The Bulldogs (20–9, 11–3 Ivy) fell in overtime to Brown (12–17, 8–6) 84–81 on Saturday afternoon after Brown’s Aaron Cooley hit a fadeaway three with .5 seconds remaining. 

“You got to tip your hat to him,” Yale head coach James Jones said of Cooley’s last-second heave. “We played really good defense and didn’t give him a clean look. It was an off-balance, contested shot and the kid hit it.”

Jones’s squad, favored by 11.5 points entering the matchup, led 69–58 with 4:40 remaining in the game. With 35 seconds remaining, the Bears hit a corner-three to tie the game at 73-73. Cooley’s shot in overtime was Brown’s first and only lead of the game.

Guard August Mahoney ‘24 led the scoring for the Elis with 16 points. Yale’s offense looked in sync for most of the game, making quick cuts and routinely finding shooters for open looks. Five players finished with double-digit scoring performances. 

Defensively, however, Yale struggled to contain Brown’s Kino Lilly Jr., who finished with 26 points. Typically one of the best rebounding teams in the nation, the Bulldogs lost the rebounding battle 39–26, surrendering 16 offensive boards.

“We got our butts kicked on the glass,” Jones said. “They won the game because of what they did on the interior. It was a disappointing team effort.”

With the loss, Yale fell from 80 to 90th in the nation according to kenpom.com’s college basketball ratings, their biggest drop since losing to Fairfield on Dec. 6, which dropped them 20 spots at the time. 

Still, the loss has little impact on the season’s course. Yale entered the game tied with Princeton (23–3, 11–2 Ivy) for first place in the conference standings, but would have still been the second seed in the tournament due to Ivy League tiebreaker rules — which take each team’s NCAA NET ranking into account. 

Princeton, set to play against Penn at 6 p.m., is guaranteed the tournament’s first seed. If the Tigers lose, Yale would earn at least a share of the regular season Ivy title but still wind up second or third at Ivy madness. 

In any event, Yale will face Cornell (22–6, 11–3 Ivy), who would also earn a share of the title with a Princeton loss but will be the second or third seed in the tournament, depending on which team is ranked higher in the NET. The higher seed does not have any competitive advantage in the tournament, which this season will be hosted at Columbia. 

The Bulldogs defeated the Big Red 80–60 in the first round of last year’s tournament. Cornell, however, boasting an elite offense and a rapid style of play that ranks sixth fastest in the nation, is much improved from last season. This season, they’ve split the season series 1-1. 

“We have a lot to learn from this game,” Jones said. “And we’ll get a week of practice to start playing our best basketball again.”

Saturday’s game will tip off at 2 p.m. in Columbia’s Levien Gymnasium. 

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Last month, in a page of the News’ Black History Month special issue, nine Yale students contributed to a section called “Being a Black engineer at Yale,” highlighting their experiences as Black students in departments such as Applied Mathematics, Computer Science, Biomedical Engineering and Mechanical Engineering. Students expressed feelings of isolation and discouragement at the lack of representation in the University’s STEM majors.

“It’s discouraging to walk into an auditorium where I can count on one hand the amount of other Black people in my lectures,” Deja Dunlap ’26, a Black applied mathematics major, told the News. “In discussion, I feel pressured to be exceptional and to be more than just the ‘Black person in the room.’”

Dunlap also highlighted the lack of Black professors in Yale’s School of Engineering and Applied Science.

Just two out of 153 faculty members in SEAS identify as Black or African American, a meager 1.3 percent compared to five percent across all Yale faculty and six percent among the faculty of Arts and Sciences.

This issue is not unique to Yale; Ivies across the country hire disproportionately low Black faculty members to teach engineering and other STEM fields. Zero percent and four percent of Harvard’s tenure-track and tenured engineering faculty are Black or African-American, respectively. The Dartmouth Thayer School of Engineering has one Black associate professor out of 70 faculty members.

