As American higher education institutions grapple with forthcoming policy changes, there is newfound opportunity for internal reflection and creativity, a chance for administrators to involve current students in deep conversation about remodeling admissions. Now stands more than a test of our understanding of the extinct affirmative action in its nuances — there is also pressure to see how far colleges are willing to experiment to foster their said commitment to diversity. The truth is that for far too long in college admissions, recruitment of people of color and of first-generation, low-income students has rested on the bedrock of our mere presence and social enrichment rather than on our contributions to the political and intellectual climate of a college. Therefore, I hope that in the path forward, there will be space for condemning the ax of affirmative action not only because of its cut on diversity but also because affirmative action is a precursor for better admissions systems that we once didn’t find the need to explore.

A few of my friends know that I was never supposed to go to college. The idea that an Asian American family can possibly prioritize income and survival over education thwarts the narrative of a model minority, but mine did. Wherever I go, an intense gratitude for the people, programs and mentors who believed in me and chose me for opportunities greater than my background follows. I was one of many students who participated in QuestBridge, TRiO or LEDA (Leadership for a Diverse America) services — well-known programs that provide college access to low-income students — but somehow I was among the small fraction chosen for admission to an Ivy League school. My success story is the one that gets put in pamphlets to advertise my institution’s diversity. Not theirs. 

I represent only as much of the immeasurable Asian American experience as my own unique story, upbringing, and voice — and so do each of us to our respective cultural groups. The question then becomes: Are we unapologetically serving all minority groups, or are we basing our acceptances on racial tropes of the ideal Black, Asian American, Hispanic or white candidate? It takes a second for an admissions officer to say out loud that a student of color has been admitted, but it takes a lot more for them to send representatives to all parts of the country so they can understand the true racial, cultural and societal diversity of where students live. As the Supreme Court’s majority opinion stands, it is never enough — or okay — to base the racial and personal experience of a person entirely on the color of their skin, though that certainly is a crucial part of how others perceive us. 

Associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson noted in her dissent that “deeming race irrelevant in law does not make it so in life,” and I also agree. On paper, race is a color. In life, race becomes a more fluid spectrum that considers the larger systems at play and how people interact with them, including our geographic region and income. 

It is time for colleges, especially elite ones, to stop serving as autonomous filters of America’s best students and become investors in them, with help from other organizations. I call on the federal government to be more committed to supporting and redesigning college access programs for low-income students — not only to hoist them over the bar necessary for entry but also to invest in students during their time at college. There is often fear on the institutional end that admitting a student who omitted their test scores risks them not being prepared to meet the academic rigor, for example, but more individualized attention and active tracking of a student’s progress will ensure that participants in these programs are actually meeting their goals long-term. We are all born at different points on the race track — and access to mental health, career development, and social counseling are paramount to leveling the playing field. 

Affirmative action might have created a standard in leveling playing fields, but with its axing, I encourage colleges that have not already partnered with the QuestBridge National College Match or the Posse Scholarship — colleges that heavily rely on independent recruitment, such as Harvard — to join these alliances. I encourage colleges to explore more programs that identify promising, low-income students. These programs attract more students of color and students from geographically underrepresented regions because they were founded on the complicated relationship that ties race, class and social mobility together.

For instance, the LEDA Scholars Program, which represents 49 states and Washington, D.C., has a racial breakdown of the following: 17 percent Asian/Pacific Islander, 28 percent Black, 36 percent Latinx, 8 percent Multiracial, 2 percent Native American and 9 percent White. Meanwhile, the QuestBridge College Prep Scholars Program, a “distinction that shows college partners that a candidate is competitive for admission,” has the following breakdown for its 2023 cohort: 46 percent White, 37 percent Hispanic/Latinx, 35 percent Asian/Pacific Islander, 22 percent Black/African American, 4 percent Native American. This breakdown would still be considered “more diverse” than many PWI institutions. Ninety percent of this CPS cohort had families that earned an annual income of less than $65,000, and there were more students from the South and Midwest, combined than from the West and Northeast — two geographic hotspots for America’s most elite colleges. 

For colleges that already have the aforementioned channels of admission, they must increase the number of available seats for these students and create opportunities for applicants to expand on their identity through specialized essay prompts. Discounted summer programs for high schoolers on college campuses, or a system similar to New York City’s Discovery program — which admits students with slightly lower test scores to a specialized high school if they complete a rigorous summer programming of classes — could be offered to expose them to future college environments, academically. If students are expressing interest in going to college, if they are saying that doing so changes their lives, we have to trust in them and answer their calls; we have to bring back confidence in millions of minority students across the country who currently feel, and have always felt, left behind. 

