Yale silent when it matters most

By Molly Ball

This summer, Yale President Richard Levin, GRD '74, appeared in an article in The Blade, the daily newspaper of Toledo, Ohio. What did he have to say? Not much.

SHAWN CHENG/YH

The Blade story, which ran on the front page, was part of the paper's examination of "brain drain"—the phenomenon wherein bright youngsters leave dilapidated, Midwestern Toledo for more exciting lives in places like Washington, D.C., and New York. One Blade story suggested a contract students would sign before they left for college: in return for providing them with safe streets and public education, students' hometowns would require them to live and work there for a few years after graduation.

Blade education reporter Tom Troy called Ivy League university presidents to ask them what they thought of the idea. Only one bothered to reply (possibly because The Blade's publisher and editor-in-chief is a Yale alum worth $100 million, but that's speculation): Richard Levin.

So far, so good. Brain drain is a pressing issue for Toledo and cities like it, and Levin was in a position to contribute much-needed discourse to a nationwide debate. But he didn't.

Under the headline, "Cities need their grads, expert says," Levin, via a written statement, executed a fantastic literary soft-shoe. Not only did his words signify little, they contained neither sound nor fury. "I very much like the idea of students returning to their hometowns to do community service work or work in their fields of specialization, though not enough to think that it should be mandated," read Levin's quote in the article's second paragraph.

Translation: If you want to go home and enrich your community, that's really nice. Good for you.

The point here is not Levin's position on brain drain—it's his lack of position altogether, on brain drain or on anything else. (Later in the article, Levin ventures, daringly, that brain drain is "an interesting subject.") There was a time when Yale administrators had something to say, and they said it.

In the 1960s, Chaplain William Sloane Coffin, Jr., TD '49, DIV '56, was a vocal participant in the civil rights movement. He gave fiery speeches and was jailed in the course of a 1961 Freedom Ride. Coffin was similarly outspoken on the Vietnam War (he was against it).

What can we imagine Levin doing in this scenario? The University Chaplain wants to collect students' draft cards in Battell Chapel, an illegal action. "Well," Levin might say (if, in fact, he actually gave a speech, rather than issuing a statement so he wouldn't have to answer any questions)—"this certainly is an interesting situation."

Then-President Kingman Brewster, TD '41, was similarly apprehensive at first; he publicly stated that Coffin's flamboyant actions irked him. But by 1969, Brewster knew which side he and the University were on. Before a crowd of 15,000 on the New Haven Green, he said, "Let us say simply and proudly that our ability to keep the peace requires that America once again be a symbol of decency and hope." The President of Yale had come out against the war.

Of course, brain drain isn't the Vietnam War by any means, but you get the idea. For today's Yale Administration, speaking out on political and social issues is unheard of. And when Yale refuses to take a stand, it refuses to lend its stamp of intellectual prestige to debates that badly need this kind of credibility. When Yale said it was against Vietnam, the anti-war movement wasn't just a cause for radicals and troublemakers anymore—it was a cause for the educated everywhere.

Why Yale doesn't take sides anymore is obvious: the University is afraid. Afraid to alienate potential applicants, afraid to scare off alumni contributors, afraid to tarnish its public image. Today's Administration has settled on a sort of meek impartiality, remaining neutral on all important issues.

But why? Yale isn't a newspaper or a public institution, so it is not bound to objectivity. The University is allowed to take stands; further, by not doing so, it enforces the political apathy and ethical nihilism of our times. By trying to please all of the people all of the time, Yale comes off as bland and gutless. In giving up its identity as a center of moral intellectualism, the University loses much more than the alumni dollars it gains.

There are opinions worth having, and someone has to be strong enough to have them. Unfortunately, that someone is no longer Yale.

Molly Ball is a junior in Pierson.

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