Vincent Wilczynski, deputy dean of the engineering school, declined to comment about the lack of Black faculty representation. He pointed instead to the school’s “fairly robust DEIB program,” which houses several affinity groups and professional organizations for students from historically marginalized backgrounds.

Wilczynski also told the News that Charles Brown, a physics professor and National Society of Black Engineers faculty advisor, will be bringing a team of over 10 Yale members of the National Society of Black Engineers – of which Dunlap is the Yale chapter vice president – to the organization’s annual meeting in Atlanta, which will take place later this month.

Brown did not respond to the News’ request for comment on the trip.

Wilczynski said that the convention is an exciting opportunity for students to meet and network with colleagues from all over the nation.

“From the school side we go ahead and make sure that the support is there and work hard to make sure that there’s a faculty advisor to integrate students into this professional society network,” he added.

Solomon Gonzalez ’23, who graduated from Yale last spring with a degree in mechanical engineering, said that NSBE had less of a presence on campus when he arrived at Yale. 

He described his experience in the major as “individual.”

“It felt like I was just doing it on my own,” Gonzalez said. “Being part of a major and seeing nobody else who looks like you, it makes you wonder, ‘Does it even make sense that I’m here?’”

Both Dunlap and Gonzalez said that the number of Black peers in their majors decreased as they moved to more advanced courses.

Dunlap, who attended a public high school in Las Vegas, recalled her experience taking Math 115 –– an intermediate course –– while others in the major began in Math 120, which is more advanced. She speculated that “working from behind” could discourage students from public high schools — who are disproportionately students of color. 

She suggested that Yale permit students to take introductory math courses such as Math 115 for free the summer prior to their first year in exchange for course credit. Yale does provide preparatory Online Experiences for Yale Scholars, a free program that helps students adapt to the rigor of quantitative study at Yale — though the program does not count for credit.

“I didn’t realize it would be like this when I arrived,” said Dunlap, referring to the introductory math sequence. “Yale could do more to acclimate students from lower-income backgrounds.”

Yale’s School of Engineering and Applied Science was founded in 1852. 

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Yale (20–8, 11–2 Ivy) beat rival Harvard (14–12, 5–8 Ivy) 80–60 on Saturday night. A night earlier, they took care of business against Dartmouth (5–21, 1–12 Ivy). With the two victories, the Elis reached the 20-win mark for the fourth time in the last five seasons.

Bez John for 3⃣

| (ESPN+) https://t.co/B7Wfg8jNiX#ThisIsYale pic.twitter.com/yG1A6gtWMj

— Yale Men's Basketball (@YaleMBasketball) March 3, 2024

Star forward Danny Wolf ’26 had an all-around performance with 16 points, 10 rebounds and five assists. The statline marked his ninth double-double of the Ivy season, tying the all-time Ivy League record. 

Guard Bez Mbeng ’25 also had a double-double. The junior finished with 10 points and 10 assists — a career-high.

The Bulldogs have now scored over 80 points in each of their last three games. The team’s kenpom.com ranking had shot up nine spots since a Feb. 23 loss to Cornell. Now at 82, the Elis are ranked higher than they’ve been all season. 

Against Dartmouth on Friday, Yale shot 55 percent from the field, 46 percent from three-point range and had 23 assists on their 33 field goals. Guard John Poulakidas ’25 led the way with 16 points, while Matt Knowling ’24 added 13 on 5-6 shooting and Wolf recorded another double-double.

Bez with the steal, Matt with the finish!

| (ESPN+) https://t.co/hCH1umEMIz#ThisIsYale pic.twitter.com/hnblfJ7vYi

— Yale Men's Basketball (@YaleMBasketball) March 2, 2024

Throughout the game, two sections of students held up flags reading “Cease Fire” and “Divest,” calling for a ceasefire in Israel’s ongoing war against Hamas in Gaza, an end to what they called Israel’s occupation of Palestine and that Yale divest from weapons manufacturing. 