Still, in a post-affirmative action world, perhaps the most important kind of trust is that we need to have in ourselves. Admitting the fact that we, from institutional leaders to students to parents, all have much to learn and unlearn about diversity. The fight for ensuring that future generations can access more equitable admissions is most certainly a losing one if fought alone, and it should transcend the ugliest of partisan conflict. In a nation divided by law, the silver lining is to stand undivided as people, to constantly challenge each other with the intent of promoting beautiful, warm growth and not a cold proof of correctness.

BRIAN ZHANG is a junior in Davenport College. He is currently an Arts Editor at the News and can be reached at brian.zhang@yale.edu.

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Taylor is hosting a rock-painting session open to Saybrook students in the Saybrook College courtyards on April 28 from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m., where she will be encouraging each person to write down a positive message on a stone. She will then hide these painted stones all over campus for all members of Yale to find during reading week — the period that Yale designates between the end of classes and the start of final exams — in an attempt to cultivate a campus community that fosters mental health and wellbeing. 

“I hope these painted kindness rocks I’m calling ‘Saybrook Stones’ will bring a smile to someone’s face and spark a little joy in their day,” she said. “[I want] our small act of kindness, which promotes positive mental health, [to] carry into the Yale community, brightening all of our days.”

After finding a stone, a student can either keep it or hide it in a new location for a different “seeker” to uncover. 

The project has been in the works since last fall semester after Taylor officially proposed it during a January Saybrook College Council meeting. Logan George ’25, one of the Student Activities Coordinator chairs present at the meeting, thought that the activity would be the perfect de-stressor amid finals week and agreed to offer funding through the Student Activities Coordinator office, which frequently collaborates with the Saybrook College Office to put on fun gatherings for students. 

“One great thing about Saybrook is that additional events can be run by any student who wishes to request funding through the Saybrook College Council at the beginning of each semester,” George added. 

Taylor said that the rock-painting will be just one among a melange of student activities tomorrow at the “Springtime Saylebration.” 

Along with Pierson Day and John Davenport Day, Springtime Saylebration — which is slated to feature yard games, cotton candy, music and an outdoor picnic thrown by its dining hall — is a day of recreational programming and activities available to students in their respective residential colleges. The 2023 Pierson Day was last Saturday on April 23, and both the Saylebration and JD Day will be taking place on April 28. 

Prospective rock-painters “will have samples to refer to, so have no fear if they are out of ideas,” Hongyi Shen ’23, Taylor’s suitemate, wrote to the News.

“Separately, I think the project is also a sweet way to leave something behind in Saybrook and pass on to the next Saybrugian, whether you are leaving for the summer, or leaving for a while in the graduating class,” Shen told the News. “It is like a community of our fervent wishes for each other in a way.”

As a soon-to-graduate senior, Taylor empathizes with the pressure cooker environment that Yale can be, but said that there is little feeling warmer than students taking care of one another. Saybrook Stones is a statement that both friends and strangers are capable of this caretaking, she said. 

The partitioning of the Memorial Quadrangle in 1933 led to the creation of the Saybrook and Branford residential colleges. 

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On Monday morning, University President Peter Salovey announced in an email that the Board of Trustees has agreed to issue Pennington, along with the Reverend Alexander Crummell, posthumous M.A. Privatim degrees.

Both Pennington and Crummell studied theology at Yale during the 1830s and 40s, respectively, but because of their race, were denied various privileges that their white classmates had — including the ability to participate in discussion or borrow books from the library. They were also not allowed to matriculate for a degree. Pennington was a formerly enslaved person who went on to publish an autobiography and the first African American history textbook. Crummell was a scholar of pan-Africanism and the founder of the American Negro Academy in Washington, D.C.

“The decision to confer Yale degrees on Pennington and Crummell and the initiatives we have established so far in response to the research brought forth by the Yale and Slavery Working Group are milestones on our journey to understand and reckon with our history,” Salovey wrote in his email to the Yale community. “More work remains, and we will announce additional programs and projects as we approach the publication of the working group’s findings in early 2024.”

