Volume 22 - Issue 2

October 20, 1989

Painting the Town Blue Yale's Off-Campus Territories

The Yale Symphony Orchestra introduces

David Stern, Music Director

1989-1990 Season

Yo-YoMa

October14

Saturday Woolsey Hall October 31

Gabrielle Shek

"Unfinished" Symphony in b-minor, Schubert Symphony #5 in D, Shostakovich Halloween Concert at MIDNTGHT

Tuesday Woolsey Hall

Ralph Allen

November11

Saturday Batten Chapel

Serenade for winds in C minor, Mozart Sonata #1 for strings in G, Rossini String Symphony in B minor, Mendelssohn Violin Concerto #5 in A major, Mozart Gabric11c Shek, violinist

December 2

The White Peacock, Griffes

Saturday Woolsey Hall

Violin Concerto, Sibelius Ralph Allen, violinist Symphony #1 in C, Brahms

February 3 Saturday Woolsey Hall

Work by Yale Composer Suite #1 inC, Bach Clarinet Concerto #2, Weber Symphonic Metamorphosis, Hindemith Peter Landers, clarinetist

March 31

BENEFIT CONCERT Concerto for Orchestra, Bartok Concerto for Cello, Dvorak Yo-Yo Ma, cellist Sponsored by United Illuminating

Saturday Woolsey Hall

April21 Saturday Woolsey Hall

Peter Landers

With theY ALE GLEE CLUB Mass in C minor, Mozart Alexander Ncvsky, Prokofieff

All Yale Symphony Concerts with the exception of the Benefit Concert are open to the public at a cost of $1.00 For more information call432-4140 The Yale Symphony wishes to thank the Friends of Music at Yale for its continurd suppCJrt.

Cover design by Ethan Cohen

.I

NewsJournal

5

Between the VInes

8

Benevolent pig saves trees . . . Yalies head for Kyoto.

The Art of Pool More than a recreational diversion, the game of pool has become for many students a romantic obsession and a metaphor for the cosmic order. The author explores this subculture at Yale and its power to bring together heterogeneous types. By Eric Fisher.

.,

· Features

12

Poison Pen After hmring Harvard's Alvin Poussaint discuss the gang rape in Central Park last spring, Yale professor Alexander Theroux dashed off an angry and, some say, racist letter. His words have raised the issue of Yale's policy on fr« sP«ch, as well as a jew tempers. By Nina Morrison.

16

22

God and Politics

The serene campus of the Yale Divinity School seems jar away from the world outside.

But student debate about the role of the church in society reflects a politically active climate at YDS By Motoko Rich.

Painting the Town Blue Yale University now owns 13 percent of the city of New Haven and is buying up more.

Since Yale pays no taxes on much of its holdings, local residents and politicUzns are worried about the University's expansion. By Cristina Mathews.

26

No Easy Access Facing what they see as an unreceptive administration, disabled students have batUkd together to assert their needs. Among their gripes are a new policy demanding medical proof of their disabilitU.r and the resignation of a resource office manager.

By Julie Hantman.

The New JoumaVOctober 20, 1989 3

Publisher David K ing Editor-in-Chief Ruth Conniff* Managing Editors D avid Greenberg• Motoko Rich • Business Manager Jerry H wang• Designer Stephen H ooper Production Manager L isa Silverman Photography Editor John Kim

Associate Editors Cynthia Cameros Stephanie Syman Associate Photography Editor Jennifer Pitts• Associate Designer Ethan C ohen Circulation Manager C hris Warfield Subscription Manager Adrienne Lo Staff Andrea Assarat Janet Chung Eric Fisher Julie Hantman •.flew Octohn 20,

Hank H su Ellen Katz E . Stewart Moritz• Josh Plaut

1989

Members and Directors: Edwa rd B. Bennett III • Con sta n ce Cle ment • Peter B. Coope r • Andy C ourt • Brooks K elley • M ichelle Press • Fred St rebeigh • Tho mas Stro ng Friends: Anson M . Beard , J r. t • Edward B. Bennett, Jr. • Edward B . Be nneu Ill • Blaire Bennett • G e rald Bruck • J o nathan M . C la rk • Louise F . C ooperf • James W . Cooperf • Pete r B. Cooperf • J e rry and R ae Court • David Freeman • G eoiTry Fried • Sherwin G old man • J o hn H ersey • Brooks K elley • R oger Kirwood • Andrew J. Kuz neski, Jr. • Lewis E. Lehrman • E . Nobles Lowe • Pe ter Neill • Julie Pe ters • Fairfax C . Randall f • N icholas X . Rizopoulos • Arleen and Arthur Sager • Dick and Debbie Sears t • Richard Shields • T homas Strong • Elizabeth Tate • Alex and Betsy T orello • Allen and Sarah Wa rdwell • Peter Yeager • Daniel Yergin t h as given a g ain

(Volume 22, Number 2) 1M N~w J11unud is published sUe times during the tchool year by The New JoumaJ at Yale, Inc., Post O fro« Box 3432 Yale Soaoion. New H aven. CT 06520.

Copyrigho i989 by The New Journal ao Yale. Inc. All righos ~Krv~ . Reproduction either in whole or in pan without wrinen ~rmis.sion of the publisher and editor-in-chic( is prohibittd.

This mapt..ine is publish~ by Yale Col~ge students. and YaJc U niversily is not responsible for its contents.

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4 The New Journal/O c tober 20, 1989

N ewsJ ournal

Some Pig

Writing an average of fifty pages each semester leaves budget-conscious Yalies with two options: swipe or charge. They can sneak out of Connecticut Hall with three-inch stacks of computer paper hidden under their jackets, or they can pay for it with plastic at the Co-op. Both possibilities unnecessarily deplete the North American environment. Wilbur's Recycled Paper Products, a fledgling business with a mission, now offers an alternative to petty ~ievery and expensive Co-op prices.

Neal Garcia Latt (TD '89), a secondsemester senior, created Wilbur's with two goals in mind: to distribute recycled paper products at affordable prices and to educate the Yale community. To increase environmental awareness, Latt pl~ns to insert a fact sheet outlining the benefits of using recycled paper in every order he receives.

If Latt sells two tons of recycled paper-100 cartons - Yale students will save 17 trees and enough energy to power the average home for one year (8,200 kwh). Using 100 cartons of recycled paper will also conserve 14,000 gallons of water and prevent the emission of 120 pounds of pollutants. Two tons of recycled paper would eliminate six cubic yards of New Haven's landfill , relief that New Haven and the state of Connecticut sorely need.

Latt calls his enterprise a "business that gives a no-bullshit deal- an ec?logically sound product at a low Prtce." He said he named his company after Wilbur, the benevolent pig in E.B. White's Charlotte's Web , since ~e envisioned Wilbur's as a benevolent business. This fall , posters (printed on rec;ycled paper, of course) announced Wilbur's intention to provide cheap recycled paper.

The first shipment of recycled products stamped with the Wilbur logo consisted of computer paper, several grades of xerographic and white bond

Neal Latt's Wilbur may start a new recycling trend. paper, and envelopes. Wilbur's also Latt hopes he can hook up Braun stocks some higher quality recycled and the company he buys from, as a papers, such as French Linen Text and first step toward converting Yale to Halopaque Offset. The best deal for recycled paper. Although Wilbur students, Latt said, is the 2,500-sheet would not profit from this carton of computer paper for $35 arrangement, Latt said, "Wilbur's goal which, split among a suite of four, is not self-sustenance, but ¡ should last an entire academic year. At dissemination of recycling." the Co-op a carton this size would cost Wilbur's seems headed for financial more than $42. success anyway. Latt sold half of the To set up Wilbur's, Latt had to lo- first shipment before it even arrived, cate a recycled paper mill and find a and has been receiving phone calls for source of funds. Latt found a more orders constantly. Latt decenpaper company based in San Fran- tralized his company to deal with cisco that has branches on the East Wilbur's popularity. Now each Coast. He used money from Yale residential college has its very own Recyclers- the student group that Wilbur's representative to take orders oversees Yale's current recy- from students, to receive the paper cling program- to buy his first 100 from Wilbur's truck, and to deliver to cartons of paper. All the money the customers in the college. Before Wilbur makes from sales goes back graduating in December, Latt hopes to into the company. sell recycled paper to at least four Latt has approached the percent of the Yale community and to administration directly to boost . pass Wilbur's reins to a new manager Wilbur's sales and Yale's committment who will expand the market. to recycling. To capture the office Latt hopes that by offering inexpenmarket, he plans to attach his flyer to sive paper and the convenience of free the forms that offices must fill out to delivery, Wilbur's will inspire the Yale order paper from Central Receiving, community to invest more in recycledYale's paper supplier. Despite some paper products. On October 20, hesitancy on the part of Central recyclers and environmentalists Receiving, the administration has moved plan to rally on Beinecke Plaza to toward a more extensive recychng pressure the administration to adopt a program. Director of Facilities Alan university-wide recycling program.

