Rage against Yale's propaganda machine

BY BEN REITER

One of the most intriguing articles in the issue, and one that initially seems to reek the least of boosterism, is entitled "Highs and Lows of Town and Gown." The article traces significant milestones in the ever-evolving relationship between Yale and New Haven over the course of three-plus centuries.

The first four pages of the article, which cover the years 1647 to 1973, present a surprisingly objective picture of the often tense and sometimes violent relationship of Yale and the Elm City. The anonymous author even lists more lows (14) than highs (11). But then the propaganda machine begins to whir.

The concluding page of the article, which examines the years 1978 to 2001, contains six highs and only one trivial low—Asit Gosar's, PC '00, star-crossed 1999 aldermanic campaign. The YAM depicts Yale and New Haven as having reached a "recognition of interdependence." Apparently, University President Richard Levin, GRD '74, and Mayor John DeStefano, Jr. are best pals, Bruce Alexander, BK '65, is New Haven's economic messiah, and developments of the past 20 years have left Yale and New Haven on the brink of achieving a symbiotic utopia. However, relations between Yale and New Haven are far from as rosy as the YAM seems to want alumni to believe.

I am not one to withhold giving credit where credit is due. New Haven today, on a macroscopic scale, is a far better place to live than it was in the mid-1970s, thanks, in large measure, to Yale's efforts. The city is safer and more physically attractive; shopping districts are now more successful and better maintained.

But the past two decades have also seen their fair share of seriously troubling "lows," all of which, disturbingly, go unmentioned in the YAM's article. How is it possible that the magazine failed to include the shooting death of Pierson sophomore Christian Prince within sight of the President's house on Hillhouse Avenue in 1991? How is there no mention of the nationally covered strike undertaken by Local 35 in 1996 which shut down Yale's dining halls? What of a visiting student's allegations of racial profiling and misconduct targeted at the New Haven Police department after its officers broke up an Alpha Sigma Phi party in October of last year?

On a less concrete and more interpersonal level, the relationship between Yale's population and New Haven's residents is perhaps no less strained that it has always been. Sure, townspeople and students have not engaged in bloody riots or aimed heavy artillery at one another in quite a while (as happened in 1854, without even the presence of Puffy or J-Lo). But no one currently attending Yale could argue that many New Haven residents view students as privileged and snobbish, or that many Yalies feel little connection with the wider population of the city in which they live. Perhaps this tension can never be ameliorated; the YAM, however, doesn't even hint at it in its coverage of the past 20 years of town-gown relations, and in fact implies that the tension may have magically disappeared.

The purpose of the YAM and, indeed, of any alumni magazine is to maintain a connection with former students and community members in order to ensure their continued support of the institution of which they once were a part. Jingoistic articles such as those mentioned in the first paragraph of this column certainly have a place in the YAM. However, in the Tercentennial issue's supposedly objective Town-Gown article, the magazine, through the omission of a number important facts and the one-sided presentation of others, has done the University's alumni and current students a serious disservice. Yes, Yale's relationship with New Haven may have improved on some fronts. But the YAM's depiction of the past 20 years is little more than blatant propaganda. The University should obey its own motto, acknowledge its ongoing problems in its relationship with the Elm City, and provide some more "lux et veritas" in how it presents itself to its alumni.

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