Following the Court’s June decision to repeal race-conscious admissions, which experts believe will lower enrollment rates of underrepresented racial groups at elite universities, schools are seeking ways to continue promoting racial diversity. Some universities, like Wesleyan, have narrowed in on legacy preference — an admissions model that offers a leg up to the children or direct relatives of alumni — given research that demonstrates the legacy pool to be whiter and wealthier than other applicants.

The liberal arts college’s decision comes less than a month after a Boston-based civil rights group filed a complaint against Harvard University alleging that its use of legacy preference violates the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by disproportionately favoring white applicants. 

Wesleyan, which admitted 15.7 percent of applicants to the class of 2027, joins a growing list of selective schools which have dropped legacy admissions in recent years, including Johns Hopkins University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Carnegie Mellon University and Amherst College. Four percent of students accepted to Wesleyan’s class of 2027 had a parent who went to Wesleyan, according to the class profile. 

Yale, however, has not yet taken a public position in the weeks since the affirmative action decision. Yale College Dean Pericles Lewis and Dean of Undergraduate Admissions and Financial Aid Jeremiah Quinlan released a joint letter to the undergraduate community after the ruling, as did University president Peter Salovey to Yale affiliates broadly, but neither of these statements offered conclusive insight into the future of legacy admissions at the University. 

“In the coming months, my colleagues and I will announce details of new initiatives designed to expand our outreach,” Quinlan wrote last week in a News opinion column urging current students to promote the University in their own communities. “But preserving Yale College’s strength and excellence will require more than new programs … the most effective component of any college’s outreach strategy is a current student sharing their own personal experience.”

At Yale College, legacy students make up approximately 12 percent of the class of 2026, 14 percent of the class of 2025 and 8 percent of the class of 2024.

Although the University has not taken a public stance on legacy admissions in the weeks since the Court’s affirmative action ruling, Quinlan said in an interview with the News two years ago that legacy students contribute to student body diversity. Last year, he submitted testimony against a Connecticut bill that would have banned legacy preference statewide, arguing that universities should retain the right to make decisions about their own admissions processes.  

The admissions office declined to provide comment for this story, and senior associate director for outreach and recruitment Mark Dunn told the News that the office does not intend to share further information with reporters until it announces details about the new initiatives to which Quinlan’s column refers.

According to Roth, Wesleyan chose to move away from legacy preference because of the “unlearned advantage” it provides legacy students and had been considering the decision for a few years; the Supreme Court ruling was the final straw.

“We still value the ongoing relationships that come from multi-generational Wesleyan attendance, but there will be no ‘bump’ in the selection process,” Roth wrote in his Wednesday blog post. “As has been almost always the case for a long time, family members of alumni will be admitted on their own merits.”

Roth told ABC News that the move away from legacy preference is partly intended to signal to prospective applicants that Wesleyan is continuing to prioritize diversity.

Elissa Nadworny of NPR’s All Things Considered last week described similar motivations at other universities, noting that some admissions leaders have been concerned that students from underrepresented backgrounds will not apply to selective schools because they are nervous about how the affirmative action repeal may impact their chances of getting in. 

“We wanted to send a very clear signal to students of color around the country, to low-income students around the country, to people from regions of the United States and elsewhere who don’t normally apply to Wesleyan and schools like us,” Roth said. “We wanted to send a strong signal that we want them to come to Wesleyan, [and] that we want them to apply.”

Legacy preference at Harvard University — one of the defendants in the legal battle that ultimately ended affirmative action — has also come under fire. Earlier this month, Boston-based Lawyers for Civil Rights filed a civil complaint with the U.S. Department of Education alleging that Harvard’s donor and legacy admissions preferences violate Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by disproportionately favoring white applicants.

According to recent studies cited in the complaint, nearly 70 percent of Harvard’s donor-related and legacy applicants are white. Rates of admission are nearly seven times higher for donor-related applicants than for non-donor-related applicants and nearly six times higher for legacies than for non-legacies.

Yalies have long advocated against legacy preference. Before the affirmative action decision, the Yale College Council passed two separate resolutions condemning the practice. The YCC also wrote an open letter to University administration after the ruling, as did the News’ independent Editorial Board, both of which called on the University to abolish the practice. 

“Yale must be a leader among elite and selective colleges,” wrote the Editorial Board, “ensuring now more than ever that opportunities granted by a Yale education are not stripped from the disadvantaged by virtue of them instead being generously afforded to those that already have Yale’s blue blood in their veins and the associated generational privileges their Yale connections provide them.”

A common rationalization of legacy preference is that the practice prompts alumni to donate more money to their alma maters. Multi-generational attendance could yield stronger familial connection to a school, in turn prompting an increase in donor-funded revenue.

Wesleyan’s president, however, is not concerned. 

“I’m betting on the idea, and I wouldn’t have made this decision if I thought it would seriously hurt the university’s economic foundation,” he said. 

After LCR filed its civil complaint against Harvard, Yale spokesperson Karen Peart referred to Lewis and Quinlan’s June 29 message to the Yale College community, in which they committed to “closely examin[ing]” the University’s admissions process in light of the Supreme Court decision.

Also after the complaint, YCC vice president Maya Fonkeu told the News that the University needs to turn its words into action.

“President Salovey said that Yale has an ‘unwavering commitment to creating and sustaining a diverse and inclusive community’ in his response to the SCOTUS decisions,” Fonkeu said, quoting from Salovey’s message to the University affiliates after the fall of affirmative action.  “Ending legacy admissions is one way to make good on that promise.”

Students for Fair Admissions, the nonprofit organization that emerged victorious as the petitioner in the Court’s ruling against affirmative action, had fought for decades to put a death knell to race-conscious admissions. A year and a half ago, founder Edward Blum told the News that SFFA also opposes legacy preference, noting specifically that the practice “inhibit[s] and diminish[es] the opportunities of applicants from modest socioeconomic backgrounds.”

Wesleyan University was founded in 1831.

The post Wesleyan drops legacy preference appeared first on Yale Daily News.

Organizers had planned to throw the student-run music festival, which is slated to begin at 4 p.m. on Saturday, on Old Campus. Although it will now be held indoors, the lineup — including R&B artist Ravyn Lenae, French DJ Dombresky and rapper Pusha T, as well as student acts PJ Frantz, Tired of Tuesday and DJ Leon Thotsky — will remain unchanged.