Braun has approved a pilot project in State law dictates that by 1991 New SSS Hall. Each office in the building will Haven must recycle 25 percent of all have several bins for sorting trash. solid wastes. Perhaps Latt's efforts, Custodians will take the sorted trash reinforced with state legislation, will out of the building, and maintenance lead Yale to mandate recycling. In the workers will convey it to a recycling meantime, however, at least Wilbur's dumpster. "This is the first time Yale is may keep the thieves out of getting on the ball instead of passing Connecticut H all.

- Stefanie Syman the buck," Latt said.

The New JournaVOctober 20, 1989 5

Yale in.Japan The Imperial Court resided in Kyoto until 1868 when Edo , or modern-day Tokyo , became the capital of Japan.

Kyoto, with its meandering canals, old temples and shrines, and cherry blossom trees, moves at a slower pace than cosmopolitan Tokyo. Kyoto's streets are regular, laid out in a grid, far less crowded than Tokyo's busy thoroughfares. Within this setting, lying on an old aristocratic estate, is the Kyoto Center for Japan Studies.

This year 30 Americans, including one Yale student, are living in Kyoto and taking classes at the center.

When Bill Hornung (TC '91) weiu to KCJS this semester, Yale officially launched its first program for undergraduate study in japan. Yale is one of the nine universities involved in KCJS, which Stanford University administers. The program's courses vary from year to year, depending on the expertise of the faculty, who are drawn from Japanese institutions and from the participating American univers1t1es. Generally, instructors teach Japanese language as well as economics, history, literature, political science and religion- which are all in English. Japanese students sufficiently advanced in English take classes with the Americans. American students also can take courses taught in Japanese at the prestigious Kyoto University, which is affiliated with KCJS. Yale College will give as much as a year of credit for study at KCJS, and allows courses taken in Kyoto to count both toward a student's major and toward graduation requirements. Yale recognizes only one other junior-yearabroad program, Yale-in-London.

Unlike the London program, however, letter grades earned in Kyo to do not appear on a student's transcript.

KCJS is not yet Yale-in-Kyoto.

Nevertheless, the Kyoto program has elminated the need for students to lug back a year's worth of tests, essays and notes as evidence of their studies, as they must for all other overseas programs outside of London.

6 The N e w J ou rnal/O ctober 20 , 1989

When the Kyoto Center opened only a year ago, Professor of Japanese history Conrad Totman, then chairman of the Council on East Asian Studies, pushed to get Yale involved in the program. He said he wanted to send undergraduates to a rigorous academic institution in japan, in order to study the country at close range.

The council's current chairman, W 'illiam Kelly, a professor of anthropology, explained, "We saw a need for a program suited for japan students with ever-increasing expertise. Students going to Japan now are better prepared than their predecessors were ten or 20 years ago.

The existing programs in Japan either ~re all but filled to capacity, or do not meet Yale's high academic standards."

The initiation of this program reflects the growing interest among students in the.study ofJapan and Asia both at Yale and at other universities in the United States. Although the majority of Yale students going abroad still travel across the Atlantic- to France, England, Spain, and the Soviet Union-the number of those heading to Japan, China, Hong Kong and Korea is steadily increasing. The percentage of Yale juniors going to Asian countries to study rose from 3 percent five years ago to 11 percent last year, according to the Junior Year Abroad Office. The number of those who went to Japan tripled.

Each year, Yale can send three qualified students to Kyoto through the new program, where they join students from Brown, the University of Chicago, Columbia, Cornell, Harvard, the University of Michigan, Princeton and Stanford.

Hornung, the only Yale student ever to participate, has decided to live in the all-male Sumitomo Bank dormitory. Other options for students at the Center include residing with Zen Buddhist monks , living in an apartment, or staying with a Japanese family.

Totman and Kelly hope that students' experience abroad will complement the structure of the East Asian Studies major and other language-intensive

majors. A year spent in the country of their specialty is a natural culmination to the years of language preparation and culture study for students at Yale.

- Grace Glassman

Letters To the Editor: A comment on "Philosophical Differences" (September 8, 1989). You refer to a New York Times article of December 29, 1987 as reflecting " an ideological battle" among philosophers.

In that article, I said that to frame differences among philosophers as analytical-vs-non-analytical was to beat a straw man. (The article misquoted me as saying "straw horse", an interesting synthesis). My views have therefore not "softened" as you claim. They are now as they were then.

Since I came to Yale in 1973, two senior faculty have taken positions elsewhere. One junior faculty member who was granted tenure also left. It is very probably the case that many other departments have lost tenured faculty during those sixteen years.

You failed to note that senior faculty like myself who receive offers from "prestigious institutions" may also decline such offers and stay at Yale. In a cad me as elsewhere there is considerable demand and consequently considerable mobility.

Ruth B. Marcus Professor of Philosophy

The New Journal encourages letters to the editor and comment on Yale and New Haven issues. Write to Ruth Conniff, Editorials, 3432 Yale Station, New Haven, CT 06520. All letters for publication must include address and signature. The New Journal reserves the right to edit all letters for publication.

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Between the Vmes/Eric Fisher

Vincent Van Gogh's Night Cafe

The Art of Pool

8 The New Journal/October 20, 1989

It is just past midnight and I have four more books of The Republic to read. My roommate, who is on the first page of a five-page paper due tomorrow, slowly turns his head from the monitor and looks over at the pool cue he bought last week. Its two unscrewed segments rest in a corner of the common room . I look over at Blake, and our eyes meet in an admission of defeat. Blake moves with a steady determination towards the corner of the room, raises both parts of the cue, and screws them together. The next thing I know, Blake is circling the table looking for a shot.

He pauses and bends over until his eyes are level with the table. With his left hand, he forms a bridge and with his right hand pulls the cue back. In a locked pool room in the basement of Saybrook College, I am finally at peace.

Torn between the demands of my classes and the lure of the pool table in the Saybrook basement, I take some comfort in knowing that I am not alone in my billiard angst. No matter what time of day or night, there is always a wait for the college tables. In fact, pool at Yale has become so popular that one shark has made a proposal to the college athletic secretaries to make it an intramural sport.

I first realized the significance of pool one memorable night last year. I had put aside a little free time and so psyched myself up to play. As m y key turned in the pool room door, I heard "Love o n the Rocks" drifting out of a radio on the other side. By the time I was inside the pool room, I realized that there was someone I didn't know listening to a Neil Diamond cassette, scanning the table for a shot, and

Yale's diverse pool rooms provide a place where Lit majors can commune with their Group IV brothers and sisters.

singing along with Diamondesque scruffiness. "First they say they want you, then they say . . . Hey, do you want to play?" he asked.

Under any other circumstances, I would have politely (or perhaps impolitely) excused myself and escaped as fast as I could. But seeing the cue in his hand and the balls on the table, I realized that we shared a passion. We played for about an hour. The green felt of the pool table had been our common ground. After this encounter, I knew this game was powerful stuff.

All of the colleges at Yale, except Trumbull, have one or two pool tables.

The tables are either in the college basements, or at least in rooms that have the atmosphere of a dungeon.

Saybrook's room is a case in point. I've heard one player refer to the set-up there as a "God-awful table, in a God-

awful room." The felt on the table is rubbed off so that the layer of slate underneath has shown through. The bumpers are warped and some of the balls are chipped. The carpet under the table is as rubbed down as the felt.

Several cockroaches have made this orange carpet their final resting place.

The underground room always seems cold and damp, and the small windows don't let in any natural light.

While the majority of pool rooms on campus look and feel like Saybrook's, there are notable exceptions. Jonathan Edwards' pool room reflects¡ the trend toward yuppification epitomized by upscale pool clubs like "Society Billiards" on 21st Street in Manhattan.

"Society Billiards" charges twelve bucks for an hour of pool in a well-lit room lined with murals and mirrors, while upstairs, in a neon dance club called "Cafe Society," investment bankers flirt over expensive Italian dishes. In JE there are no gin and tonics nor does the Buttery rival "Cafe Society." Nonetheless, its electric blue walls and reggae music give the JE pool room a veneer of hipness and newness. Say goodbye to any hint of green swinging billiard lamps and wood grain paneling if you want to play atJE. Supposedly, the most "authentic" (see my discussion of pool and the sleaze factor) place to play on campus is the GPCSY. The GPCSY has two tables set up in its smoky back room. Tradition dictates that the loser of each game has to pay fifty cents to stay on the table. Allegedly, some old guy even guards the GPSCY tables scouting out hustlers and warning the regulars.

At the start of each game, one player takes striped balls and solid balls of many colors and in a symbolic gesture

molds them into an equilateral triangle. This is called "racking 'em up."

Like the rack that shapes the balls into an ideal geometric shape, a game of pool brings together all sorts of people.

Yale's diverse pool rooms provide a place where Lit majors clad in black can commune with their Group IV brothers and sisters, who are otherwise tucked away in labs atop "the hill."

In a sense, playing pool is a metaphor for the benificence of the natural order. A good game of pool can put people in touch with the workings of the world around them. It counteracts the feeling of detachment that often results from unrelenting academic pursuits.