A ceremony in the fall of 2023 is slated to take place and commemorate the conferall. Details about the event and accessibility options are to be released early next academic year.

In his announcement, Salovey acknowledged that the degrees being awarded was by no means a reversal of the injustices that Black Americans have historically encountered at Yale. Rather, it was a step forward in holding Yale accountable, recognizing two men who made significant contributions to scholarship and cultivating a “stronger and more inclusive” University.

The Board of Trustees arrived at the decision following research by the Yale and Slavery Working Group, as well as advocacy by student and alumni groups, according to Salovey.

In recent months, student organizations such as the Yale Black Seminarians and Pennington Legacy Group have pushed Pennington’s story to the forefront of University discourse. On Feb. 23, the Graduate and Professional Students Senate passed a resolution to give Pennington the first posthumous seat at the organization, and in late March, members of the Divinity School published an open letter to Salovey and Associate Vice President for Institutional Affairs Martha Schall, reiterating their commitment to fighting for Pennington’s honorary degree.

Previous steps by the University to honor Pennington, including designating a HBCU scholarship and a room in the Divinity School in his name, were not enough, the letter emphasized.

Among the professors shedding light on the University’s historical ties with slavery is David Blight, a Sterling professor of history and a recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for History. Blight, who is chair of the Yale and Slavery Working Group, told the News that the group’s research is based on “primary source documents, prior scholarship and community memory.”

“For both Pennington and Crummell, there are deeply sourced contemporary biographies with comprehensive views of their lives,” Blight wrote in an email to the News. “Those books build on documentary evidence in 19th century newspapers and magazines, diaries, and correspondence.”

Noah Humphrey DIV ’23, founder of the Pennington Legacy Group and a co-chaplain of the Yale Black Seminarians, said that today’s announcement brought him hope and peace.

In previous interviews with the News, Humphrey had called attention to the tumultuous journey of communicating back and forth with University leadership on the matter. He said that the decision to confer the degree was the beginning of Yale upholding its motto of Lux et Veritas, or light and truth.

Meredith Barges DIV ’23, another organizer of the Pennington Legacy Group, credited Humphrey for keeping the “embers and fire burning on this issue” and expressed gratitude for the cross-campus student efforts this year that saw undergraduate and graduate students working together for the cause.

“It’s right that Pennington will be Class of 2023,” Barges said. “It means that Yale is not trying to erase what happened, not trying to deny this wrong. It tells the story of justice delayed 190 years.”

Pennington studied at Yale from 1834 to 1837, while Crummell studied at Yale from 1840 to 1841.

William Porayouw contributed reporting.

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This year’s conference was keen on tackling challenges related to democratic technology, dynamic security, the world energy crisis and the Russia-Ukraine war. José Manuel Barroso, former president of the European Commission and current non-executive chairman of Goldman Sachs, gave the keynote fireside chat on Saturday afternoon. He touched upon the geopolitical and socioeconomic implications of what he calls Europe’s growing global prowess — and the importance of youth leadership in the future of citizenship, democracy and business.

The ESC is the flagship branch of European Horizons, a youth empowerment and leadership group that was founded at the University in Feb. 2015. The group — divided into 16 different teams that work together to make events, talks, opportunities and publications accessible to participating students — is currently the only youth-led transatlantic policy incubator in America.

“It’s not just about educating people on political or academic elites,” said Amelia Hacon, a postgraduate student from Kings College in London who attended and helped organize the event. “It’s about how we can project the youth voice and make the youth voice relevant and important in that conversation.”

For Hacon, the collaboration potential between European countries and the U.S. is not always taken advantage of to the fullest extent. She noted that the two regions have many shared “values and project interests” and that they should work together to tackle major humanitarian crises and promote increased security for inhabitants everywhere. 

As giant contributors to climate change, Europe and America have a responsibility to engineer policies that are considerate of oil and gas prices as well as conscious of the urgency of a more sustainable future, according to European Horizons website. It adds that the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine have exacerbated existing energy crises. 

Another discussion point of the weekend is artificial intelligence, which has gained particular traction in academia in recent months. Hacon emphasized the need to harness AI qualities to ease human lives while also preventing robots from “being ahead” of humans. 

Transatlantic partnership can mean steps taken in defense of democracy as well, added Lorenzo Donatelli, a third-year economics and philosophy student from the University College London.

During ESC, participants may write and collaborate on policy papers that delineate important strategies and policy proposals nurturing European-American affairs. 