Mbeng, the Ivy League’s reigning Defensive Player of the Year, filled up the stat sheet once again against the Big Green with eight points, five assists and three steals. 

With one game remaining in conference play, the field for Ivy Madness is set with Yale, Princeton, Cornell and Brown as the four qualifying teams. Yale and Princeton are both 11–2 in season play, but the Tigers will likely earn the first seed through a tiebreaker because they have a higher NET rating. 

In the unlikely event that Princeton loses to Penn (11–17, 3–10 Ivy), the Bulldogs would gain the first seed with a win of their own and play Brown in the tournament’s opening round. Otherwise, they’ll face the Big Red, who they beat at home but fell to on the road. 

Still, the Elis have one more regular season game to play against Brown (11–17, 7–6 Ivy) on Saturday. The Bears got off to a slow start to the season but are better than their record indicates, having won their last five games in Ivy play, including an upset over Cornell in Ithaca. Yale beat them 80–70 in the Ivy League opener in January.

Saturday’s game will tip off at noon in Payne Whitney Gymnasium.

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Around 10 demonstrators affiliated with the Revolutionary Communist Party showed up at the classroom in William Harkness Hall five minutes after the start of class and began shouting at Snyder while holding up signs and recording students.

“It seemed like they just wanted to shout Professor Snyder down, not engage in any sort of discussion,” William Wang ’26, a student in the class, told the News. “After a few minutes of shouting it was clear they weren’t gonna go away. Eventually, we just left and went to another classroom.”

Snyder is a historian specializing in Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union and the Holocaust, and he has  been an outspoken supporter of Ukraine’s resistance effort since Russia launched its full-scale invasion on Feb. 24, 2022. His class focuses on Nazi and Stalinist regimes in the mid-twentieth century.

The demonstrators walked into the back of class and held up signs while Raymond Lotta, the group’s leader, declared, “No class as usual today!” Lotta called on Snyder to condemn the United States for its support of Israel’s military offensive against Hamas in Gaza and accused him of “brainwashing” students with “anti-communism.”

On Oct. 7, Hamas attacked Israel, killing at least 1,200 people and taking 250 people as hostages, according to Israel’s Foreign Ministry. Israel responded to the attack with a declaration of war and full bombardment of Gaza. As of Feb. 29, Israel has killed more than 30,000 people in Gaza through its military onslaught, according to the health ministry in Gaza. The United States has sent over $3 billion in military aid to Israel each year for the last 10 years. 

“Timothy Snyder, your professor, is locking you into this oppressive system,” Lotta shouted, calling Israel’s action in Gaza a “genocide” and referring to “U.S. imperialism.” “He is brainwashing you with lies and slander about communism. The stakes could not be higher.”

Snyder attempted to usher the group out of the classroom, taking a phone away from one individual who was recording the event and saying, “You don’t have the right to film me.” 

Lotta continued to shout while other demonstrators stood in place and held signs such as “Where’s Snyder’s moral outrage over US backed genocide in GAZA?” and “Hitler killed 6 million Jews and Stalin saved 1.6 million Jews.”

After five minutes of shouting, students and Snyder began filing out of the classroom. Shortly after, Lotta and his group were escorted out of the building by Yale security.

Speaking to the News afterward, Lotta called the demonstration a “success.”

“This was meant to be a jolt,” Lotta said. “We wanted to be dramatic and stir students up. This is a challenge for Snyder to debate me on the past and future of the Communist revolution.”

According to Lotta, Yale security informed his group that they were trespassing and not permitted to return to Yale campus without authorization. They did not elaborate on what the consequences would be for a future infraction, Lotta said.

A University spokesperson wrote to the News on Thursday night that “the situation is still being investigated and reviewed.”

“The university takes the disruption of campus activities and student safety seriously and follows these guidelines regarding free expression and peaceable assembly,” referring to Yale’s Free Expression Policy.

Snyder was not available for immediate comment on the incident. 