On Friday morning, Dean of Student Affairs Melanie Boyd wrote in an email to students that the distribution of Spring Fling wristbands and the sale of merchandise would be put on hold until further notice. Three hours later, the Spring Fling Committee wrote to students that inclement weather conditions had forced the festival to relocate from Old Campus. High winds, heavy rain and temperatures around 50 F are currently forecasted for Saturday. 

“Given these conditions, we cannot proceed with Spring Fling as planned,” members of the Spring Fling Committee wrote in the email to students. “This isn’t a judgment call made by the Spring Fling Committee: these are non-negotiable regulations set by the stage production company and Yale Emergency Services.”

Dean of Student Affairs Melanie Boyd told the News that Yale’s Spring Fling operations team had been closely monitoring the weather forecast all week, and concluded when predictions worsened on Thursday that the winds were too high to safely hold the event on an outdoor stage. The Spring Fling stage was dismantled and removed from Old Campus on Friday morning.

In their email to students, members of the Spring Fling Committee wrote that they learned of the decision Thursday afternoon and had been “scrambling to find a solution” since then. 

“It seemed we would have to cancel the event altogether, but the students on the Spring Fling Committee have done an amazing job of creating a fallback plan,” Boyd told the News. “I’m grateful to College Street Music Hall for their willingness to accommodate us at the last minute, and to many Yale colleagues for their speed and flexibility.” 

The wristband distribution process, which began on Wednesday, has been canceled, with the committee voiding all wristbands which have been distributed. Tickets for the event, which remain free for all students, will now be distributed on a first-come, first-serve basis using Eventbrite. Ticketing will begin at 5:00 p.m. on Friday for graduating and first-semester seniors, and will open to the rest of the student body at 5:30 p.m. 

College Street Music Hall, however, has a capacity of 2,000 patrons, meaning that the majority of Yale’s 6,500 undergraduate students and 14,500 total student body will not be able to attend. According to the email from the Spring Fling Committee, College Street Music Hall will admit students on a rotating capacity system, admitting more students as people leave. 

Though the festival remains free, admission is first-come, first-serve. Wristbands that were handed out earlier in the week are no longer valid. The festival is using Eventbrite to distribute electronic tickets beforehand. However, on the day of, a rotating capacity system will allow for more attendees to be admitted as others leave. If a student with a ticket exits the concert early, they will not be allowed back in.

Although students were previously allowed to each bring one guest to the festival, it is now only open to enrolled Yalies.

“I was planning on having a friend come that goes to school in Canada,” Joaquín Fernandez-Duque ’25 told the News. “She changed her train to come here for Spring Fling and to get here in time to pick up her guest wristband. She’s now in Connecticut having spent the money to get here, but with no show to attend.” 

Alvin Delgado ’23 said he was glad to have guaranteed tickets as a senior, but noted that many of his friends were considering not attending due to the lack of re-entry, which limits the flexibility that the event usually provides. 

Delgado also said that College Street Music Hall  is not an ideal place for Spring Fling for the “crowd and energy” typical of Spring Fling. Having the festival indoors at all, Delgado said, would make it difficult to recreate the same chaos that Spring Fling usually brings. 

“I would’ve still been fine going if it was outdoors and raining and would’ve had the luxury of leaving, drying off, getting warm and coming back,” Delgado said. 

Cade Napier ’23 acknowledged the Spring Fling committee is doing their best, and said it is hard to do the right thing given the circumstances. 

Napier told the News he doesn’t want to stand outside in the rain waiting, given that the tickets do not guarantee entry, so he is undecided on whether or not he will attend. Friends of his, he said, joked about setting up a tent outside the venue. 

“Why bother giving tickets if getting a ticket doesn’t mean you get to go?” Napier told the News. 

In their email to students, the Spring Fling Committee acknowledged the inconvenience that the last-minute switch posed to the student body. 

“We know that this information is coming too late,” they wrote. “It’s coming too late for us as well.”

Neither the Spring Fling Committee, nor Yale’s Director of Emergency Management George Hines responded to immediate requests for comment. 

This is a developing story and will be updated.

The post Spring Fling moves indoors, capacity drops by thousands appeared first on Yale Daily News.

The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is a hotline for individuals in crisis or for those looking to help someone else. To speak with a certified listener, call 988. 

Crisis Text Line is a texting service for emotional crisis support. To speak with a trained listener, text HELLO to 741741. It is free, available 24/7 and confidential.

To talk with a counselor from Yale Mental Health and Counseling, schedule a session here. On-call counselors are available at any time: call (203) 432-0290.  Appointments  with Yale College Community Care can be scheduled here.

Students who are interested in taking a medical leave of absence should reach out to their residential college dean.

Additional resources are available in a guide compiled by the Yale College Council here.

Resources about gender-affirming care and navigating trans life at Yale are available in the trans@yale Survival Guide.

Seeking feminizing hormone replacement therapy, F. first went to the Yale Health website — only to find a single paragraph stating that she would be referred to an endocrinologist in specialty services, with no phone numbers or further information. 

The website was not organized in a “clear and compiled way,” said F., who has been granted anonymity to protect her privacy. Instead, she had to move through multiple different web pages to get the information she needed and still could not figure out which numbers to call.

Receiving conflicting responses from various departments at Yale Health while simultaneously calling providers across the state, F. said she spent hours of her day on standby. She thought constantly about her gender dysphoria and the fact that she could not access hormone replacement therapy, a process which she said led her mental health to deteriorate. 

“It sucks to sit with that because you have to navigate this all by yourself,” F. said. “It’s super isolating. There are very few trans people on campus and very few trans people in my life. The only reason I got through it was because of word of mouth and trans people… It’s a cycle because some days you don’t have the energy to do anything or to make those calls because my gender dysphoria was so bad.” 

The News interviewed 17 Yale students and faculty who had sought gender-affirming care. Of that 17, 11 chose to seek care outside of the Yale Health network due to delays or incompatible treatment options. 11 also reported having been deadnamed or misgendered at some point in their interaction with Yale Health. Of the remaining six, five had not interacted with Yale Health.

Four of the students the News spoke to said the quality of Yale’s health care coverage was a major reason why they chose to attend the University. However, students and faculty expressed frustration at their experiences with Yale Health, not only by the limited coverage under the Basic Student Health Services insurance plan but also by a pattern of deadnaming and misgendering from healthcare providers. 

Last summer, F. called Yale Health’s Specialty Services, along with their Pediatric Gender Program and the endocrinology department. She received different responses from each, and was told varying wait times to get an appointment that ranged from one month to a year and a half. 