The conference also acknowledged how intellectual, cultural and socioeconomic differences can come into play in policymaking. 

“We have a strong diversity of opinions here,” Anne-Amélie Campant ’25, co-director of European Horizon’s North American Conference team, said. “Your reality and perception of transatlantic policy in the global world is completely different depending on what your background is or where you live.” 

Campant said that some of her most enjoyable and eye-opening moments from this year’s agenda have been conversations with fellow young people who hail from very different living situations and socioeconomic backgrounds. 

For instance, an individual who lives in a small rural town may be impacted disparagingly or disproportionately by the same piece of legislation as someone who comes from Washington D.C., Campant explained.

“The goal is to increase the expertise of students in the role of transatlantic relations in the evolving world,” Donatelli said. “We call ourselves policy incubators, but we [also] incubate people, this idea of creating a space for interested students and professionals to talk and make change.” 

This was the seventh time that Yale hosted the conference. 

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The decisions were announced Sunday afternoon following Saturday’s Battle of the Bands, a competition between eight student acts at the Yale Farm. Attendees voted for their favorite acts to open for Pusha T, Ravyn Lenae and Dombresky, who will be performing at 2023’s Spring Fling. 

“I definitely wouldn’t be playing Spring Fling if it weren’t for my friends, especially the ones that are always sharing new music with me and encouraging me to get out there and DJ even when I get shy or nervous,” said Clark, who revealed that she applied for Battle of the Bands an hour before the deadline due to self-doubt. “No sneak peaks yet, but people should get ready to dance hard!”

Drawing inspiration from Octo Octa, Eris Drew, Darwin and Ben UFO, she has been DJing for almost a year, learning through YouTube videos and her own research. For her, the most gratifying part of producing and remixing music is putting on a good party for people to enjoy themselves and their company.

Though skill and practice are important, she explained, it is even more essential to watch the crowd and cultivate an environment where everyone has a good time and is able to connect with the music. A modified recording of her Battle of the Bands setlist can be found here. 

Like Clark, Frantz — who performed a set of original songs as well as a cover of Billie Eilish’s “Happier Than Ever” on Saturday  — is still exploring his musical interests. Boasting an Instagram following of over 15,000, he first started gaining traction through TikTok, where a video of him performing his song “downbad” garnered over 50,000 views. 

He is hesitant to box himself into a particular genre but said that if he had to describe his work, it would be a blend of indie and “sad boy” pop. To prospective Spring Fling attendees, he added that they can expect more unreleased songs on the “big day,” in addition to various Easter eggs he intends to drop through his social media platforms. 

The lead up to the big day will also bring practice, excitement, hard work and anticipation from Tired of Tuesday, members of the band wrote in a collective statement to the News. 

“We are immensely grateful that the hard work we put in translated into a fun show for both the band and the [Saturday] audience,” the statement read. 

Tired of Tuesday members —  Cameron Rao ’23, Conrad Cuevas ’23, John Paciga ’23, Adin Ring ’23 and Ian Richardson ’25 — mentioned that being in the audience at Battle of the Bands was as fun as performing themselves.

After dancing to the other acts — which included last year’s BOTB winners Strictly Platonic — they played a collection of original songs and covers in a rock set with indie, pop and jazz undertones. 

“Honestly I’m just happy to be here playing music with friends,” guitar player Cuevas said. “As cool as playing on a big stage is, it really wouldn’t matter if we didn’t have a total blast every time we played together. This is one of those bucket list experiences that none of us will ever forget.”

The 2023 Spring Fling is slated to take place on April 29, 2023 on Old Campus. 

Correction 4/12: The article was updated to reflect Caitlyn Clark’s preferences for her musical title and responsibilities.

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Alexander was a professor of poetry at Yale for 15 years and served as the chair of the Department of African American Studies. Her involvement in education has far from ended since her departure from Yale, however. Alexander currently serves as the president of the Mellon Foundation, America’s largest benefactor of the arts, humanities and higher education. 

“I am proud and excited to be selected as Class Day speaker and have the opportunity to address Yale’s graduating seniors and their loved ones in May,” Alexander said. “The seniors I met with who serve on the commencement committee were full of the hope and heart I encountered in Yale students every day as an undergraduate myself, faculty member and recent Yale parent. I cannot wait to experience commencement this year and look to the future together.”