In November, Lotta appeared at one of Snyder’s “The Making of Modern Ukraine” lectures, handing him an invitation to appear at a debate. The disturbance on Wednesday, Lotta said, had been planned a week in advance.

The lecture resumed in a separate classroom without further disturbance. 

Snyder is the author of several books on Eastern European history, including “Our Malady,” “On Tyranny,” “The Road to Unfreedom,” “Black Earth” and “Bloodlands.”

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The ruling stems from a lawsuit filed in March 2022 by alumni Victor Ashe ’67 and Donald Glascoff ’67, alleging that the Corporation’s 2021 decision to end the alumni petition process for a position among the governing group was a violation of Yale’s 1872 charter.

“Don Glascoff and I are disappointed in the decision on the Yale Corporation,” Ashe wrote to the News. “We are reviewing our options but an appeal is likely. This decision, if not reversed, means Yale can deny any meaningful alumni participation in the election of Alumni Trustees.  Alumni views can be ignored.”

Before its abolition in 2021, the petition process allowed alumni who acquired three percent of eligible alumni voters’ signatures to have their names on the ballot for the alumni fellows election. Six of 19 spots on the Yale Corporation are reserved for alumni fellows.

The decision was made to prevent “issue-based candidacies,” and candidates who sought to gain a seat on the Corporation to promote specific platforms, according to a 2021 announcement made by then-Senior Trustee Catharine Bond Hill GRD ’85. 

University spokesperson Karen Peart wrote to the News that Yale is “pleased” with the decision.

Ashe, Glascoff and Eric Henzy, the lawyer representing them, allege that the University’s decision is an overstep of the regulations outlined in an 1872 amendment to the University’s charter – which designates six seats on the Yale Corporation for alumni and allows them to vote on candidates.

Specifically, they claim that the Corporation can only regulate the time, place and manner of the elections. Other restrictions, such as removing the petition process and raising the number of signatures required, are in violation of the amendment’s original language, they argue.

Yale, represented by Connecticut law firm Wiggin and Dana LLP, says that the University is entitled to full regulatory authority of the elections process. 

Judge John Burns Farley concurred with this claim in his decision and granted the University’s motion for summary judgment.

“The charter does not impose on [Yale] an obligation to conduct alumni fellow elections in any particular manner,” he wrote in the decision. 

Opponents of the change argue that it allows the Corporation too much control over Yale’s direction. The only other path onto the ballot is through the Alumni Fellow Nominating Committee, which is made up of several Yale Alumni Association officers, three University officials and one successor trustee from the Corporation. 

Scott Gigante GRD ’23, co-founder of the climate activist organization Yale Forward which supported a petition candidate in the 2021 election, told the News that he does not consider the decision reached in the case as a loss in the fight to reinstate the petition process. Instead, he said he sees the decision only as a confirmation that “the fight” will not be won by legal means.

Gigante added that although he cannot speak to the legality of the decision, he believes it was “morally” incorrect. 

“The fight to reinstate a petition for alumni to be able to get ballot access for the alumni election, independent of a body run and organized by Yale, will continue,” Gigante said. “When you’re playing a game where your opponent controls the rules it’s very hard to win, and you have to be very creative so we’ll have to figure out what that creative solution looks like.”

Per the Alumni Fellow Election website, this year’s election for Alumni Fellows will launch in early spring and close on Monday, May 19. The University Charter states that all alumni and honorary degree holders are eligible to vote, but Yale College students are only eligible if they have held their degrees for five years.

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Yale (18–8, 9–2 Ivy) fell to Cornell (20–5, 9–2 Ivy) 65–62 on Friday night in Ithaca, but still clinched a spot due to other results around the league. On Saturday, they bounced back with an 84–76 victory over Columbia.

Against Cornell, the Elis committed 13 turnovers and made just 11 of 26 free-throw attempts. Guard John Poulakidas ’25 was fouled on a three-point attempt with one second remaining and Yale down three, but missed two of the three potentially game-tying free-throw attempts. Even after recovering the ball after the missed shot, an errant pass leading to an over-and-back violation handed the ball back to Cornell, closing out the game.