However, F. was ultimately unable to access hormone replacement therapy at Yale Health, as it is currently only offered under Yale Hospitalization/Specialty coverage. Yale Health’s Hospitalization/Specialty Care Coverage plan extends beyond the Basic Student Health services all students receive and comes with a cost of $1,378 — however, that cost is waived for those on full financial aid.

For F., Hospitalization/Specialty Care Coverage was “off the table” due to its high cost compared to her parent’s insurance and because it only included limited care at Yale Health, which would not fulfill the medical needs that come along with F.’s physical disability. F., who is not out to her parents, also has privacy concerns that prohibit her from using their insurance to cover gender-affirming care, as a diagnosis of gender dysphoria would have appeared on her parent’s insurance. 

F. continued to seek gender-affirming care throughout the summer and early fall of 2022. She would wake up in the mornings before classes and call different hospitals and gender support programs in Connecticut. Healthcare providers often lacked information about trans healthcare, F. said, and she described a “constant back and forth” in which hours of her day were spent waiting to get calls and voicemails back from providers. 

She ultimately found care through Anchor Health — the largest trans healthcare provider in Connecticut that does not require insurance — but was placed on a waitlist for six months. This process, as well as facing severe gender dysphoria without care, took a toll on F.’s mental health. She was hospitalized in early spring of 2023 at Yale New Haven Psychiatric Hospital. 

“I couldn’t tell if I was suicidal because of my dysphoria or because [of] what I had to go through,” F. said. 

Even while receiving care through Anchor Health, F. said she still found it frustrating to navigate gender-affirming healthcare without insurance. F.’s private insurance through her parents bars her from accessing HUSKY, Connecticut’s state health insurance. Despite finding care in the end, she described the entire process as unnecessarily complex, especially because Yale Health does not publicize alternatives for gender-affirming care such as Anchor Health and Planned Parenthood. 

These experiences seeking care, F. said, have discouraged her from pursuing further gender-affirming care beyond hormone replacement therapy.  

“I think I’d be interested in more [gender-affirming services],” F. said. “It’s just that it has been so demoralizing and just so soul-crushing to have to go through that. I just don’t want to have to put up with that.”

Organizations such as the ACLU, Human Rights Campaign and Transformations Project have been tracking the status of legislation targeting transgender people in the United States, amid increasing national scrutiny and persecution. Over 500 anti-transgender bills have been proposed across the country as of April 27. 

Many of these bills target gender-affirming care, which refers to treatments that support a transgender or nonbinary person in their transition — a period of time during which an individual takes steps to express their gender identity. These treatments can range from interventions such as hormonal replacement therapy and surgery to social forms of care that expand beyond the transgender patients themselves, such as using the name and pronouns that an individual chooses for themself. 

Connecticut is one of the few states that does not currently limit gender-affirming care, and Yale has stated a commitment to increasing access to “comprehensive, effective, and affirming health care services for trans persons.” Included within this commitment is a promise to respect a patient’s privacy, treat a patient with consideration and dignity and provide care that is responsive and sensitive to a patient’s health concerns and needs.

In a statement to the News, Chief Operating Officer of Yale Health Peter Steere wrote that Yale Health’s Basic Student Health Services provides primary care services to all enrolled and eligible students. Yale Health’s Hospitalization/Specialty Care Coverage covers prescription medications as well as many specialty care services, including gender-affirming care referrals to endocrinologists at Yale Medicine, which also accepts private insurance. 

“Gender-affirming care is a continuum,” Steere wrote. “Much of the associated care is covered under the basic plan. Gynecology, student health, mental health services, and care management are included in basic coverage for all students.” 

Steere added that while Basic Student Health Services does not include endocrine or surgical care, both are covered under Yale Health’s Hospitalization/Specialty Care Coverage plan, including hormone therapy and top and bottom surgery — gender-affirming surgeries that focus on the chest and genitalia respectively.

He also recommended students contact a care manager at Yale Health who is experienced with gender-affirming clinical services and can provide information and help patients connect with specialists, both at Yale and those affiliated and approved through Yale Health.

Barriers to HRT 

Doctors may prescribe hormone replacement for a variety of reasons, but in the case of gender-affirming care for transgender and nonbinary individuals, hormone replacement therapy is used to achieve masculinizing or feminizing effects. 

Individuals may take HRT through a variety of routes of administration, including ingesting oral supplements, injecting subcutaneously or intramuscularly or through a topical gel patch. Testosterone cypionate and estradiol valerate are common hormones used in hormone replacement therapy to achieve masculinizing and feminizing effects, respectively, but some may also take additional medications such as testosterone blockers like spironolactone or bicalutamide to supplement their effects.

Yale previously required patients to present letters of recommendation to be allowed to start hormone replacement therapy, but in September they switched to an informed consent model — which does not require letters of recommendation to receive HRT — to comply with the recommendations published in 2022 by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health. 

F. said this change was a “big deal,” but the fact that HRT is still not covered under the Basic Student Health Services plan remains. 

Letters of recommendation, F. said, magnify privacy concerns students may have about who knows that they are seeking gender-affirming care, as students may not feel safe coming out to their therapist or whoever else they need recommendation letters from. Furthermore, a gender dysphoria diagnosis may show up on private insurance records. 

F. also added that the previous requirements were “condescending,” adding to the barriers that exacerbate the mental health issues that can accompany gender dysphoria by forcing trans students to prove their need for care. 

Studies have reflected that among youths between the ages of 13 and 20, receiving gender-affirming care has been associated with a decrease in suicide risk of 73 percent and a decrease in depression risk of 60 percent.

J.D. Wright ’24 said she gave up on trying to start hormone replacement therapy at Yale after unsuccessfully trying to get in touch with Yale Mental Health and Counseling at the beginning of her fall 2021 semester. 

Wright requested a therapist early in the fall and was assigned a therapist around two months later; however, once she reached out to her therapist to set up an appointment, she never received a response. After her therapist failed to answer her email all semester, Wright pivoted and set up a telehealth appointment with Planned Parenthood instead. 

Wright had learned about Planned Parenthood’s services through Aster Aguilar ’24, a student assistant at the Office of LGBTQ Resources and a member of the Gender Resources of Yale Committee, who Wright said has become a point of contact for individuals seeking gender-affirming care.

“I felt more confident in going through Yale Health even though Aster warned that they’re not great,” Wright said. “I knew about both options from the very start, from the time that I had made the decision to seek out gender-affirming care, but I thought Yale Health would be a lot easier than it actually was, and I thought there were more downsides to going through Planned Parenthood than there actually were.”

