my Spanish studies. But I also learned that not everything can be captured in words or funneled into translation. It’s how I came to appreciate that I didn’t bow to Messi, but I “fútbol” means “soccer,” but really is religion and poetry and cross-continental could identify the impulse: community. It’s how a Korean poem I bowing makes oneself couldn’t understand still moved me to smaller to be a part of tears, or how my host dad knew something was wrong before I found the something greater. Spanish words to say why. Back at home, I scrub paint off my cheeks and shower the sweat off my body. No more World Cup for the next four years. No more texts from my Several days before Argentina’s first friend, ever. It is quiet. I let myself float World Cup game, I livestreamed the in the moment, without words, without Celebration of Life ceremony for my thoughts. The water on my skin gathers friend who passed away. Family mem- like dew. bers, friends, and teachers from preschool through high school shared reflections in English and Korean. Each individual Anna Koontz is a sophomore in spoke about different stages of her life, Morse College and an associate but all converged on her kindness, her editor of The New Journal. thoughtfulness, her light. I listened to speakers fight back sobs. I cried freely.

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whistle blows. Yes, the Argentine players were sore losers: instigating a fight, turning their backs on the award ceremony. Messi wept. On my side of the river, the pier exploded in a burst of red and yellow while others remained sitting, crying, stunned. But after a moment, voices start rising amid the Spanish celebration. A group clad in blue begins to sing: “Soy argentino / Es un sentimiento / No puedo parar…” I am Argentine / It’s a feeling / I can’t stop. My host dad texts a picture of hundreds of thousands of people swarming the obelisk in the center of Buenos Aires. Projected onto the monument is a message thanking their national team. How do they have so much joy? I ask. “Porque pusieron todo el corazón,” he replies. Because they poured in the whole heart. I open an Argentine news channel on YouTube and watch transfixed. Parties overflow onto streets; crowds cheer across the country. If I had not just witnessed Argentina’s disappointing gameplay, I would have thought they had won. Celebrating in the face of loss is

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astarisborn -- big star ACROSS 1 Wreak ___ 6 Math 112 subj. 10 Nervous swallow 14 Elias Theodore, for Ward 1 15 Ancient theaters 16 First-year student who studies at 127 Wall Street 17 Arcade name 18 Stylish '60s Brits 19 "hahaha" 20 Tofu base 21 Happy Birthday ____, famous Marilyn Monroe serenade 24 Virtual transaction 25 Working hard 26 Customizable online character 29 Void 32 Trap during a snow storm, say 33 Saltwater eel 35 The Most Dear and The Future band 36 Itemize 37 French and flat-felled, for example 38 Designer Bradley 39 Understand 40 Kerchief 41 Extinct birds 42 Tending to wear away 44 "Look at t 46 Italian automaker since 1899 47 "___ Jacques"

Supernova

48 1937 film remade in 1954, 1976, and 2018...Or a hint for what happens when you connect the circled letters 51 Pal 54 Thwart 55 ____ Gobi 56 Owner of soft serve spot on Orange St. 58 14-season Cowboys quarterback Tony 59 "Forrest ___" 60 TTTTTTTTT for nineties, e.g. 61 Universal donor's blood type, for short 62 Crystal balls, e.g. 63 Looks like DOWN 1 Architecture school library 2 Lower part for Proof of the Pudding 3 Feb. 14 4 Not 'neath 5 Yale rival color 6 "You are awesome," for example 7 Be nuts about 8 Newsjournal intro 9 Winter melons: Var. 10 Oscar winner Hawn 11 Relationship complaints

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35 38

46 48

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43 Conversation 45 2013 Spike Jonze film 47 Explosive word? 48 ___ American Cultural Center at Yale 49 In a minute 50 Disparaging remark 51 Last song on Steve Lacy's new album 52 E pluribus ___ 53 Library where you might be studying at 1:58 am 57 Author Min Jin

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A series of lunch talks with critics, editors, and publishing professionals about what it takes—and means—to be a writer today. What Does an Editor Do? with Henry Finder (The New Yorker) WED, SEP 23 · 12–1 PM · HQ 131

The Role of the Critic with Parul Sehgal (The New York Times) MON, OCT 5 · 12–1 PM · HQ 131

How to Write About Yourself with Melissa Febos, bestselling author of Girlhood WED, NOV 11 · 12–1 PM · HQ 276

The Art of the Argument with Andrea Long Chu (New York magazine) THU, FEB 4 · 12–1 PM · HQ 131

So You Want to Write a Book with Thomas Gebremedhin (Doubleday), Alia Hanna Habib (The Gernert Company), Alexander Star (FSG), and Alice Whitwham (The Cheney Agency) TUE, FEB 23 · 12–1 PM · HQ 131

Writers at Work The Yale Review Festival with Patricia Lockwood (London Review of Books) MON, APR 6 · TIME TBA · LOCATION TBA F R E E A N D O P E N TO A L L · LU N C H P ROV I D E D

yalere iew.org/e ents Cosponsored by the Yale English Department and the Poynter Fellowship in Journalism 36 October 2026 TheNewJournal