According to the graduation committee and Alison Coleman, a special events director and lecturer in the Yale English department, this year’s ceremony speeches will center on love, gratitude, community and comedy. Though a set theme is not chosen for any given year, there is often a common fabric that connects the speeches. 

Coleman added that Alexander had met with the committee members to hear about the projects they are working on for class day, and to listen to what topics would be “meaningful for [the class] to hear about” in her speech.

Alexander will speak for approximately 25 to 30 minutes during the ceremony, Coleman said. While speakers are only obligated to provide a speech, they often stay longer to “enjoy the ceremony.”

Alexander’s poetry explores themes like race, politics and motherhood. Notably, her poem “Equinox” explores the experience of contending with the death of a beloved family member and “Race” discusses the interdependent relationship between race, family and poetic language. 

Having grown up in a household immersed in politics — her father serving as the former United States Secretary of the Army and chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, her mother as a writer and professor of African American women’s studies at George Washington University and her brother as a senior adviser to Barack Obama’s presidential campaign — she has spoken extensively on using art and writing as mediums to overcome discrimination and violence. 

“Through her writing, scholarship, and philanthropic leadership, Elizabeth Alexander has long exemplified values that are at the core of a Yale education: the pursuit of light and truth and a commitment to serving society,” Dean of Yale College Pericles Lewis said. “In poetry and in prose, hers is one of the most eloquent voices of our time, and her Class Day address will be a highlight of commencement weekend for our graduating students and the wider community.”

Coleman also spoke about the class anthology, a keepsake book that includes visual and written artistic submissions from students. Crediting Zaporah Price ’23 for the organization and soliciting of pieces, she alleged that this year’s collection, featuring short anecdotes, longer reflective pieces, a comic, art and photography, will be “unusually poignant” due to the diversity and vibrancy of submissions. 

Price has also compiled a new section called Departing Proverbs, which will feature words of wisdom from University faculty and administration across all 14 residential colleges.

The Class Day committee emphasized that they are “trying to include as many students as possible in Class Day,” and are still accepting submissions for the class history.

“The spirit is that … it is a day for everyone — and so I’m really excited about the work everybody’s doing because they are pulling in so many different perspectives, whether it’s individual, or organizations and groups that are meaningful parts of the class experience,” Coleman said. 

Reshma Saujani LAW ’02 was named Yale College Class Day speaker in 2022.

Correction 4/12: The article was updated to clarify the chronology of Class Day events and to clarify that the Class Day committee is not responsible for selecting the final speaker.

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The event, called “Raising the Glass Ceiling,” was hosted in collaboration with the Yale College Democrats and the Asian American Cultural Center. Locke appeared via Zoom, and students could ask the governor questions at the conclusion of his introduction and discussion with the moderator. 

“Governor Locke is such a positive example of Asian- and Chinese-American representation in politics, and it was inspiring to hear him speak about how his identity and familial background had affected his experiences in politics,” Yale College Democrats wrote in a statement to the News. “We were especially touched to hear him reflect on how he hoped his public service had made it easier for people of color to run and win in elections in the future — and, more broadly, the encouragement he gave to Yale students to become involved in politics in whatever ways possible.”

Locke served as a governor in the state where his grandfather first arrived in as an immigrant — Washington. In exchange for English lessons, his grandfather cooked and cleaned, ultimately traveling back to China and then bringing the rest of his family to the United States, he told the crowd. Oftentimes, the older generations of his family scraped by while working at local hospitals and taking the leftovers home to eat.

Locke touched upon both the perils and honors of being a politician of color. He said he was the subject of an assassination plot by far right-wing groups who allegedly could not believe that a non-white individual had been elected fairly. He was well aware of the forthcoming pressure leading up to and after elections — that as one of the first and only Asian-American politicians at the time, he was not only setting an example for future individuals of color, but also repainting the social landscape and perception of Asians. 

In the 1996 primary election, Locke received 21 percent of total votes out of 15 candidates for governor: eight Republicans, six Democrats and one from the Socialist Workers Party. Together, two non-white candidates — Locke and then-mayor of Seattle Norm Rice, who is Black — secured 41 percent of the votes.

“[It] was quite remarkable when you think about it. That in 1996 two candidates of color received that level of popular support,” Locke said in his keynote address at the Oct. 18, 2021 Eradicate Hate Conference. “I felt very proud of our state.”