The 18th-century British philosopher David Hume seemed to lose sight of reality in his obsessive search for an a priori justification for causation. Note his thoughts on pool: When I see, for instance, a Billiard-ball moving in a straight line towards another; even suppose motion in the second ball should by accident be suggested to me, as the result of their contact or impulse; may I not conceive that a hundred different events might as well follow from that cause? May not both these balls remain at absolute rest? May not the first ball return in a straight line, or leap off from the second in any line or direction? All these suppositions are consistent and conceivable.

When I first encountered Hume's ideas last year, I was frightened. I was sitting in a lecture hall and there was no pool table handy to test the veracity of this passage. The world began to dissolve into chaos. I imagined that there was no sense in nature. I had no reason to assume that nightfall would come. If The New Journal/October 20, 1989 9

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nightfall did come , I had no reason to believe that the sun would rise the next day. After class, I begged a junior to let me into the basement of Branford.

(It was the nearest college and I didn't have a key.) I found my way through the basement maze to Branford's two pool tables. I held my breath in anticipation as someone brought the tip of his cue to bear on the white ball .

The ball rolled quickly towards a red ball at the far end of the table. When the white ball collided with the red ball, the red ball began rolling towards the corner pocket and sank. I thought it would.

Beyond refuting philosophical skepticism, many addicts relish the science of pool. Dave Toker (BK '91 ), who advocates a multivaried approach to the study of pool , says, "Once you get past the basic p article physics and start contemplating topspin , backspin and English, pool becomes a science filled with unimaginably beautiful complexities." Even physics text books that deal with lofty concepts like Conservation of Linear M omentum must oversimplify the game of pool to describe the collision of billiard balls. For example, the classic billiard ball problem begins with the phrase , " A ss um e a frictionless table . . . " Toker, who has pushed for the intrarnuralization of pool, tells of a "short computer science major with a ponytail named Denny" who mastered the science of pool: "It was at the GPSCY one night, a nd I had just scratched. The cue ball was put on the close side of the table. It was Denny's turn . Denny made some quick measurements with his cue and then shot his ball with this obscure spin called 'throw' at the far bumper. The

ball came off the bumper and returned all the way back across the length of the table. The eight-ball was sitting n ear th e close bumper. On the return trip, the cue ball cut the eight-ball just to its left and sent it rolling slowly towards the right corner pocket. The eight-ball sunk. I couldn't believe my eyes. I said to m yself, 'There is a lot more to this game than I know."'

Besides the science of pool, the representations of pool in art and popular culture contribute to its allure.

Images of pool usually romanticize the sleazy. Playing pool at Yale enables the academic to find the hustler embedded deep within him . It feels like a descent into depravity. Mike M cGoldrick (SY '91 ), a Saybrook pool compatriot, confided to me recently that he would give anything to be George C. Scott's character in The H ustler for j ust one day.

"I mean, when you talk about seedy," says McGoldrick, "you think of Scott's brilliant performance. Now that is sleaze in all its glory." I have a friend in Trumbull from Boca R a ton, Florida who models him self after the Minnesota legend and insists that

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T he location of the pool tables at Yale, in the bowels of the residential colleges, reinforces the mythic quality of sleaze. The rooms and their grunginess evoke pool's su bversive trad ition: cigar smoke, back rooms, and gambling. L_ike Edward H opper's portrayals of motels, diners, and city streets, the Yale · student's commitment to pool is a quest for the noble in that which soc1ety holds in disrepute.

In neglecting the pool rooms in the residential colleges., the administration has unwitt ing~y .;·reinforced pool's subversive aspects. The slanting tables with warped bumpers and tipless cues, set in cramped and musty spaces of the college basemen ts, h elp students live out the underworld qualities of the game. Last year, Master Ann Ameling of Saybrook tried to get some control over this situation, by introducing a new policy regarding pool. She removed the sole cue from the Saybrook pool room so that students must now check the cue out of her office to play.

Her office is only open from ten until 4:30, with a long lunch break.

The policy greatly restricts the accessibility of the game and creates a persistent , subtle tension between residents of the college and the Master.

But Master Ameling has underestimated the true nature of pool players at Yale. "Don't worry about it," Blake said to me when I expressed alarm at the situation. "There are still a few cheap cues at the mall."

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ilill NEW ENGLAND The Ne w JournaVO c tober 20, 1989 II

Poison Pen A Yale English Professor Writes up a Storm of Controversy

Nina Morrison 'Y.:'lle U nivcrsi ty

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).lay 1, 1989

Alexander Theroux was furious.

Two weeks after last spring's Central Park rape, the Yale English professor watched a discussion of the incident on ABC-TV's "This Week with David Brinkley. " Panelist Alvin Poussaint, a Harvard psychiatrist, was asked what could have driven the group of teenagers to commit such a heinous crime. "The key question to ask is why these kids were angry," Poussaint said, "angry enough that they would go out . . . and rape and almost kill someone."

Theroux, who had known the victim from her days as a graduate student, sat down at his old manual typewriter and banged out the following letter on a sheet of Yale-embossed stationery: 12 The Ne w J o u rna VO c tober 20, 1989

Dear Dr, POUSPaint,

.

Your description of the black men who ganged up to rape and virtually beat to death a woman in Central Park as "Rngry" implies a sort of state of mind inherited from the collective unconscious , 1. e, you know, ye~s ago Emmett Till was unjustly murdered in Mississippi and so these guys in April, 1989, disenfranchised , economicall;r. underadvantaged, etc. are "angry.' Do you realize·, by dragging in such 11 high principles , " that in your, what, delusion and/or overearnestnese by such cant you make thousands of racists on the spot in whites who are sick of such rubbish?

Why not go on television 13.nd admit it -- those guys were horny, ruck crazy, machobewildered. , uneducated monkeys who aren't ready for civilization?

The t~uth may hurt, but 1t 1 s the only place to beg in.

Yours~

(Prof) Al e xander Th eroux

The letter has brought on a storm of violent emotions since it arrived in Poussaint's hands in May. "My first reaction was that¡ it had to be a forgery, that no professor from Yale would write that," Poussaint said. Calling its language "crudely racist,!' he sent copies of the letter to Yale English department Clia irman Richard Brodhead and President Benno S chmidt. Brodhead replied to Poussaint that whiie he took exception to Theroux's remarks, any punitive action against the professor would violate University free-speech policies.

Dissatisfied w ith Yale's reply, Poussaint decided to make the matter public, and gave a copy of Theroux's letter to Boston Globe columnist Derrick Z. Jackson. Like Poussaint, J ackson is black; like Poussaint, he condemned Theroux's language and Yale's refusal to take action. And since jackson made the letter the focus of an August column, a number of issues- including Yale's policies relating to racism and free speech- have become the focus of heated debate.

"One thing I hear so often is that racism doesn't exist anymore," said Elise Boddie, co-mode rator of the Black Student Alliance at Yale. "But people seem to forget that racism today is more than seeing black people horsewhipped and lynched." While Boddie and Poussaint accept that Theroux wrote his letter in haste and ~nger, they object to his characterIZation of the rapists as "monkeys," a word taken to refer to blacks as subhuman or genetically inferior.

"Theroux should have known better than to write such garbage," another reader wrote to the Globe this fall.

Beyond the question of Theroux's language, Yale's own image was put at risk, some have charged, when he addressed his personal note on English department stationery; it implied that Theroux was speaking as a representative of the department. Theroux said that the Yale-embossed paper was all he had in his desk at the time, and any charges that he tried to give his words

"Everyone's throwing a shit fit about one word, but I've got two fat volumes of prose to counterbalance it." official weight with its use are "ludicrous."

Brodhead reproached Theroux for his use of Yale stationery to express his personal views, but did not pursue any punitive measures. "You will obviously recognize the inappropriateness of my officially censoring the views (however repugnant) of anyone connected with this place," Brodhead wrote to Poussaint this June. He emphasized that Theroux's remarks were not endorsed by Yale o r the department, but characterized the debate over

Theroux's words as a question of free speech. Universities, he said , are not in a position to fire employees for the letters they write. "Of course I understand that students may be offended," he said, "but we still have an obligation of fair treatment."

In his 18 years at Yale, Brodhead said, he cannot recall a single instance in which a professor was dismissed for using offensive language, and departments usually handle such complaints internally. "It hasn't struck anybody that this situation is so egregious as to warr ant a departure from the way things are usually done," he said.

Other Yale faculty and students hold that Theroux's letter may compromise his role as a professor. Frances Holloway, director of Yale's affirmative action office, officially supports the department's decision to honor Theroux's remaining one-year contract. But in light of his letter, she said, "I would have reservations about his evaluations of black students' work."

Boddie, too, worries that the information Theroux conveys to students in class might contain the same biases she found so offensive in his letter.

Von H ughes, a former student of Theroux's, told Jackson that, as a professor of writing, Theroux should have been particularly conscious of his choice of language. "Theroux told us in class about the force of words and how words convey feelings," Hughes said.

"When he wrote that, he had to have known the exact impact he wanted to have."