Wright said that these difficulties accessing treatment drastically impacted her health, particularly mentally.

Just like F., Wright cited delays in accessing care as a source of strain on her mental health. She told the News that her mental health improved after she was prescribed hormones, and she wished that she would have been allowed to transition “five months earlier.”

“That’s five more months of my life that I would have been a little happier for,” Wright said.

Aguilar said that the prior model for the approval of HRT at Yale Health was a large hurdle. At the time Aguilar applied to get HRT, the requirement of multiple letters was difficult for her to fulfill because the only therapist she could access was cisgender and recommended she talk to other trans people. 

Aguilar said that numerous organizations, such as Anchor Health and Planned Parenthood, used the informed consent model far before Yale. Further, Aguilar said that Yale Health never issued a notice that they switched to the informed consent model, so she only found out about the switch through a meeting with Yale Health leaders — one which followed rallies calling for the change. 

In Steere’s statement to the News, he wrote that the Yale Health website was updated to reflect the change, which was also communicated to patients seeking care.

However, Aguilar added that vaginoplasty and other surgeries still require multiple letters. Currently, Yale Health requires one letter of support for top surgery and one to two letters for bottom surgery.

In addition to this change in policy, Director of the Office of LGBTQ Resources Samuel Byrd spoke on the imperative to include HRT in Yale Health Basic Student Health Services. 

“[HRT] should be considered a form of primary care because it addresses the basic health needs of patients by helping to alleviate symptoms and improve their overall quality of life,” Byrd wrote to the News. 

Byrd added that Yale Health has been “responsive” in ongoing conversations with students on these issues and is working on plans to enhance training of primary care clinicians in gender-affirming care. 

Elle Wiggs ’26 passed by the Office of LGBTQ Resources over the summer while on campus for the First-Year Scholars at Yale program and heard that gender-affirming care was free. Wiggs said the cost of care was a “big hurdle” because they come from a first-generation, low-income background. Once on campus, they decided to get paired with a peer liaison who gave them advice on how to navigate receiving HRT through Yale Health. 

However, after reaching out in January 2023, Wiggs was told by their primary care provider at Yale Health that the wait time for HRT would be approximately six months, and they would need a letter of recommendation from Mental Health and Counseling prior to starting treatment, despite Yale’s switch to the informed consent model in September 2022. 

After reaching out to MHC, Wiggs was told they no longer needed the letter of recommendation. Wiggs was annoyed that they had been made to waste their time getting in contact with MHC when it was not necessary to do so.

Aqua Lake ’25 also had been provided misinformation about the informed consent model implemented last September. 

At a February 2023 appointment, Lake said he was misgendered by a nurse before being seen by their endocrinologist, an associate professor of endocrinology at Yale School of Medicine. The provider, according to Lake, then insisted that she did not have an appointment with Lake. 

“She held her head in her hands and took several moments to gather herself,” Lake said. “I was confused as to why she would have such an intense reaction to simply having an appointment scheduled without her knowledge.” 

At the appointment, Lake said he expressed his decision to start testosterone gel — a form of hormone replacement therapy. However, rather than giving him the informed consent paperwork, the endocrinologist insisted that she needed to consult with his psychiatrist. After he asked why, she said it was just “the way she practiced medicine.” 

Lake reported having a rescheduled consultation a week later. At this consultation, he was given his prescription for hormone replacement therapy.

Lake stated that the change to the informed consent model was a motivating factor for him to try to access HRT through Yale Health. While he was grateful that he was able to access an endocrinologist for free under the Hospitalization/Specialty Care Coverage plan and without a letter of recommendation, he said his life would have been made far easier if these initial difficulties getting care had not been present. 

Because they believed that Yale’s requirements for HRT were more stringent than those of other healthcare systems — including the previously-required therapist referral — Akio Tomura-Ho ’23 eventually chose to receive HRT through Anchor Health. 

When Tomura-Ho sought therapy with Yale Mental Health and Counseling during their first year, they waited a whole semester just to be assigned to a white cisgender male therapist. 

“I hadn’t felt comfortable sharing deeply about my identity, and he had also seemed busy and overworked, so I had discontinued appointments,” Tomura-Ho said. “I did not want to have to repeat this arduous process all over again to access basic hormone therapy and I was advised [by a Yale Health staff] to seek outside care to avoid this long process.” 

Hailey Schoelkopf ’23, like F., initially sought HRT at Yale Health, but ultimately went to Anchor Health to avoid outing herself to her parents and said she was very glad she stuck with the latter option.

When Schoelkopf initially went to Yale Health, prior to the change to the informed consent model, she was immediately frustrated with the care she received. 

“I tried calling Yale MHC for a first appointment with the goal of getting an immediate referral for HRT from a therapist, but I never got matched with a therapist or any return email or call,” Schoelkpof said. “It definitely discouraged me from trying again to get HRT at Yale and I didn’t try again to get on HRT for some months after that.”

Navigating insurance coverage for surgeries

Yale’s health system, unlike all other Ivy League institutions, is structured as a healthcare maintenance organization, rather than the typical model of preferred provider organization. As a healthcare maintenance organization, or HMO, Yale runs on a structure that offers a local network of doctors or hospitals and requires a primary care provider at Yale Health to coordinate care. The alternative, a preferred provider organization, or PPO, allows for out-of-network coverage but often has greater costs. 

Therefore, students can either find medical services through Yale Health Hospitalization/Specialty Coverage, which covers many gender-affirming surgical options — including facial feminization surgery, a procedure many insurance providers do not cover — or try and get referrals to doctors outside of Yale Health, some of whom have contracts with Yale that allow the utilization of Hospitalization/Specialty Coverage. However, if a provider is not connected with Yale, then an individual will have to pay the costs for that care upfront and then file a claim for reimbursement — but funding is not guaranteed.

Three years ago, Laurel Turner ’25 was seeking gender-affirming surgery. After Yale Health failed to respond to Turner’s numerous emails about the coverage details for gender-affirming care outlined in the Yale Specialty plan, Turner said she snuck into the building while the building was locked down due to the COVID-19 pandemic to get administrators to speak with her. 

Two years later, Turner was finally able to receive the surgery. She then needed another gender-affirming surgery, for which she only had to wait one year. She said she faced a shorter wait time for this second procedure because she was then already aware of how to navigate Yale Health and its insurance structure. 

However, Turner expressed concern regarding the lack of institutional memory about how to obtain gender-affirming care, because many students rely on previous testimonies to know how to access it. 