The game was arguably Yale’s most important of the season thus far, as a win would have cemented them at first place in the Ivy standings and likely the first seed in the tournament, too.

“We had opportunities down the stretch but didn’t take advantage,” head coach James Jones said. “In a league game, you can’t shoot the way we did from the free-throw line and expect to win.”

Now, Yale is tied for first place with both Princeton (21–3, 9–2 Ivy) and Cornell. They are unlikely to get the first seed in the four-team Ivy tournament due to the league’s tiebreaker rules. 

A three-team tie is first determined on the basis of cumulative record against other tied teams. Yale is 1–1 against Princeton and Cornell, and Cornell is 1–0 against Princeton with a game against them on Saturday. If Cornell wins, they’d hold the tiebreaker over Yale. If Princeton wins, each team would still be tied on the basis of cumulative record and the league would determine the tiebreaker on the basis of cumulative record against the next highest seeded team. 

But since both Yale and Princeton are unbeaten against every team besides Cornell, the league would move to the next tiebreaker, which would be the NCAA’s NET rankings. 

As of Monday night, Yale is 82nd in the rankings and Princeton is 51st, so the Tigers would all but certainly earn the first seed in that scenario.

Assuming Yale wins all three of their remaining games, they’d need Princeton or Cornell to lose an additional game beyond the Princeton-Cornell matchup on Saturday.

With that unlikely to happen, the Elis should prepare to face one of either Princeton or Cornell in the first round of the Ivy Tournament, which they must win in order to make the NCAA tournament. 

Still, Yale is a threatening team with capable players on offense and defense. In addition to star forward Danny Wolf ’26, who scored 20 points on 9-15 shooting Saturday night, Poulakidas and guard August Mahoney ’24 are shooting over 40 percent from deep and averaging 12.8 and 10 points per game, respectively. Forward Matt Knowling ’24 gives the Bulldogs a steady source of efficient scoring from around the rim, having scored in double-digits in every Ivy League game he’s played.

On defense, guard Bez Mbeng ’25, the reigning Defensive Player of the Year, is putting together another terrific campaign. Swing-forward Casey Simmons ’26 brings length and athleticism to Yale’s perimeter defense in addition to his expanding offensive role.

Yale’s next matchup will come against last place Dartmouth this Friday in Payne Whitney Gymnasium.

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With the number one seed back up for grabs this Friday against Cornell (19–4, 8–1 Ivy), the Bulldogs (17–7, 8–1 Ivy) must hit the accelerator once more. 

“We still have an opportunity to win a championship, we still have an opportunity to get the number one seed,” head coach James Jones told the News after the loss. “We were gonna have to win the rest of our games anyways, so let’s go out and do that now.”

With five games remaining in conference play, Yale and Cornell sit atop the Ivy League standings at 8–1 each, while Princeton (19–4, 7–2 Ivy) is one game back. If the Elis defeat the Big Red on Friday, they’ll have total control over first place and be in prime position to land the first seed at the four-team Ivy tournament in March.

The number one seed is especially desirable in this season’s Ivy League landscape, where three teams — Yale, Cornell and Princeton — rank far above the remaining five. As the first seed, the Bulldogs would likely face either Harvard (13–9, 4–5 Ivy) or Columbia (13–9, 4–5 Ivy) in the tournament’s first round, where they would be heavy favorites. The matchup between the two and three seeds would be Cornell vs Princeton, which would be a far more contested affair. 

Yale, Cornell and Princeton have all only lost to each other so far this season, and are a combined 19–0 against the other five teams.

The Bulldogs beat Cornell on a last-second basket two weeks ago at home, in a game they trailed for over 30 minutes of play. In order to avoid a similarly close game in Ithaca on Friday, they’ll have to do a better job of adapting to the Big Red’s rapid pace of play. 