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Theroux maintains that he has done nothing to warrant this barrage of criticism. He said that he wrote the letter in a rage, but that any racist interpretations are unfounded. "I have no problems with being considered a bigot because that's the last thing I am," he said. "Aren't English profes~ors allowed to get angry?" Categori'zing the black men who raped the jogger as "monkeys" may have been injudiciousJ he said, but he was attempting to d~scribe- their actions, not their skin color. "I never intended any insult to the black COJ!lmunity," he said. "I don't think that black people look like monkeys. I used that as an example that the rapists were anima}s, that their behavior was animalistic."

Why did Theroux choose the word "monkeys," then, with all the historical connotations that word holds? "Why not?" responded Theroux. "I never really thought once of that. I could have said jackals."

Theroux said that a few hasty remarks are no grounds on which to judge him. He cites his writings, novels which he said explicitly condemn bigotry and prejudice, as evidence that he is not racist.

"Everyone's throwing a shit fit about one word," he said, "but I've got two fat volumes of prose to counterbalance it."

Theroux also said that his critics missed the point of his letter: that a rape cannot be excused by attributing it to social anger on the part of the perpetrators. In making this point, Theroux was not alone; other viewers also wrote letters objecting to Poussaint's remarks on the Brinkley show. In a letter to the Globe, for example, Margaret Hagen , associate professor of psychology at Boston University , critic'ized Poussaint's analysis and Jackson's reference to the rape as a "mugging." "Both Poussaint

and Jackson legitimize, and indeed institutionalize, a depth of sexist hatred so great that it virtually guarantees the commission of violent attacks against women," she wrote.

Theroux said that Poussaint's remarks seemed to him an attempt to excuse the rape. "I thought he tried to explain it away, .not just explain it," Theroux said. "In trying to align that to a higher agenda, or a personal agenda, it mocks the near death of the. woman."

As far as racism goes, Theroux said, "the point of the letter was actually anti-racist." In a Globe Letter to the Editor Theroux wrote, "By calling those thugs 'angry,' Poussaint falsely assigns them a $ociological and/or political agenda, suggests this mitigates the crime, and actually creates racists himself." This kind of injustice continues, Theroux said, when blacks try to portray him as a bigot. "It's very interesting," he said, "how racism always seems to be against whites."

It is unlikely that the University will take disciplinary action against Theroux. The only clear-cut rule he has violated is the ban on using official stationery for personal correspondence, and Brodhead has privately rebuked him for doing so. But Boddie and other students insist that Theroux should be punished under Yale's racial and ethnic harrassment regulations.

Although he did not address his remarks to a particular student, Boddie said, his language and attitude are a significant slight to all black students at Yale. Poussaint agrees.

"This is so hurtful and damaging to people that you have to stand up ang say, 'No, you can't do this,"' he said.

"Look at the harm you may be doing, having students who are wary of him and his attitude."

No precedent exists to show how the University would evaluate a grievance

against Theroux. Professor of psychology William Kessen, who chaired the President's Committee on Racial and Ethnic Harrassment until this year, said that no student has ever brought a complaint before the eight-year-old committee. "Unlike most University committees, the rules are not codified in any sense," Kessen said. "But there has to be a complainant. Someone has to come forward and say, 'I have been injured.'"

Theroux remains confident that his reputation at Yale will bear no scars from the recent controversy. "The

against Theroux, but has not decided whether it will formally petition the Committee on Racial and Ethnic Harrassment. Although Boddie wants to see Theroux fired, she does not think it will happen. "I've had enough dealings with this administration to know that that isn't on Benno Schmidt's agenda," she said. For now, Boddie said that BSAY's goal will be to publicize Theroux's letter. "If professors know they'll be held ¡ accountable, that will at least make them more careful of what they write or say in the future," she said.

Theroux is as eager to clear his name of any charges of racism as BSAY is to pursue them. He said that many of his detractors have deliberately misrepresented his comments, while others have misunderstood them. As a famous psychiatrist, Poussaint is motivated by his own wounded pride, Theroux said , not by the content of the letter. "He's not used to anything but deference and slipperkissing," Theroux wrote in a letter to the managing editor of the Globe.

Theroux has threatened Boddie with a libel suit if she or BSAY make any reason I wasn't fired is not because of public "false suggestions" about his free speech, it's because the English letter. He also warned the Globe this department knew I'm not a racist," he summer that Jackson's column might soon bring them to court, although said.

Theroux's second one-year contract Globe lawyers have said that Theroux's is up for renewal in April, and case against them is weak. Theroux Brodhead declined to comment on the has told the Globe that he may produce effect that Theroux's letter will have on even more written words on the topic, his reappointment. "We'll consider possibly a response in the Boston Herald everything that's pertinent," he said . to Jackson's Globe column . Unlike Holloway said she is satisfied with the some of his summer correspondences, administration's actions , since a Theroux said, the Herald piece is one visiting professor's misstatements are that he "would positively relish much less damaging to the University's writing. " image than a tenured professsor's would have been.

At BSAY's first meeting this semester, Nina Morrison is a sophomore in Saybrook the group discussed taking action College.

"This is so hurtful and damaging to people that you have to stand up and say, 'No, you can't do this.'"

â&#x20AC;˘

The Ne w J o urnaVO ctober 20, 1989 15

God and Politics The Two Faces of the Yale Divinity School Motoko Rich Along the corridors of the Yale Divinity School Chapel, rows of class pictures link one year of graduates to the next. Gary Hartpence, Class of 1961 , appears in a small black and white photograph, an inconspicuous face among many. When the young Hartpence posed for that picture, he had no idea that he would gain renown as Gary Hart, Democratic senator from Colorado and candidate for President of the United States. YDS's idyllic campus appears an unlikely place for political action. In the quiet chapel, the intensity of politics seems far away. But throughout the Divinity School's history, the distinction between church and state has blurred, and today, politics still intertwines with the religious identity of the school.

Primarily a Christian institution, the Divinity School trains women and men for the ministry. While approximately 50 percent of its graduates go on to receive ordination, a small percentage views YDS as a stepping stone to political life. In addition to Hart, Republican Senator John C. Danforth graduated from YDS in 1963, and Walter Fauntroy, Democratic congressman from the District of Columbia, earned his degree in 1958.

YDS Professor Emeritus William Muehl served three terms as an alderman in the 18th Ward of New Haven from 1963 to 1969, and Michael Morand, Democratic nominee for the position of First Ward alderman, began his first year at YDS this fall.

The conjunction of churchly and civic duties is nothing new at Yale.

Puritan ministers founded Yale Col-

16 The New JournaUOc tober 20, 1989

the YDS campus might surprise out"' siders. During the Presidential cam~ paign of 1988, joggers from Yale ~ College saw posters for Pat Roberston ~ pl.astered to dormitory doors and ~ wmdows as they trotted through the ~Divinity School courtyard. The posters :g seemed to indicate a strong conser.... vative element on campus. But in fact, only one student ran the Robertson campaign, and he gathered little support from his classmates. Most YDS students described the campus as predominantly Democratic in the 1988 election. Rusty Green, a third-year student who voted for Bush, recalls sermons led by his peers during the campaign. "I t wasn't stated, but they were implying that the Christian thing to do was vote for Dukakis," Green said.

The Divinity School can look back on a past more pointedly activist than the present. Danforth, in a lecture he gave at YDS three years ago, recalled his days as a student at the Divinity School in the early 1960s: lege in 1701 , stating in "An Act for Liberty to Erect a Collegiate School" that they wanted an institution "wherein Youth may be instructed in the Arts and Sciences who through the blessing of Almighty God may be fitted for Publick employment in Church and Civil State." While Yale College has ceased to train students for the ministry, YDS continues Yale's earliest tradition.

With the recent associations between religion and Reagan-era conservatism, and with fundamentalist ministers like Jerry Falwell afoot, the liberalism of

It was the heyday of the Civil Rights movement. One of the major concerns of the time was segregation of Woolworth lunch counters in the South . . . Seeking to bear witness to our faith, a number of us piled into a station wagon, with signs in the baggage area and made for the Woolworth store on State Street. I have a sharp memory of picketing the store with our chant "1, 2, 3, 4, don't go in the Woolworth store; 5, 6, 7, 8, souther n ¡ Woolworths segregate." ¡

University Chaplain Harry Adams, Master of Trumbull College, recalls a YDS-organized procession to the New Haven Green in support of a black student who was denied admission to Vanderbilt Univ~rsity. Hart remembers students traveling to Mississippi and Alabama during their summer vacations to help with voter registration. According to Adams, during the Vietnam War, Divinity School students were among those who turned in draft cards apd marched e n Washington.

Today, the mood on campus is calmer, and students have turned from marches and protests to social service.

Volunteers work for various organizations: ¡soup kitchens, Dixwell House , local hospitals , battered women's shelters, Planned Parenthood, and the Quinnipiac Housing Project. In a sense, the educational purpose of the school - training for the ministry- constitutes a call to community service. "People go into the ministry because they are interested in lerving," said Letty Russell , professor of liberation theology.

This interest in serving can extend beyond the confines of the church. '"The ministry is concerned with how the Christian commitment is lived out in the community of the world , and is acted out in the social and political arena," said Adams.