“I feel like a lot of people have come to me to ask questions about [gender-affirming care], and I’m kind of scared,” Turner said. “I know a lot about Yale’s insurance procedure, but I’m going to graduate and then how is that knowledge gonna get passed on?”

After reaching out to Mount Sinai Hospital to schedule a vaginoplasty, Aguilar spoke to Christina Pivorotto, a registered nurse under Complex Care Management, who was able to arrange for the surgery to be covered by the Hospitalization/Specialty Coverage plan. However, Aguilar said this is often done on an “individual basis.” According to Aguilar, this surgery, which is very specialized, is not offered at Yale Health. 

In conversations with the News, other students expressed concern about the lack of specialized options at Yale. 

Sasha Karsavina GRD ’28 told the News that she is only aware of Yale Health having one surgeon who conducts top surgery. Yale Health did not respond to a request to confirm this number. Karsavina said that coverage limitations are similar for graduate school students, adding that the reality of gender-affirming care at Yale was totally different than what she expected.

Karsavina started the process of trying to get a consultation for two surgical procedures with Yale Health in September 2022. She originally thought the Yale Hospitalization/Specialty Coverage plan would cover these procedures, but later found out that she did not have many options in-network.

It was not until six months later that she was able to secure scheduled consultations, after several short phone calls and a final significantly longer phone call where she reported having resorted to screaming. Karsavina said she first called in late November or early December, and received consultations for late February and late March.

In previous calls, Karsavina had been told that prior to being scheduled for a consultation, she would need a letter of recommendation from a therapist. She began therapy for that specific reason, only to find in this final call that a letter of recommendation was not needed at all to acquire a consultation. 

“I came here because I really wanted to get surgeries,” Karsavina said. “I wanted to have a fast track and honestly, for the first six months, I had zero idea how you had to navigate the system. I just believed people, I trusted everyone. And … it swallowed up so much of my time to do so much because also at some point they were like ‘Oh, you’re depressed’ and I’m like, I’m partially depressed because I can’t get surgeries.”

Karsavina was also dissatisfied with the options provided by the practice of Angie Paik, the Yale Health surgeon in charge of top surgery.

In a consultation, Karsavina said that Paik told her that, on principle, she does not conduct a particular form of feminizing top surgery that is done underneath the muscle. Karsavina said she also had to urge Paik to show previous results for feminizing top surgery, which Paik initially refused to disclose, stating that because Yale Health is a research hospital, they do not typically show those results. Karsavina said she did not feel comfortable going to Paik for surgery and elected to seek out-of-network care with a surgeon who specializes in top surgery for transfeminine individuals.

“They have to allow out-of-network coverage or they have to create infrastructure that would actually attract specialists,” Karsavina said. “It can’t just be something that they view as supplemental or view as an accessory. If it’s going to be something that they tout as one of the selling points for the students, they have to make it a priority and they have to make it something where it’s more of a holistic effort rather than just cherry-picked.”

Lake also had concerns about his experience with masculinizing top surgery with Paik. 

Two weeks after his top surgery, he developed an infection in his incision and had to follow up with Paik frequently to monitor the infection. Lake said that at his follow-up appointment in February, two practitioners — whom he had not been told the position of — entered his examination room. 

“These were not nurses and they were not providers of mine,” Lake said. “No one asked me if it was okay for them to be present, not even when I had to stand there topless and have my breasts marked with a marker by Dr. Paik.”

Paik did not respond to a request for comment. However, Nita Ahuja, the chair of the department of surgery, replied on behalf of the department.

“Regarding your email inquiry, medical records are confidential, and we cannot discuss specific patients or their cases,” Ahuja wrote in an email to the News. “Yale Medicine is dedicated to providing exceptional patient care. Our physicians are experts in their fields, who are fully certified in the procedures they perform.”

“The reimbursement game”: Reimbursement structures for electrolysis

Numerous students also expressed concern over the reimbursement system for electrolysis — a method of removing individual hairs from the face or body by destroying the growth center of the hair with chemical or heat energy — at Yale Health. 

Arjaan Miah ’26, who benefitted from Turner’s “institutional knowledge,” initially sought hormone replacement therapy at Planned Parenthood after learning it would be faster than seeking treatment through Yale Health’s endocrinology department. 

However, she sought electrolysis through Yale Health, which at the time cost $80 per weekly session. Miah said this was “a big barrier” because she did not always have money in the bank at the time of payment. 

Yale Health only reimburses a maximum of $60 per session. Miah stated that many Yale students visit a local electrolysis provider whose sessions typically cost $80, although Miah mentioned that a few students have paid $85. 

Miah described this payment system for electrolysis as a “reimbursement game.”

In his statement, Steere wrote that in response to feedback, Yale Health has increased coverage for electrolysis to $125 per hour, from $60 per hour, effective April 1, which has been communicated to patients seeking this service.

Tomura-Ho, like Miah, has been dissuaded from seeking electrolysis due to the reimbursement cost, especially given that they had heard from others that the reimbursement process can take a while.

Aguilar, who has started electrolysis at Yale Health, described the costs as “through the roof” and “a pain.”

Her costs, which currently amount to $500, were submitted to Yale at the start of March, but Aguilar said she has not received the reimbursement yet. 

Aguilar added that these costs may be higher for those trying to get full beards removed, which would require weekly sessions, or those who need hair removal for bottom surgery, which can take up to 40 hours. 

Another barrier to accessing electrolysis is the referral system. Miah recalled that when she first went to Yale Health seeking a referral for electrolysis, the provider told her that Yale Health does not offer such referrals. However, after Miah explained that electrolysis referrals were common practice at Yale Health — something she knew because of Turner, her peer liaison — the provider wrote her one. 

Misgendering and deadnaming at Yale Health 

In addition to the issues accessing gender-affirming care through Yale Health, many students also told the News that they have faced misgendering or deadnaming while receiving care or in communications from Yale Health. Deadnaming is an experience in which individuals refer to transgender people by a name that is not their preferred name.

Lake told the News he has had his chosen name and pronouns recorded in MyChart for the past eight months. However, every time he goes to Yale Health, he is referred to incorrectly. 

“During the morning of my top surgery I was referred to as ‘she’ by the nurses putting my IV in,” Lake said. “I corrected them but they continued to misgender me. The nurses in the endocrinology department did the same thing during my HRT consultation.” 

Lake also said his psychiatrist from YMHC misgendered him consistently in after-visit notes — months after he came out as trans. 