Cornell’s offense is the fifth fastest offense in the country, playing at a rate of just 14.9 seconds per possession. They also score at a high volume on shots inside two-point range. The team’s 2-point percentage of 63.6 percent ranks first in the country.

There’s no simple way to stop the Big Red, who compromise intensity on defense for speed on offense and whose play often resembles a track meet more than a basketball game. Forcing Cornell to play at Yale’s pace in their home gym will be easier said than done.

What should be easy are the fundamentals. Reducing turnovers should be a key for Yale on Friday, who, despite having the lowest turnover percentage in the conference, coughed the ball up 13 times against Cornell on Feb. 10. In last year’s regular season loss to the Big Red, Yale turned the ball over 16 times. 

The Bulldogs must keep their composure against the Cornell press on Friday night. The steady presence of forward Matt Knowling ’24, who’s missed the last two games due to injury, would be a big addition.

Sharpshooting duo August Mahoney ’24 and John Poulakidas ’25 will also need to take on a larger role in Friday night’s matchup. The two struggled to find quality looks from behind the arc in the two teams’ last matchup, with Yale shooting 3-14 from three-point range.

In last year’s Ivy Tournament against Cornell, though, Poulakidas’s 25-point effort on 6-7 from beyond the arc was a key factor in Yale’s victory. A more efficient night from three-point range will be key to the Elis’ ability to match the Cornell offense.

Yale will also rely heavily on star forward Danny Wolf ’26 to have a comeback game. The 7-footer struggled mightily against Princeton last week, going scoreless on 0-8 shooting from the field. 

The Bulldogs’ ability to limit turnovers, find space on the perimeter, and get Wolf going offensively will go a long way toward making the six-hour journey to Ithaca a success. 

Friday night’s game will tip off at 7:00 p.m. in Cornell’s Newman Arena.

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The letter, which has been active since Feb. 14, has been signed by faculty at Yale College, Yale Law School and the School of Medicine, among others. It offers six aspirations for the upcoming tenure of Yale’s future president, who is yet to be identified. 

“We hope that as the next president you will support the continued engagement of our faculty and students in initiatives that affect the world around us,” it reads. “And that you strongly and unequivocally reaffirm the value that Yale sees in the efforts we all put towards environmental, social and civil justice.”

The letter supports, among other priorities, the protection of students’ rights to protest and engage in civil disobedience, diversity and inclusion initiatives and collaboration with community colleges and other universities to expand access to higher education.

The letter comes on the heels of another initiative, “Faculty for Yale,” which calls on Yale to “insist on the primacy of teaching, learning, and research as distinct from advocacy and activism” and argues that Yale is struggling to meet its “most important responsibilities as an academic institution in a clear and consistent way.” 

By contrast, the faculty letter seems to come from an opposing ideological standpoint, urging the University to embrace its role as an advocate for causes in social justice and higher education. 

While professor Greta LaFleur, who signed the letter, said that it was not intended as a direct response to Faculty for Yale, the letter refers to the group in its opening statement. It claims that American universities must be defended against attacks from  “members of their own faculty, who argue that universities have lost their way,” in addition to donors and politicians.

Daniel HoSang, who is a professor of ethnicity, race and migration and of American studies as well as a co-author of the letter, said that it was written in order to “affirm the wide range of extraordinary work happening at our institution that integrates outstanding research, teaching and practice with a robust commitment to the public good.”

One of the letter’s main points urges the future president to continue being a “positive force on the world,” highlighting instances in which Yale faculty have faculty have” translated their academic findings into practice,” such as Yale’s prison education initiatives or the work of Yale Schools of Public Health and Medicine faculties on COVID-19. 

Amy Kapcyznki, a law professor and one of the letter’s authors emphasized Yale’s relation to national higher education as one of the “broader themes of the letter.”

“There’s really a need to pay attention to the broader loss of faith in higher education and attacks on higher education across the country.” Kapczynski said. “We don’t just see this as a Yale question, but a need for leadership in higher education more broadly.”