During his governorship, efficiency took center stage. He explained that his team was able to cut down the grant distribution process for businesses, from 20 months to 18 days. For Locke, a strong government is one that is responsive, “surgical,” creative and catered to its people. He then provided another example of his work with important documentation, stating that he was able to shorten the time to get a visa and speed up the driver’s license process for citizens. 

Some of Locke’s fondest and most emotional memories as governor were trips back to China, his ancestral motherland. During a 1997 trade mission, he visited the villages that some of his family members had grown up in, feeling overwhelmed by the simplicity of the way that the villagers lived. He and his family were overrun with support by the Chinese people, who expressed immense pride for their new representative in the American political scene. Nevertheless, he mentioned that his inability to speak Mandarin Chinese — only Cantonese — was a subtle reminder to both himself and others that while he would always hold close his roots, he was an American citizen. 

Still, he called on the audience to avoid underestimating the benefits that come with U.S.-China collaboration, explaining that world powers have the ability to come together to tackle various existential threats including climate change, cancer research and nuclear weapon dismantling. 

The first step is changing the way America perceives foreigners, he said, in response to a question from Howard Shi ’25 on the common misunderstandings that Americans can have about China. The history of the “Asian American” label in America is often associated with political tension, economic competition and scapegoating, Locke continued, explaining that distrust and stigmatization against companies in America founded by Asian people damages all communities of color and rips apart the social fabric of American opportunity. 

A big issue with minority representation is the glass ceiling, according to Locke, who emphasized that the solution lies in not only increased recruitment from communities of color, but also the engineering of new job-training and state-endorsed education platforms that enable employees to develop the technical skills needed to advance to higher positions. 

He noted that in the current higher education landscape, courses are not addressing the specific needs of employees and companies. By seeing states as “laboratories of democracy” and asking state governments to revamp existing unemployment insurance laws, however, Locke believes that certain unemployment funds can be issued toward training people in upskilling. 

The evening ended with Locke addressing young people’s interest in politics, and the barriers that continue to confront civic engagement. 

“We’ve gotten better but we still do not see that representation; navigating white-dominated environments?” Andy Zhao ’23, who is interested in pursuing a career in politics, asked. “How do we get around the stereotypes that Asian Americans are less patriotic?”

In response, Locke said that he remembered that as a Yale student, he had not always been interested in going into politics, until experience and exposure changed his mind. He urged Zhao, and the other attendees in the audience, to be proactive in their communities, to volunteer with political campaigns or even to just start with the baby steps, such as attending school board members. 

More importantly, however, Locke looks forward to seeing how the youth will continue to be open about differences and take advantage of their own life experiences to shape policy, to truly embrace that America — at its heart — is a land of foreigners. Without that mindset, democracy and diversity cannot go hand in hand, he concluded. 

Locke obtained a bachelor’s of political science from Yale University. 

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Kristof’s own education overseas and interest in writing about mass atrocity and humanitarian crises has taken him on a winding path of danger, uncertainty and discovery, from being robbed on a Ghanaian street by two drunk soldiers to witnessing the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre in person.

In addition to heavy reporting on human rights, with a focus on women and the impoverished, he and his wife Sheryl WuDunn are also co-authors of five books — “China Wakes: The Struggle for the Soul of a Rising Power” (1994), “Tightrope: Americans Reach for Hope,” “Thunder from the East: Portrait of a Rising Asia,” “A Path Appears: Transforming Lives, Creating Opportunity,” and “Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide” — all of which attempt to tackle global issues from a policy and solution-driven lens. 

For Kristof, it is oftentimes the most difficult and imminently dangerous parts about reporting that motivate him most.

“One moment I’m feeling like I’m Ernest Hemingway getting this story, and the next moment, I don’t know if I’m going to be alive five minutes from now,” he said at the talk. “That helped keep me alive — being scared really early in my career.”

He described how some of the most eye-opening experiences he had about the most neglected regions of the world came during his Oxford days, when he used funding from the Rhodes scholarship to backpack across other countries and write about what he saw for major newspapers like the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal.

Every trip and every difficulty became a growing experience, shedding light on the misrepresentation and bias that has come to be associated with modern journalism. Central to these flaws is a tendency among media outlets to report on specific issues well, but not going so far as to uncover the reason behind these trends or aiming to fight against them, he said. 