Lake said that he’s grateful for the access to free gender-affirming care at Yale Health, but the consistent misgendering has led to frustration, especially as it comes from the very providers helping him in his female-to-male transition. 

“Being deadnamed and misgendered nearly every time I try to access care at Yale Health has significantly impacted my relationship with pursuing treatment,” Lake said. “There were times when I delayed picking up my important medication from the Yale Health Pharmacy because I knew that I would be referred to by my deadname whenever they called out that my prescription was ready. Every time I sit in a Yale Health waiting room I try not to panic about the very real possibility that my deadname will be called out in front of everyone.”

Lake told the News that he has medical-based PTSD that developed prior to coming to Yale. Attending appointments at Yale Health is only possible because of years of weekly therapy, he said.

Lake said that he knows that attending these appointments will be incredibly stressful for him, at times leading to “uncontrollably crying and passing out from stress,” which is why he delays his own care.

“On paper it sounds great that Yale provides gender-affirming care, but in reality, it’s an exhausting circus,” Lake said. “If I was any less resilient and determined of a person I would have never transitioned at Yale.”

Like Lake, Maxwell Kiekhofer ’26 experienced deadnaming and misgendering both while seeking gender-affirming care and in online communication with Yale Health. Kiekhofer has been deadnamed multiple times via MyChart message, even at the beginning of conversations, and often is misgendered with she/her or they/them pronouns, when he prefers he/him pronouns. Even after correcting providers, Kiekhofer said, they often continue to use his deadname.

Kiekhofer said his worst misgendering experience occurred when referred to gynecology at Yale Health. Due to pain he was experiencing, Kiekhofer was told he needed to have two different types of ultrasounds – both of which he did not feel comfortable getting as a trans man. 

In a recent appointment with gynecology, Kiekhofer was deadnamed twice — once when his deadname was called out into the waiting room. While the check-in staff corrected themselves and later apologized, Kiekhofer said the “damage was already done.” 

“This has happened multiple times, and each time it happens I feel more likely to sacrifice my health to avoid being deadnamed or misgendered,” Kiekhofer said. 

Community support and activism 

In addition to advocating for HRT to be covered under Yale Health Basic Student Health Services, students are currently working to make the process of finding resources for gender-affirming care — which often involves relying on word-of-mouth — more clear and accessible at Yale. 

Currently, Trans@Yale, a student organization on campus, has a survival guide that was crafted by students for students. One of the stated goals of this guide is to preserve a semblance of institutional memory for future transgender students at Yale. The pages outline ways to navigate the Yale Health Hospitalization/Specialty Coverage and other approaches to access gender-affirming procedures.

Aguilar said creating the guide has taken a long time, especially given that students at the Office of LGBTQ Resources only recently began being compensated for the work on the guide as well as their work spreading awareness on trans issues outside of healthcare.

Byrd wrote to the News that the Office advocates for a wide range of issues involving discrimination and harassment, promoting LGBTQ-inclusive policies, education about LGBTQ issues and equity and access across the board.

Work this year, Byrd added, has also focused on combating the national rise in anti-LGBTQ hate. 

“This year alone, over 469 anti-trans bills have been introduced in state legislatures across the US ranging from drag bans, health care bans, censorship and forced outing, bathroom and sports bans — each of which have real-world impacts on members of our community,” Byrd wrote. “On campus, advocacy ranges from continuing to update primary and secondary data systems, addressing housing, restrooms, healthcare needs, and promoting inclusive educational and workplace practices.”  

The Office also provides individual and group consultations and support with navigating the coming-out process, transition and Yale student life. The Office hosts a Gender Resources @ Yale committee, a Beyond the Binary social group and programming for TransWeek and TransVisibility, along with having a Qloset with gender-affirming clothing and shapewear like binders or gaffs. 

Students interviewed, many of whom are involved in the Office and its subcommittees, told the News they have met with the leaders of Yale Health as well as administrators who oversee student life to discuss their concerns about trans healthcare. 

Dean of Yale College Pericles Lewis told the News he has met with student representatives from the Office of LGBTQ Resources, and that he conveyed many of their concerns to former CEO of Yale Health Paul Genecin. However, since the switch in leadership in Yale Health, Lewis said he has not spoken with the new leaders regarding the concerns about gender-affirming care. 

Kiekhofer, who serves as a Queer Student Alliance representative, told the News that the Queer Student Alliance — an LGBTQ+ umbrella activist group that educates, mobilizes and unites students on issues facing the LGBTQ+ community — met with Lewis about gender-affirming care.

AJ Eckert at Anchor Health said that a solution to these widespread discrepancies for transgender populations lies in training all doctors in all specialties to provide competent gender-affirming care. He said that the solution to transgender healthcare is not to place all transgender individuals in a specialized clinic, but to ensure that all physicians are competent in caring for these populations.

“To be able to see a patient and when they disclose to you that they’re trans or gay or whatever it is that you’re not comfortable with to be able to say ‘okay, well go to that clinic there the gender clinic,’ that’s wild to me,” Eckert said. “It’s wild to me that a doctor can literally say, ‘Well, I don’t know enough about that.’”

The only student who reported not experiencing any deadnaming or misgendering in her interactions with medical staff in any setting was Hannah Szabo ’25.  

Szabo began attending Yale New Haven Hospital’s Pediatric Gender Clinic at the age of 11 and has continued to do so throughout her time at Yale. Szabo also reported that the process for electrolysis reimbursement was slow and that the wait times for certain procedures were incredibly lengthy, which weighed negatively on her mental health.

Szabo said that there is a GroupMe for transgender and nonbinary students on campus, which is often active with students asking questions about navigating the Yale Health system. 

“I’m so glad [the chat] exists,” Szabo said. “But it shows something profound about the system that you don’t really have other group chats on this campus that end up being like seeking serious medical advice, right? You don’t usually have to turn to your peers for that. And I’m glad the trans community at Yale is so strong that we can turn to each other and support each other. But I don’t think we should have to be, there should be more institutional support.”

Szabo stated that she goes to the Pediatric Gender Clinic for all of her health care needs, save for blood tests, which she gets at the Yale Health building through Quest Diagnostics. She said that she had always had a positive and affirming experience, which she was disappointed to see was not the case for other transgender patients.

“I think it would be really, really awesome if we could just expect that every patient gets treated the same way when they go into a health care clinic,” Eckert said. “Because I’m really tired of the horror stories. It’s heartbreaking to keep hearing from patients how they are treated by other providers in 2023.”