According to Kapczysnki, higher education is under attack partly because “we are a place where people think freely and do important research that sometimes challenges conventional orthodoxies.” 

The letter cites educational gag orders that aim to restrict the teaching of certain subjects and censor teachers in both K-12 and higher education, as well as attempts to undermine DEI programs and eliminate certain majors, such as sociology.

Naftali Kaminski, a professor at the School of Medicine who helped author the letter, said that he feels the University is at a critical juncture in its history and can thrive by continuing to affirm the outlined priorities. He highlighted examples of Yale’s engagement with the world over the last ten years, such as global healthcare leadership, commitment to clean energy and climate change mitigation and student activism. 

As of Monday evening, the letter has 148 signatories.

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Among other measures, the group calls for “a thorough reassessment of administrative encroachment” and the promotion of diverse viewpoints. The group also calls for a more thorough description of free expression guidelines in the Faculty Handbook; Yale’s current guidelines are based on its 1974 Woodward Report. The group also wants Yale to implement a set of guidelines regarding donor influence, which were first put forth by the Gift Policy Review Committee in 2022.

On its site, Faculty for Yale outlines issues that it claims stem from Yale’s “retreat from the university’s basic mission.”

“Faculty for Yale is a spontaneously coalescing group of (so far) over 100 faculty from throughout the university who wish to support our university in re-dedicating itself to its historic and magnificent mission to preserve, produce, and transmit knowledge,” professor of social and natural science Nicholas Christakis wrote to the News. “We believe that any loss of focus on this deep, fundamental, and important mission may contribute to a range of challenges being faced in universities like ours nowadays.”

Faculty for Yale also urges the University to adopt the University of Chicago’s Kalven Committee report that urges institutional neutrality.

However, in an interview with the News in November, Salovey said that although more college presidents might be considering the principle of institutional neutrality “because they realize how fraught it has become to speak out” on the issues of the day, he does not yet hold that view. He added, though, that “it’s a worthy view to consider.”

“I still think that we are going to want to speak out as leaders in higher education on issues of the day, but the decision about when to and when not to is not an easy one,” Salovey said. “I tend to use a criteria of how directly our campus is affected by whatever the incident in the world is but that’s still not a perfect criteria … there are atrocities all over the world, and I’ve probably not spoken out on more of them than I have spoken on.”

Christakis, speaking on behalf of the group, told the News that “we hope to meet” with Salovey. 

Howard Forman, a professor at the School of Management, said that he signed the letter in part to emphasize Yale’s “promises for advancing and disseminating knowledge” amid the presidential search process. Forman also called himself a “big fan” of Salovey.

“He has served us extremely well, facing numerous internal and external upheavals and facing up to Yale’s own troubling history,” Forman said. “This letter does not sit in judgment of him or his predecessors. It speaks to our future and how we all can be better.”

Although the group was formed in December, a column published last month in the Wall Street Journal discussed emails from Christakis and law professor Kate Stith — sent to their faculty colleagues — in which they expressed views now available on Faculty for Yale’s site. 

Other signatories include the Trumbull and Grace Hopper heads of college — biomedical engineering professor Fahmeed Hyder and sociology professor Julia Adams, respectively. Hyder did not respond to the News’ request for comment.

Adams wrote to the News that academic freedom, which she described as “the bedrock of the advancement of knowledge through teaching and learning,” needs support at Yale and other colleges and universities.

“The concerns articulated in the FfY formation statement pertain to universities — and not their members! — as activists,” Adams wrote. “I consider myself something of an activist on behalf of academic freedom, scholarship, and the mission of the university. But there will also come times, as the Kalven Report notes, in which colleges and universities confront threats to their very mission, and must seek to defend their fundamental values. That is happening worldwide.”

Similar efforts at other universities have emerged in recent months, including Harvard’s Council on Academic Freedom, Princeton’s Princeton Principles for a Campus Culture of Free Inquiry and the University of Pennsylvania’s pennforward.com. 

All such efforts formally began within the last year. 

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