Kristof was constantly reminded that written literature was a completely separate entity from reality during his travels and realized how dangerous and expansive misinformation was while writing about the widespread sale and distribution of heroin in Pakistan, which the United States and Pakistan had claimed great progress in reducing. 

It is Kristof’s work with impoverished communities and his storytelling that Thomas Pogge, professor of philosophy and international affairs, wanted his students to see when he invited Kristof on behalf of the Yale Global Justice Organization, an interdisciplinary group that examines the intersection of poverty, public health and morality. 

“I am teaching a seminar on poverty, and we very much wanted Kristof’s experience and perspective to be represented in it,” Pogge wrote to the News, explaining that he wanted his students to grasp the impact of effective journalism in solving real-world challenges. “World poverty is a key research focus of mine and of the GJP.”

Kristof also spoke about the importance of rightful and deliberate sourcing, referencing poor U.S. media coverage of a devastating famine in the late 1950s and early 1960s that swept across China. 

Representatives from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United States, along with the late Edgar Snow, an American journalist and one of the most prominent scholars of rising Chinese communism, initially failed to report a famine — and it was writers in Hong Kong who interviewed refugees from China and recorded their narratives that really brought the story to light. 

“That also kind of shaped my thinking about how we cover some events, and to teach a certain skepticism that just because you were in a country talking to people doesn’t mean you necessarily have any clue what’s going on,” Kristof said. “We have to keep an open mind about everything, how it’s always more complicated than it looks.”

As time passes, new central moral dilemmas emerge that merit both discussion and action, he continued. It was slavery in the 19th century, totalitarianism in the 20th and now in the 21st, it is learning to transition to a world that is transparent and adamant on educating and uplifting women across all backgrounds, according to Kristoff, who then emphasized that the problem with successfully tackling these dilemmas is that the only people who are fighting the war are those who deeply care. 

The result to Kristof is a great divide, the creation of a bubble where there isn’t “enough skepticism” and a hyperlocalization of media interest to news that the majority white American world is conscious of or find adaptable to their rigid “business models.” Currently, for instance, the U.S. has devoted extensive coverage to its interventions in Ukraine, while the Tigray War in Ethiopia, which saw even more casualties, was left to the margins of mainstream journalism.

For Kristof, equality in physical resources is not enough — the same should hold true for more abstract emotions of compassion and empathy for people of all races and socioeconomic standing. 

Thalia Awari, an attendee and the founding director of a bioethics program at the American University of Beirut Faculty of Medicine and Medical Center, said at the event that a lack of empathy may be rooted in “not what’s happening now, [but] what has been happening for quite some time” in regards to an individual’s upbringing. She called attention to the fact that a person’s conception of where they should devote their empathy and interest potentially draws from their childhood experiences, including what movies they watched, books they read and the families they were raised in. 

In response, Kristof went back full circle to the need for proper, professional press and book-writing — especially amid the invention and historical development of cheap paper — as a tool for ushering in surges of empathy. Activism, he said, is not only about protesting one’s own rights, but also drawing upon the collective momentum of peers to create a mass movement of awareness and ultimate change. 

Kristof is the winner of two Pulitzer prizes, one for his co-coverage of the Tiananmen Democracy Movement in China alongside his wife and the second for his pieces on the Darfur genocides. 

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This year, Leukemia & Lymphoma Society is hosting a contest in over 80 regional markets across the United States for the coveted Visionary title, awarded to the individual whose campaign raises the most funds in support of leukemia-related research. Steel, along with Jessie Phillips — an aspiring Visionary and a current campaigner in the Greater New Haven market — sat down with several Yale students and Trumbull Head of College Assistant Reese McLeod to afford an intimate glimpse into cancer survivorship and the collective familial, local and international fight against cancer.

There are two major types of leukemia, which is the broad term for blood cancers that originate in the bone marrow and oversee dangerous growth of blood cells: acute myeloid leukemia and acute lymphocytic leukemia. AML typically impacts the production of myeloblasts, red blood cells and platelets, while ALL primarily targets lymphocytes, a kind of white blood cells. While morphologically different, both result in a weakened immune system that impairs the body’s ability to fight off infection and invading pathogens. Steel had AML. 

“I was 27 years old, I had recently gotten married to my husband, I had my daughter and I was just starting to feel comfortable in my nursing career, when my life all came to a halt,” she said. “[Nonetheless], throughout the challenging couple of years of treatment, there are still moments that give me happiness, and I want to highlight these moments that brought me hope.” 