Hart agrees. He follows the tradition begun by John Wesley, the 18thcentury British founder of Methodism , who focused on serving the needs of the "have-nots" in society. "Wesley didn't say join the Democratic Party or run for office, but he did say meet the

needs of people on earth, and I was greatly influenced by that," said Hart.

The Divinity School incorporates this commitment to social service into the curriculum through the "Supervised Ministry" requirement for the Master of Divinity degree. Students fulfill this requirement by working in a parish church or social service agency.

Although more and more students are seeking placement in churches, only two years ago the high demand for positions in social service agencies made it difficult to meet all the requests. John Geter, President of the YDS student body, thinks the rising

interest in church work indicates a new conservatism on campus. But Field Placement Coordinator Bernadette de Giulian insists that it is too soon to tell.

Other areas of the YDS curriculum also embrace the social service ethic.

Russell's courses in liberation theology emphasize a commitment to the church within the political world. In her advanced course, students read texts from a particular country and then spend some time in that country at the beginning of the spring semester. Last year the class traveled to Mexico, and this year, Russell plans to take her students to South Africa.

Since her courses are not required, students may make a political move simply by enrolling. "People think you're radical for taking liberation theology, â&#x20AC;˘ RllS9ell said. Cf'eop)e stand against the climate of the school in order to take my courses."

Russell's courses are among a few that address issues outside of academic theology. Sister Shawn Copeland teaches a course on African-American theology, and Sister Margaret Farley teaches Ethics. "They really encourage students to integrate their studies with what is actually happening in New Haven and the rest of the world," said Ann Lutterman, a third-year student.

"But many students say, 'Oh well, I've got to be ordained, and I don't have time to take frivolous courses like Liberation Theology.'" She added that faculty advisors have discouraged student~ from taking these courses, counsehng that such a program would look bad on the students' records when applying for church jobs.

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tudes reflect the current political climate at YDS, which she finds more apathetic than activist. "It's pseudoliberal, but not doing much," said Lutterman. For her, liberalism on campus means a tolerance of many ideas, not an active progressive force.

"Sometimes it's like pulling teeth just to get people to do certain things," Lutterman said. While some students and faculty cite Central America as a concern in the YDS community, Lutterman is the only active worker from YDS in the New Haven chapter of Citizens in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador.

The most v igorously debated political issues on campus directly concern students' experience at the school. "The Divinity School is to some extent a city set on a hill," said Morand. While the hill may isolate students from external concerns, it also encourages them to turn inward, Daily sermons reveal that theology and politics are intimately connected, through what students refer to as "inclusive language." Students and faculty try to recognize and eliminate gender or racial prejudices in the religious language of the Bible and in their sermons. Using inclusive language means not referring to God as "He", chang ing references of "mankind" to "humankind", and increasing sensitiv i ty to "racial overtones when invoking images of light and dark. "I think it really goes to the heart of life in the community," said Morand. "It's one of the ways in the school that political or social issues are being expressed, because it's something that affects everybody, and people are struggling through worship."

Since inclusive language entails changing words in the Scriptures, some students resist it in the name of the sanctity of the Biblical word. "I would be against rewriting the Bible," said Green.

Students face the issue of inclusive language in Chapel services every day , and no one on campus can avoid being exposed to it. "Inclusive language is the most visible thing, because there is a constant reminder as to whether people are using it or not," said R ussell. A new crop of students encounter the concept every year. "I never experi-

enced an inclusive language worship service until I got here," said Susie Post, a second-year YDS student.

The faculty and staff at YDS issued a statement encouraging but not mandating the use of inclusive Ianguage in the mid-'70s. The statement, while symbolic, did little to resolve the issue; those who had been using inclusive language continued to do so, while those who opposed it did not start. "It pretty much established the lines where they were already drawn," said Geter.

In students' careers, the discussion of inclusive language may ultimately prove moot. Many parishes do not accept such language in their sermons ~nd some students on supervised ministry assignments have been criticized for using it. Although Post, after two years at.YDS, now advocates the use of inclusive language, -she plans to enter . the Episcopal Church ministry, which does not allow the language of inclusion in its sermons.

While inclusive language constantly receives attention on campus, some students dismiss it as trivial. Still, those who feel excluded by standard ecclesiastical terms care deeply about the issue. "We recognize it's not trivial because of the power of language to determine social structures," said Sandy Sorensen, a third-year student at YDS. For many of the 165 women in the YDS student body, the social structure of the church is of particular concern. "I think that whether everyone recognizes it or not, there's still a lot of resistance to women in the church," said Sorensen.

Some churches still do not ordain women as ministers. Michelle Bashi, a second-year student and co-coordinator of the YDS Women's Center, is a Roman Catholic, and as a woman, cannot serve as a priest. Bashi does not want to challenge this aspect of the church structure. "Most Roman Catholic women feel it's not a battle worth putting our energy into because we don't feel we would have an impact," she said. In denominations which do ordain women, worries remain about how women are accepted in the parishes. "Even if ordination per se isn't an issue, there is still a lot of

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The YDS Women's Center stands out as a vigorous campus force. In d iscussions and forums, the center tries to expose students to issues of justice for women. Inclusive language is, of course, a paramount issue, and the Women's Center sponsored a forum on the subject October 6 and 7. Last year, the center ran an educational campaign on sexual violence against women, and this year Bashi plans to initiate discussion of reproductive rights. "These are issues that the church hasn't done justice to," said Bashi. "I'm concerned to raise the issue in such- a way that productive discussion happens, but I'm not sure if that's possible," she said.

Bashi's fears of . unproductive discussion may stem from the spectrum of attitudes toward women on campus. "There ar~ people who take very seriously the feminist perspective," said Sorensen. "But I think there's also a prett~ strong counterattitude that takes the form of trivializing the concerns of women."

Discussion may prove difficult because students are wary of expressing strong opinions. "I think there's a fairly large group of people who just don't see it as an issue either way and are fearful of controversy and strong feeling on either side," said Sorensen.

Early in September, the Women's Center organized a sermon in which the women leading the service asked for prayers in support of justice and equality for women. After the service, three men approached Scott Williamson, a second-year student and chairman of the Social Action Committee, and complained that the service was too political; its goal was no longer prayerful, they said. "They will recognize the political agenda whenever it moves to change the existing political status quo," said Geter. Greer thinks there are other forums more productive for mobilizing people to action than a sermon.

"The preacher has a captive audience. If the audience feels like ~t's being sold a bill of goods •t gets turned off," he said.

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The Black Seminarians are a less visibly active group at YDS than the Women's Center. "Their concern is survival ," said Professor Russell.

Currently, 19 black students attend the school. "The number of blacks at the Divinity School has continued to drop, and the numbers are decreasing at Divinity Schools nationwide," said Judy Fentris, president of the Black Seminarians. The organization serves primarily as a support group. Members meet periodically to discuss ways to improve understanding between black students and the rest of the Divinity School community .

Williamson is skeptical about racial awareness at YDS. "People want to be on the right side of the racism issue.

People quote Martin Luther King and Gandhi to state their credo," he said.

"But real understandin~~: hasn't

happened."

Beyond understanding, the Black Seminarians want to see more black faculty hired at the school. There are only two black professors at YDS now: Sister Shawn Copeland and Lamin Sanneh. The curriculum for students interested in black theology or religious history depends entirely on these two professors. "The burden is on her to pick up the slack that the cur· riculum doesn't offer," said Fentris of Copeland. When YDS hired Copeland last year, the Black Seminarians objected to her title as "Black S cholar."

They want the school to consider black professors for positions determined by more than their race. "We would prefer that Yale seek to get people of color any time an opening appears," said Fentris.

Gays and lesbians, like women and

black seminarians, are pushing for acceptance by their Divinity School peers. Lucia J ackson, a third-year student and an active member of the Gay-Straight-Lesbian Coalition, said that the campus has grown more tolerant sin ce the coalition's inception. "The campus is fairly affirming of homosexuality," said J ackson. "Most people aren't necessarily willing to go out and be politically active, but they are aware and willing to talk about it." The more conservative students avoid the topic.

"There is a g roup of people on campus who see homosexuality as a sin and the issue as closed. But the minority are the ones who are closed-minded, and they keep pretty silent because they k~ow they're in the minority," Jackson 5aJd.

For the p ast two years, the GayStraight-Lesbian Coalition, a group of

about 25 students, has sponsored forums on homosexuality in the church. Last year, the coalition lined up a series of speakers over a four week period in the spring. Speakers discussed accepting gay men ancl women in the church , counseling homosexuals as ministers, and' promoting blessed unions services o f commitmen t similar to marriage- for single-sex couples .

Lectures by Bishop John S. Spong of Newark, and YDS ethicist Margaret Farley drew crowds of about 100 people, but Jackson expressed frustration with the make-up of the audiences. "Sometimes you really feel like you're preaching to the con verted," she said.