The Office of LGBTQ Resources is located at 135 Prospect St. 

Update, May 25: One paragraph was updated to protect privacy.

The post Delayed, disrespected and deadnamed: Transgender students face barriers to healthcare at Yale appeared first on Yale Daily News.

Film students expressed concern that the money they get from CPAs – often lower than the limit – remains insufficient for the costs of their projects. These students said the guidelines for what CPAs cover are often restrictive for film projects, as CPAs cannot cover purchase of equipment, actors, travel or transportation costs, food — unless it serves as a prop — or wages.

“It’s a really hard space to navigate and almost feels like we’re pulling at strings, pulling at each other and pulling from the little resources that we can to make anything work,” said Fernando Cuello Garcia ’24, a film and media studies major. “As a whole and for the CPA as well, it really shows that Yale doesn’t care about film.”

CPAs are administered by the Council of Heads of College with the goal of supporting on-campus dramatic, musical, dance, video or film projects. They are financed by the Sudler Fund, Welch Fund and the Bates Fund. Projects must take place on campus, and applying students must consult with their Head of College prior to submission of their application.

While there is a centralized website for applications, Cuello Garcia said that changes to recent rules — including that students must speak to their Head of College — goes against “institutional knowledge” passed down from upperclassmen, creating confusion around how to apply for CPAs.

Given these challenges, Marc-Alain Bertoni ’24, a film and media studies major, said film at Yale is an “afterthought,” with the lack of funding through CPAs as clear evidence of this.“Time and time again, film at Yale has been undermined by unclear regulation and broad rules applied to the artistic community that simply don’t consider how film and filmmaking would factor into the equation,” Bertoni wrote.

Students may apply for CPAs twice a year and can only serve as the primary proposer for one project produced per term.

The maximum grant for plays and musicals, as well as thesis films, is $1,200. For all other projects, price maximums range from $500 to $1,000, with additional funding granted for obtention of legal rights.Cuello Garcia said the decreased limit compounds with other discrepancies including a lack of resources for film students at Yale, which are mostly provided through the Center for Collaborative Arts and Media.

“Film, on its own, I think tends to be a lot more expensive to produce than some of the other arts but that’s compounded with the fact that a lot of resources at Yale are kind of lacking for production,” Cuello Garcia said.

Cuello Garcia, the student coordinator at the CCAM, said that the CCAM lacks resources from Yale to support the space, especially if compared to the resources for graduate students at the School of Art.

Bertoni wrote that he applied for a CPA for a film project last fall and received the maximum amount of $500, but said he thinks that there are a lot of hidden costs which make the maximum insufficient, along with the high costs of what the CPA does cover.

“Essentially, if you’re at Yale, and you want to make a film, you have to be prepared to pay out of pocket to do so, and considering the amount of money this institution has, I think it’s a shame that is the case,” Bertoni wrote to the News.Head of Timothy Dwight College Mary Lui, the chair of the CPA committee on the Council of the Heads of College, wrote that there are categories of funding within the CPA system that each have preset limits, and the aim is to fund projects “as best as possible according to our best understanding of average costs per category.”

“There are many reasons why a project won’t get full funding, and it is case by case rather than a specific category getting less,” Lui told the News.

According to Lui, CPAs come out of gifts to Yale College and are broadly defined — early conversations back in the 1980s emphasized performing arts but the fund “quickly broadened” to a greater variety of arts today.

But Lui said this year has faced an increase in applications across many categories. Residential colleges have stretched their arts budgets “to the limit,” with some exceeding their own budgets.

Lui added that there are varying costs between theater and film projects, and theater projects may be especially costly due to the buying of rights for productions.

“The difficulties of funding such a high volume of CPA applications across the board, including film, has led to discussions with film faculty on how best to support filmmakers whether through the CCAM or additional streams of funding devoted to curricular film making,” Lui told the News. “So I am hopeful that we’ll be able to do more for filmmakers in the future.”

Kate Krier, Dean of Yale College Arts, explained that total CPA funding per college has remained flat since 2014. In the 2014-15 year, 72 students applied. In the 2022-3 year, 421 have.

As such, colleges have had to be more selective regarding funding decisions, and a lower percentage of applicants.

Krier noted that the Center for Collaborative Arts and Media will, in the coming fall, offer $28,000 worth of film equipment to students, informed by “wish list” feedback from student filmmakers.

This year’s applicants, however, have weathered numerous monetary difficulties in carrying out graded film projects and, in some cases, their senior theses.

Jonas Kilga ‘23, whose senior thesis film required external funding, felt hindered in his ability to complete his graduation requirement by financial restraints.

“If you, like me, needed this grant to graduate from Yale, then it is a case of the school actively prohibiting you from completing a graduation requirement,” Kilga explained to the News. “The need to crowdfund…creates significant equity issues, because those students with wealthier friends and family will have more funding for their films than students from low-income backgrounds.”

Kilga explained that difficulties surrounding CPA funding only cropped up starting this year, when a drastic increase in applications had severely reduced the percentage of applicants who received grants.

The explanation students received, Kilga noted, was that the money “just wasn’t there.”

Non-senior film students have also run into difficulties funding class-mandated film projects, having to crowdfund or spend thousands of dollars on projects. Cuello Garcia said many students fund projects using their own money — spending up to $10,000 for film theses.

“It doesn’t have the sufficient equipment that we need,” Cuello Garcia said. “So it’s a matter of pulling money out of your own pocket or, or asking friends to give you equipment. There’s mostly no other mainstream ways of funding”

Funds given from the CPA awarded in February must be submitted for reimbursement by May 5.

Correction 4/20: This article has been updated to reflect that the $500 cap for non-thesis CPA grants only applies to most, not all, arts disciplines. 

The post Film students express frustration over decrease in CPA funding appeared first on Yale Daily News.

During the fair, students explored various booths helmed by mental health advocacy groups while also sitting and enjoying performances from acapella and dance groups. The performers included the a cappella groups Cadence of Yale, Mixed Company and Doox of Yale, as well as the dance group Yale Movement. Yale College Community Care, the SHARE Center, the Asian American Cultural Center, Alliance for Prevention and Wellness and Elis for Rachael all had booths at the event.

YSMHA co-president Peyton Meyer ’24 told the News that he was excited to see so many people on Cross Campus for the event. 

“Any time we’re able to facilitate even just one new conversation about mental health, it’s a win,” Meyer wrote in an email to the News. 