Steel had been feeling feverish and experiencing “flu-like” symptoms for several weeks prior to her diagnosis, which she initially thought would be lyme disease, a common risk in Connecticut. Unable to keep up with her daily workouts and energetic toddler, she ultimately decided to run some tests at a nearby provider. 

However, instead of a health care professional directly calling her and notifying her of the unexpected diagnosis, Steel got her results late into the evening of the next day through MyChart, where she was left unsure of next steps. After calling a provider, she was told to get some rest — a response that naturally no person just diagnosed with cancer wanted to hear at the moment, she said. 

The rest of her treatment and recovery, which took place at Smilow Cancer Hospital, was made possible by doctors and family members who were fortunately more sensitive, she said. Following six rounds of chemotherapy, she was in remission, but she relapsed in July 2017 and realized that she had to start treatment all over again — this time necessitating a bone marrow transplant. She did not have a bone marrow transplant in the bone marrow registry, but her cousin Patrick was a 50 percent match, and he “gave her the gift of life by donating his stem cells.” Steel received her transplant in November 2017, and has been cancer-free since. 

All steps in her treatment process needed to happen in quick succession of one another, she said. Though all cancers are life-threatening, she emphasized that with leukemia, there really are no defined stages, and that once someone has it, it is seen as an acute situation that has to be taken care of right away. The bloodstream enables easy transmission of abnormal cancer cells to different parts of the body, affording more opportunities for metastasis and invasion of other body parts. 

As an organization, Leukemia & Lymphoma Society is particularly sensitive to the aspects of leukemia that makes it a notoriously challenging cancer to attack: the difficulties of finding a bone marrow donor and its silent, swift spread. Beyond holding the title as the largest nonprofit funder of cutting edge cancer research, according to Josh Berman, a campaign manager in the Greater New Haven market for the Visionary contest, Leukemia & Lymphoma Society is keen on making the complexities and nuances behind cancer and treatment more transparent to the non-scientific community. 

The society has a focus in three main areas of cancer support: funding research to advance life-saving treatments; driving advocacy for policies that protect patient access to life saving treatments and consider diversity, equity and inclusion in health care and providing patients and families with hope, guidance, education and support. 

Most notably, in 2022, Leukemia & Lymphoma Society stayed at the forefront of the push that led to the passage of the landmark Childhood Cancer STAR Reauthorization Act, which saw over $160 million secured in federal funding for pediatric cancer research. 

Leukemia statistics in children and teenagers are daunting: approximately one of every three pediatric cancers are leukemia-related, and the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia noted that nearly 4,000 children are affected annually. 

According to Berman, one of the historical barriers in pediatric cancer treatment is the perception of children as “small adults” when they aren’t. He noted that this perception is causing the health care landscape to use the same treatments on adults for children, which can unfortunately result in the development of chronic illnesses and side effects down the road. 

At the heart of the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society agenda is a consciousness for just how crucial human support is for cancer patients. An attendee at the talk and a medication assistance program coordinator at the specialty pharmacy at Yale, Wanda Taylor cannot put more emphasis on the value of kindness and empathy as a resource.

She says that it is “critical” to one’s healing journey no matter the struggle or disease they are confronting. 

“One of the moments I remember [was] when I started to lose my hair after my first round of treatment … and at that point, I know everyone said it was easier to just cut it off,” Steel said , acknowledging that she was fortunate enough to be surrounded by loved ones who stopped their own lives to save hers. “And so my sister and my husband … we all buzzed our heads together. And it just brought a lot of joy and happiness in the darkness. One of the things that was really important to me was to continue to have good family time, despite going through this treatment.” 

Fundraising contestants such as Phillips are working to not only raise money to further the empirical side of cancer research, but to also remind the public that cancer treatment responsibilities fall upon all global citizens. 

As he heads into the remaining weeks of competition, Phillips said that he looks forward to reaching a milestone of at least $20,000 raised over ten weeks and making his campaign an educational one above all else. 

“I once had a visionary contestant participate because he realized that he didn’t have the time,” Berman said. “That was when he saw that if he wasn’t going to do it, then who was? The only thing people do not have time for is dying of cancer.” 

The American Cancer Society estimates that in 2023, 59,610 new cases of leukemia of all types and 23,710 leukemia-associated deaths will occur in the United States. 

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