Political questions like these become volatile at the Divinity School when they cross paths with theology. "The theological debate underlies the political debate," said Geter. "It's hard to say which comes first. There's a general division between whether the call of the Scriptures is to be working for the welfare of the world- and I would say that is a m ore political perspective- versus th e more eschatological perspective, which would be about saving souls, m inistering to spritual needs," he said.

Students trying to reconcile some fo rm of political life with their Christian beliefs feel the need to come down on one side or the other of the theological debate. "I think that most people, even though they would regard themselves as politically liberal, wouldn't see the role of the church as primarily one of transforming culture," said Geter. Geter himself believes that the church can fill that role, and firmly supports the political perspective of religious life.

Green, on the other hand, believes that salvation comes in the afterlife, and that the job of the Christian m in istry is to save souls. While he considers service to humanity on earth important, he believes worship and a personal relationship with God come first. When people look to social justice for salvation in this life, he said, the transcendent is lost.

The dispute between earthly respon-

sibilities and salvation in the afterlife could subtly affect the Divinity School's current search for a new dean.

"Depending on h ow the new dean feels about which direction the church o u g ht to move, it could impact the selection of the facu lty and the direction the school will go," said Geter. The selection committee, composed of YDS professors and administrators, has been deliberating about possible candidates with University Preside nt Benno Schmidt for the past year. Because the n ew dean has to be both religiously and academically qualified, the choice is more complex than at other graduate schools. "To be the dean of the Divinity School means that a wide range of demands are being made on one person ," said Greer. "It's difficult to find somebody who is qualified both academically and with respect to eccleciastical involvement."

When Schmidt spoke with YDS stud e nts last winter, some sensed that he did not realize what they wanted in a d ean. "H e didn't seem to have an idea of the concept of ministry," said Jackson. The students who attended the meeting asked that the selection committee consider women and people of colo r for the position, and most supported the idea of a candidate who would represent liberal politics and the notion of liberation theology.

Some students are anxious that the choice of a dean could change the political climate at YDS. "From a student's perspective it seems like it would make a big difference," said Geter. Greer believes that the nature of Christianity today is flexible enough that the committee can pick a dean who will not lead YDS down one narrow path. "In the ancient church Christianity was a religion of salvation as opposed to a way of life," Greer said.

"Now Christianity is an attempt to straighten o ut society. The trick is not to choose one over the other, but figure , out h ow to relate the two."

â&#x20AC;˘

Motolco Rich, a junior in Branford College, is a managing editor of TNJ .

The New JournaVOctober 20, 1989 2 1

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"There's an old joke about Grove Street Cemetery, that the dead shall be raised when Yale wants the land."

what most students don't know is that the building, which is finally being renovated this fall, belongs to Yale.

The house on Edgewood is one of many Yale-owned buildings which do not appear on the University map in the Yale College . Programs of Study handbook. The .houses Yale owns on the east side of Mansfield Street, a quiet, tree-lined residential area, do not appear on that map either; neither do two newly rehabilitated brick apartment buildings on Dixwell A venue.

22 . The New Journal/October 20, 1989 •

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The University rents out more than 570 apartments in nearby n e ighborhoods, as well as the buildings used by various local businesses. Kinko's Copies and Phil's Hairstyles on Broadway, Naples R estaurant, the Daily Cam;, and Chapel Wines and Liquors are all Yale tenants.

The infamous sublet is a rare case, the result of a student lessee's unusual choice of summer re nters. Most people who live in Yale-owned houses are graduate students and faculty. But Yale's property extends far beyond the fortress-like heart of campus, to areas outside those which most students associate with the University. Yale holds the title to more land than anyone else in New Haven- 13 percent of the city overall. This fact has brought the University into conflict with a variety of neighbors.

"There's an old joke about Grove Street Cemetery," said Michael Morand, Democratic candidate for alderman in the Fir$t Ward , "th at the dead shall be raised + when Yale wants the land." Tension over Yale's expansion, and the use of its untaxed propeny, tends to mount at times when the U niversity is making major new acquisition. Citizens, politicians, and administrators argue passionately over the issues that Yale's enormous property holdings bring up, including their tax-free status, their effect on the housing m a rket in a city with hundreds of homeless people , and how Yale should invest in the city.

R ecently, the battle raged between residents of the HilJ neighborhood a nd university administrators over the Yale Psychiatric Institute. YPI , an inpatient hospital for emotionaUy dis· turbed young people, will move into a new building next month, n ext to Yale/New H aven Hospital in the Hill .

Univer sity Secretary S h e il a Wellington called the YPI project "an excellent example of Yale colJaborating with the c ity." Alderwoman R obie Pooley, the R epublican mayoral can didate, called it "a disgrace." The negotiations over YPI exemplify the conflicts between New Haven and an expanding Yale.

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get a _spec tal release t,~use-· regula tions. The lots ..yhe.r1 ~Yale wanted to build had been set aside under urban renewal legislation in die 1960s, to be used in a way that either made the local neighborhood the primary beneficiary of the land's use, or benefitted the local commu~ity indirectly, through taxes to th~ ct~y.

As a nonprofit o rgamzauon, YPI pays no taxes. Furthermore, most of the Institute's employees come from outside the Hill area. Pooley, who sat on the committee which reviewed the YPI proposal, was angry about the whole deaL "YPI is a private institution for a bunch of psychiatrists who are claiming service to the community.

They are certainly not serving their immediate neighborhood," she said.

The city seized its chance to stop Yale when the University tried to build a 13th residential college.

Yale administrators said that YPI will benefit the community in ways not considered under the urban renewal law. WelJington suggested that YPI's research on mental illness might especially help poor people. "The incidence and prevalence of mental illness, and its severity, are worse as you go down the social ladder," she said. Paul Haeberle, executive director of YPI, pointed out that a separate branch of the institute, the Community Service Division, already provides care for the poor. The branch runs programs including an o utpatient hospital and vocational training, and helps patients find apartments.

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In addition, YPI promised to build one storefront at street level, to make the building less architecturally forb iddirlg, and to draw in members of the community. "The design of the building is to make it as non-insti· tutional as possible but also to be responsible to the neighborhood," said Lawrence Berger, YPI's deputy direc· tor of administration. More impor· tantly for city officials, the storefront mean s that part of the building will be taxed.

YPI's move to the H ill caused an uproar because both the human and financial interests of New Haven are closely tied to the city's land. While citizens a re concerned that Yale address the needs of their neighborhoods when it moves in, city officials worry about losing property taxes as the University expands.

Attaching a store to YPI is only a smaJI victory in New H aven's struggle to recapture some of its shrinking tax base. The city is riddled with nan· taxable land, including universities, chu r ches, cemete ries , hospitals, schools, and municipal property.

Altogether, almost a third of New Haven's assessed property value goes untaxed. Yale holds 38 percent of that land, far more than anyone else. The

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The New J ournaVOctober 20, 1989 23

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Pau1me Sc1p10, executive director of total of:ov.er $11 .. tn~ .fair iRent Commission. Last f~ll, t/ ., o ,<anm.ta.!!y' i Yale's case. \ · 4,61~ f..t-lll-time Yale students lived off c<' t'-' •) / '. ·' ~ "' . ~.. .. ;1 "'~ ,~·...,< "-,~"¢ .'tnat " inaece s1ble revenue_ W~<f'·"' ~mp'\!~~i Pooley, whose ward includes "~", < ~-:dens .,._New flavf ers. Accordmg to. "< areas ',·a~ound Whitney Avenue and <.-.~· ~~ '<::..{;~~ge~afe,''' ani aide in..the city's '' Bait Rock, also laments the presence of ~~· c .i~ ~ ";:i~isl~t~~e-.::'ffair~ office,~ale....avo_ids.... ~student-lenters. "Once school starts it's £~'· . ___:•oc -• .. the · pu,91tc<> ptoces~ of seekmg zonmg just about impossible to find a rental in ~.(,;'·Q";,~:~· ·~ cha!_l$~S_,. ~~pf ~n cases ~f majo~ the East Rock ar~a, and the landlords ...~..~ /,'/·~~· ::.' ·.prOJects fike YPI, because 1t doesn t can charge anythmg they want to," she ··-.'){.~·~>·':~·"'·:..W"anf'tb ~'ral~~ citikens' hackles. "Half said.

1 i> •",;;.;c.'~ f. ~he citr\ sh~~~s .u'f> for those hearings," Yale administrators see the situation 1 t:"· "' ~ \ ~~l he saiQ, ~peo'ple. cfirrying signs saying differently.. "If the University were ~~~.,1 ~.·=·" 'T~ Yale'· an(! <Make Yale Pay,' and miraculously able to provide onti' Yale· doesn't like that kind of P.R." campus housing for all of its students, The city seized its chance to stop Yale's a) we can't make people live in them, expansion when, in 1965, the University and b) an enormous amount of intried to build a 13th residential comethatisgoingintotheNewl:faven college on the corner of Grove Street economy now wouldn't be there anyand Whitney Avenue. The University more," said Yale's Assistant Secretary owned the land, but needed a variance Susan GodshalL Administrators point to build a dormitory there. The Board out that the University has made loans of Aldermen thwarted Yale's plans by to organizations working to alleviate passing an ordinance saying Yale must the housing crunch, and that Yale has seek the Board's permission for a var- considered investments in community iance. Yale challenged the ordinance in housing projects. Last spring, Yale court, and the judge declared it made a low-interest $1 million loan to unconstitutionaL By that time the Housing Operation Management University had abandoned the project. Enterprise (HOME, Inc.), a nonprofit Ironically, 24 y.ears later, several organization, to fund its affordable alderpeople are angry at Yale for not housing project. "There is no question providing more on-campus student that Yale is a powerful entity in this housing. "It doesn't matter what they town, and as such has moral and build or where they build, but they ethical responsibilities to help the should build something," said Alder- community," said Bob Solomon of man Dick Lyons, of Ward 10. "Yale HOME, I nc. He called the $1 million just doesn't address this problem at loan "a good start towards meeting all." Although city officials object to the those responsibilities." But not idea of Yale buying up land and taking everyone shares Solomon's optimism. it off the tax rolls, many also say that "The $1 million loan to HOME, Inc. students in the New Haven housing was just barely below market lending market make a tough situation worse. rates, and Yale needs to be doing much 24 The New Journal/ O ctober 20, 1989

1,

more than that," said Reverend Carl Hilgert, an advocate for the homeless.

Two years ago; President Benno Schmidt announced the New Haven Initiative, a commitment to invest $50 million in New Haven over the next ten years. The ~niversity invested the first $2 million of the initiative funds this year in Ninth Square Redevel· opment, a project in a three-block section downtown. Joel Schiavone, a major New Haven developer and gubernatorial candidate, is still dissatisfied. "Yale has been conspicuously absent on any projects," he said. "They haven't even committed the interest on the $50 million." But counting the dollars invested in New Haven is an unfair way of assessing the University's service to the city, according to administrators. "There are many ways that Yale contributes to the New Haven area-obvious things like payroll and purchasing power, and participation on city boards and commissions," said GodshalL Furthermore , the University is looking after its internal interests.

When considering investments, Yale's primary concern is to protect and to increase its $2.5 billion endowment.

"It's not just a question of social policy ," Godshall said. "We have to find investments that meet the stan· dards of the overall investment project, but which happen to be in Ne" Haven ."

Because the University owns so

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much of the city. citizens argue that Yale should invest more-in New Haven and commit to local investments that may not fill the university coffers as fast as Yale would like. Fernandez of HDC believes that as the city's major landowner, the University has a responsibility to get ;·more involved.

"As a good citizen they should be looking for investment opportunities in New Haven that might not give the same returns as they would get on Wall Street. But they will get a return, and not only that, they'll help stabilize the New Haven economy, which will help them in the long run," he said.

Yale administrators expect that the University will continue to grow.

"We're interested in acquiring a large ~ract of land for future development," said Marsha Ryan of Yale's Real Estate Office, "though there are no plans for that now." As long as Yale remains New Haven's biggest property owner, and the land is the city's main source of tax revenue, how much Yale owns and how it invests in property will be important issues for New Haven. "Yale has to be a good neighbor," said Toni Harp, alderwoman from Ward Two. As the University expands fu rther into the city's neighborhoods, it is bound to encounter more residents who feel the same way.

•Cristina Mathews is a junior in jonathan •

Edwards College.

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The New Journal/October 20, 1989 25

No Easy Access Disabled Students Lobby for Change

Julie Hantman ,,

After an administrative struggle, Matthew Weed crosses the street by himself.

For four days at the beginning of the term, Matthew Weed (SM '93) argued with the Yale College Dean's Office about where he should cross the street.

Weed, who is Yale's first blind undergraduate in ten years, said he had trouble navigating the diagonal crosswalk at the intersection of Grove and College without wandering out into traffic. Instead, he wanted to cross Grove Street near the unmarked intersection at Hillhouse Avenue. But Dean William DiCanzio of Silliman insisted that he use the diagonal crosswalk, which is near a traffic light, or else take a guide with him. Weed said he wanted to cross by himself.

When neither the dean nor Weed would give in, DiCanzio took the matter to Betty Trachtenberg, dean of freshman affairs. Trachtenberg also insisted that Weed cross at the light.

Finally, Chris Foy, a mobility instructor with the Connecticut Board of Education and Services for the Blind, intervened and convinced the deans to let Weed cross by himself at the Hillhouse intersection.

Weed is one of approximately 50 26 The New journal/October 20, 1989

students with disabilities who rely on services from Yale. Recently, many of these students have become increasingly vocal about what they see as the University's failure to meet their needs. "I wasn't surprised that the University was unready," Weed said, "but it's frustrating that they're as unready as they are." Last December, Equal Access for Students at Yale (EASY), a group of disabled students, sent a letter to Deputy Provost Charles Long enumerating their complaints.

The group claimed that bureaucratic inefficiency, inadequate resources, and poor accessibility to buildings interfered with their education. "It is hard to know where to begin to answer your many concerns and suggestions," Long wrote back. "However, I want you to know that the administration is emphatically committed to finding a solution to them."

Since 1980, Yale has been developing programs to meet the needs of disabled students. But as students with a variety of different disabilities enter the University, administrators, deans,

professors and counselors have dealt with each individual differently, forming policy as they go along.

Under a 1978 federal law-Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act- institutions which receive federal funds must "operate their fede rally assisted

"There's a perception that we're asking for things we don't need, trying to get stuff, and that we're not to be trusted." programs or activities so that when viewed in their entirety they are readily accessible to handicapped persons." Yal~ formed the Advisory Committee on Disabilities in response to the law in 1980. Since it first met,

the committee has mainly concerned "but no one could decide who should Heaton proposed that the University pay for it." itself with installing ramps and make the bar at the Graduate and Since there are so few students who Professional Student Center at Yale removing barriers so that mobilityneed modifications like ramps (five (GPSCY) accessible, but after three impaired students can move around wheelchair users currently attend years of planning, the cost of a ramp the campus more easily. Each year the committee recommends improvements Yale), and because of the problems of has increased to $100,000. The Unitime and expense, administrators try versity has yet to move forward on the to make the University more accesto find more expedient ways to acco- project. sible, such as installing elevators at Cross Campus Library and the Yale modate these students. Before the start of Another member of EASY, Jo each term, Associate Registrar David Mills Brooks (BK '90), called University Repertory Theater.

David Heaton, a fifth-year graduate contacts mobility-impaired undergraduates Career Services to see whether she student in sociology and a member of to make sure they can get to all the classes could use the resource library there. they are considering taking. "I start talking "They said, 'Well, it kind of, it really, it EASY, lobbied for two years to get a ramp built at the statistics lab on to them a month before school begins, and depends on you, and what you're wilProspect Street. One year, the we discuss what they are going to shop. ling to do.' They meant, am I willing to We make up a bunch ofscenarios- if they let someone carry me up and down the University put in a . temporary ramp, but Heaton decided it was too take this class, we'll put it in this building," stairs into the building? Now that's a dangerous. The s~cond year, the he said. precarious position for Yale to put Although the Univer.slty makes sure itself in- one, it's humiliating and two, Buildings and Gr<il;mds Committee rejected plans because it deemed them that students in wheelchairs can take you don't want to be hurt." Dean too ugly. While fellow graduate the classes they want, these students Susan Hauser, director of UCS, said students collaborated with advisors in cannot participate in many non- she wants to move the resource library the new lab, Heaton, who uses a academic activities held in inaccessible to an accessible room in the UCS wheelchair, had to do his lab work buildings. Shortly after he arrived, building. But the room is specifically alone on a computer in his room.

"Usually projects are finished after the students involved will be gone," said Richard Savage, chairman of the Advisory Committee. Yale's Gothic architecture, with its many gates and staircases, coupled with the enormous cost of renovation, slows down the committee's progres!!. A single permanent ramp can cost up to $50,000 to install. Since the committee's annual budget is $100,000, the University asks individual departments and graduate schools to fund some projects. But departments also feel bu<;jgetary constraints, and the plans get delayed. In 1986, the committee proposed installing a ramp at the Divinity School, when a student in a wheelchair enrolled. The ramp was not constructed until the student's last semester. "We did a detailed plan for Richard Savage hopes Yale will move quickly to make the campus the Divinity School ramp," said Wint accessible to the disabled.

Cannon, senior architect for Architectural and Engineering Services, The New Journal/October 20, 1989 27

designed to house the University's multi-media language lab. Yale committees have been deliberating over the problem for two years. Plans to build a ramp to UCS also have yet to emerge from the Advisory Committee. "It's hard," H auser said. "There are handicapped recruiters who I have to tell not to come."

Other inaccessible buildings on campus include the post office, the Affirmative Action Office, S prague Hall and all of the cultural centers.

"Nearly every place where student services are performed is inaccessible," said Savage, who uses a wheelchair himself. "It just makes life awkward a nd difficult." As chairman qf ¡ the Advisory Committee, Savage said that making academic buildings accessible must take priority over helping students participate in extracurricular activities.

Granting access to buildings is only . one way in which the University must accomodate disabled students under the law. In 1985, the University opened the R esource Office for Students and Employees with Disabilities, which currently serves about 50 members of the Yale community. The office finds guides and readers for the v isually disabled, scribes for students

"They begin complaining without giving the University a chance."

who cannot write, and sign -language interpreters for the hearing-impaired.

The office also provides a range of equipment, including tape recorders, auditory assistors, a Braille typewriter and printer, and a Kurzweiler Reading Machine-a computer that 28 The New Journal/October 20, 1989

scans text and reads it aloud.

Since th e Resource Office opened, two of its managers have resigned, and students and administrators have argu ed about how the office should function. The first person to manage the Resource Office was Rosette Liberman, a Ph.D. candidate from the University of Bridgeport. Her work as assistant director became the basis for her doctoral dissertation entitled "The Management of Post-secondary Institutions in Compliance with Section 504." Liberman wrote her own job description, assigning herself "signifi cant latitude for the exercise of independent judgement." She started a number of projects, which included e stablishing contact with the New Haven branch of Readings for the Blind, developing a pool of student volunteers to serve as readers and guides, and making numerous recommendations to the Yale administration about improving disabled students' access to University resources.

During her three-year tenure, Liberman proposed a policy that required that all student organizations hold their meetings in accessible buildings or move them on demand.

Deputy Provost Long rejected. the proposal , contending that forcing all the organizations on campus to move did not make sense. "It was totally impractical," he said. "Those steps would work in a physical plant that had a much higher percentage of accessible rooms than we do." I nstead, the Yale Weekry Bulletin and Calendar ran an announcement encouraging campus organizations to hold events in accessible buildings and included a list of such buildings. Liberman is still frustrated with the University's response. "The Yale administration by and large is opposed to change," she said, "and students didn't know how to rock the boat." Liberman resigned in August, 1988 to go to law school.

After Liberman left, Long and the office's director, Ezra Stiles Dean R ita Lipson, changed the assistant director's job description. "It seemed to imply more independence and a higher level of authority and responsibility than

was appropriate," said Long. Students needed a staff person who could attend to their needs while administrators dealt with questions of policy, Long said. "Rosette had some problems with deans and directors who thought the office was setting policy and making unreasonable demands," he explained.

"We wanted to make sure they knew that the Resource Office was there to assist them."

The new job description eliminated Liberman's "significant latitude" clause and focused on the assistant director's duties coordinating the office, rather than advising administrators. When john Hanna took over as assistant director in the fall of 1988, he was taken aback by the lack of authority the job allowed him. "I was told my authority was to be very severely restricted because Rosette Liberman had overstepped her boundaries," Hanna said. Even for day-to-day tasks such as assigni.ng . readers, Hanna had to get permission from L ipson, who worked out of a separate office. He objected to this arrangement. "One way you can discourage people from using services is to put them through a lot of red tape," Hanna said.

Students in EASY complained that they weren't getting the services they needed when the R esource Office changed hands. I n the spring of 1988, EASY member Judith Sandalow (LAW '90) had come to the office because her migraine headaches made it impossible for her to read .

Liberman provided her with volunteer readers. In the fall, with Liberman gone, Sandalow discovered that the pool of volunteers had dissipated. She recruited her own readers from among her Law School peers, and sent them to the Resource Office to be paid.

H anna had to authorize each pay¡ ment through the director, and Sandalow complained that the process took so long that she finished her assignments late. In December, ten members of EASY drafted a letter of complaint to Long, Presidel'\t Benno Schmidt and the Yale Corporation. In addition to citing Sandalow's grievances, among others. the letter recommended

\f

changes in the Resource Office. The students suggested that the office recruit more interpreters, improve awareness programs, and hire a part-time reader and library assistant.

Hanna blamed many of the problems in the office on the University. He thought that Yale should pay for more help and give him more authority. But Lipson said Hanna did a poor job. One time, she said, she found him reading to a student himself, rather than supervising the office.

"I wanted him to be more creative about finding people," she said. "The Resource Office last fall was in dreadful shape:" Long said. "Students were not getting the response they wanted.

It was clear that it was time to hire someone with more · administrative experience."

Hanna accepted a buy-out of his contract in April. · In a letter to Schmidt, members of EASY claimed that the University had forced Hanna to resign, making hi'rtl a scapegoat for their complaints. "John has done an excellent job even with his hands tied and his voice silenced," they wrote.

The students said Lipson and Long wanted to get rid of Hanna because he was sympathetic to their charges that the University was neglecting them.

Hanna agreed. "I think they held me ultimately accountable for students' submitting their grievances," Hanna said. "I guess someone had to take the weight."

Lipson said that Hanna's resignation had nothing to do with the EASY complaints, and that she never pressured him to step down. "No one at this university asks people to resign," she said. Furthermore, L ipson said EASY members were too quick to condemn the University. "There is already a built-in suspicion that something is llQt going to be done," she said. "They begin complaining without giving the University a chance." While EASY ~mbers felt that the University had Ignored their needs and undermined the power of their advocate in Hanna, Lipson and Long said that students lhowed an unwarranted hostility toward the administration. Savage,

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who heard about the controversy through Advisory Comm i ttee meetings, said students blew the problem out of proportion. "It was my impression that there were a few students that were very angry," he said.

The antagonism between administrators and EASY members continued after Hanna left. This year, students objected to a new University policy which permits the school to require physical exams to determine their needs. When Long wrote the policy into the 1989 Undergraduate Regulations, members of EASY took .offense. "There's a perception that we're asking for things we don't need, trying to get stuff, and that we're not to be trusted," Brooks said. Long, however, said that a medical exam could help the University determine the best way to help students. "I think it's fair to say that a student is not always in the best position to know what he or she needs, or what current help is available," he said. "It's possible a student could request accomodations that the student thinks appropriate and the University thinks inappropriate."

Long wrote the new policy after Sandalow complained th at the Re¡ source Office director arbitrarily asked her for a doctor's evaluation. Sandalow thought Lipson mad e the request either in retaliation for her involve¡ ment with EASY, or because Lipson doubted the validity of h er condition.

"The implication was that because I didn't walk with a cane or have a dog, I didn't have a disability," she said.

Lipson said she only asked for the examination in order to help Sandalow. "I was not trying to pry," she said. "My intention was to get from the medical personnel how best to accomodate Judy."

In order to allay the feeling of mistrust between disabled students and administrators, EASY requested that the University hire a Resource Office director who is disabled, and who is specifically trained in disabilities advocacy. The University restructured the Resource Office again this fall.

After Lipson left her post to attend to

her duties as a college dean , the administration hired the first full-time , paid director who will work in the office. But members of EASY were disappointed that the administration passed over two applicants who met the student group's qualifications, including a disabilities organizer from Harvard.

Faye Hanson , the new Resource Office director, has little formal training in working with disabilities, but said raising a daughter who is learning disabled has made he r sensitive to the issues important to her job. "I know about that whole business of being labeled and struggling for independence," she said. Hanson has a master's degree in sociology, and

"'t's fair to say that a student is npt always in the best position to know what he or she needs." worked for ten years as an administrator at the Medical School. The Resource Office's third manager in five years, she said she is making a fresh beginning. "I view it as a start-up project, one that w ill be developmental," Hanson said. Although the Resource Office has just hired a parttime secretary, Hanson said she needs fuU-time help. "fm finding it's an enormous job," she said. "The phones ring all day."

Hanson's job is not much different from that of the former assistant director in that she is supposed to coordinate services for students, rather than make recommendations to the administration . "It is our hope that having a director to do more of the day-to-day tasks, it will be possible to let the committee address issues of policy," Long said. Students argue that

the University should give the Resource Office director more power to act as their advocate to the University.

Weed was frustrated because Hanson, although she supported him in his battle over crossing the street, could do little to resolve the situation. "She should be an advocate, but in a pre-organized environment,• Weed said. •As it is it's very disorganized." Hanson agreed that the office needs to keep track of students' disabilities, but, she said, *Each person's needs are very different. You can't ~trapolate that ·of one to another."

She characterized the debate over Weed as a matter of opinion. "We all have our own biases," she said . "He put up a good fight." Trachtenberg maintains that working with disabled students on a flexible and informal basis makes sense. " I don't think any student here is in the province of one office," she said. "It's a decentralized place, and lots of people are in on decisions."

While Hanson deals directly with students, the Advisory Committee plans to discuss how the University should address questions of disabilities in general. Aware of the hostilities of last year, Savage wants to build communication with students by matching them with members of the committee.

"The idea is to take the fifty-odd students who are our clients and divide them into groups of four, assigning them to committee members," he said.

Meanwhile, EASY members are continuing to work out their own agenda. They have created subcommittees to study the issues of the medical examination policy, accessibility to buildings, and hiring a disabled staff person for the Resource Office . Brooks said that as long as the number of disabled students is so low, they will continue to deal with their concerns little by little. "It's not easy to be disabled at Yale," she said. "There are so many issues, and so few of us."

•

Julie HantTTUJn, a senior in SilliTTUJn College, is on the staff of TNJ.

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