Meyer added that after the event, students seemed to enjoy being able to browse booths and grab a bite to eat while enjoying the performances. 

Ben Swinchoski ’24, one of the YSMHA members who helped organize the event, also said he hoped that the fair would expose students to different groups, spread awareness about mental health and promote ways to prioritize mental health through the performances. 

“I hope students are exposed to different ways that different groups intersect with mental health awareness and take a look at the ways we’re promoting ways they can prioritize their mental health the rest of the semester,” Swinchoski said. 

The booth for mental health advocacy group Elis for Rachael featured a wheel attendees could spin to learn about different options to support mental health on campus. They also included a prompt board where people could submit suggestions about what could be improved about Yale’s mental health services. 

Elis for Rachael’s booth also included a TV, which played closed-captioned testimonies from alumni about their experiences with mental healthcare at Yale. Their booth also had newspaper clippings from articles regarding the recent changes to medical leave and cards that featured stories of specific alumni experiences. 

The group also included links to a new survey about mental health experiences at Yale, along with an interest form for the new mental health peer liaison program. 

In organizing the event, Meyer said that connecting with community partners took many emails, but they were excited to get both booths and performers for the fair. He said that the performances were a great way to build excitement and show attendees mental health is “not something that should be stigmatized or hidden,” drawing in students who may not otherwise be engaged in conversations about mental health. 

Another booth included representatives from Alliance for Prevention and Wellness, a program of BH care, a community behavioral health clinic that focuses on mental health awareness and suicide prevention. The group also provides mental health first aid training, as well as an emergency mental health training known as QPR training. 

“I am really glad that we’re here serving the Yale community,” said Taylor Gainey, the regional suicide advisory board coordinator for Alliance for Prevention and Wellness. “We want to let students know that in addition to mental health services on campus, we’re here as well.” 

Additionally, the Asian American Cultural Center hosted a booth with space for painting posters and the opportunity to post sticky notes answering the question: “How have you felt cared for recently?” 

Sunehra Subah ’24, a member of the wellness and mental health team at the AACC, said her team hopes to emphasize that students should take time they need to rest. She added that they are also often focused on the intersection of mental health and Asian identity. 

“When we talk about identity, especially as racialized bodies, we talk a lot about dealing with trauma or harm or pain, and I think that’s a very good conversation, but there’s also so much joy in being Asian,” Subah told the News. “Asinanness is not only dealing with harm.” 

Yale Mental Health and Counseling’s central office is located on the third floor of the Yale Health building at 55 Lock St. 

The post YSMHA hosts annual Mind Over Matter Fair appeared first on Yale Daily News.

The forum, hosted by the Yale College Council, the Yale Student Mental Health Association and alumni advocacy group Elis for Rachael, aimed to provide a space for students to share their thoughts on mental health care at Yale. Following sweeping changes to Yale’s medical leave policies, the discussion was designed as an open forum to express opinions on these changes, as well as Yale’s current mental health care resources and campus mental health culture. 

YCC senator Kyle Shepherd ’25, who moderated the event, said he thought the event was successful and confirmed the importance of current efforts he is involved in, including other similar meetings and the establishment of a peer liaison program for mental health care. 

“There are a lot of students like me who were willing to be vocal about their experiences and what they thought was important to be changed,” Shepherd told the News. 

Alicia Floyd ’05, a leader of Elis for Rachael, said the event’s intended purpose was mostly “open-ended” — to get student feedback on mental health policies and concerns. Floyd added that Elis for Rachael would love to hear more from students in the future, and said they are developing a survey which will be disseminated to students starting April 15 at YSMHA’s annual Mind over Matter fair. 

Students share concerns at virtual forum

While the conversation began with a discussion of medical leave policies, it shifted to focus on concerns with both Yale Mental Health and Counseling and Yale College Community Care. Also known as YC3, Yale College Community Care is a program run through the Yale College Dean’s Office in conjunction with YMHC which provides therapist and wellness specialists on a more short-term basis and has received mixed feedback from students. 

At Tuesday’s event, students specifically raised concerns about a lack of publicity of the YC3 program, which is not listed on the website for YMHC. While YSMHA co-president Peyton Meyer ’24 said he has had a positive experience with YC3, he added that he was shocked by how many students have not heard of the program. 

“It seems like it would be a no-brainer that [YC3] should be on [the YMHC website] because especially for students if they are experiencing long wait times, YC3 is a really good way to get care faster,” Meyer told the News. 

In response to these concerns regarding publicity, Dean of Yale College Pericles Lewis said he would look into the issue, adding that there may be more ways to make people aware of the program. 

The central concerns raised regarding YMHC were the wait times for getting an appointment with a therapist, which has long been a source of student concern. 

Paul Hoffman, director of YMHC, wrote to the News that the wait times for care have decreased significantly this year due to a “sizable” increase in staff to meet increased need for services. 

While Hoffman stressed that urgent and acute needs are assigned much faster, he wrote that the busiest time in the fall had a maximum wait time of eight days for intake. 

“Our goal is to have students schedule an intake within one week of initial contact with us and the upper limit of time to be matched to a therapist at two weeks,” Hoffman wrote to the News. “For the better part of this year, it has taken less than a week to schedule an intake appointment, with the upper limit of the time to be matched to a therapist at two to three weeks.” 

Hoffman said that he expects the size of the staff of YMHC to increase again next year, adding that wait times to schedule appointments with YC3 have remained within a week. 

Floyd raised the point that other similar institutions employ telehealth appointments for therapy in order to offload the work of the on-campus therapists, a model she hopes Yale will follow. 

In response to this concern, Hoffman wrote to the News that YMHC has decided against using telehealth for a variety of factors including variable quality of services, access and coordination issues and privacy concerns. 

“Ultimately, I feel it is important to invest our resources in building the necessary systems within Yale to meet our students’ needs and I’m confident we are on the right path,” Hoffman wrote to the News. 

YCC, YSMHA and Elis for Rachael to establish peer liaison program 

The discussion also focused on recent efforts to introduce a group of mental health peer liaisons, a joint initiative between YCC, YSMHA and Elis for Rachael. 

The goal of these liaisons, Floyd told the News, will be to bring together representatives from different facets of campus to provide information and resources to students seeking mental health care. 

“[The peer liasons] come as representatives of their group just in a very low-key, informal way … to keep us in touch with the pulse of mental health culture on campus,” Floyd told the News. 

Shepherd explained that the peer liaison program is not for students to provide care — peer liaisons will instead act as point people to help students navigate support systems while also serving as a resource for mental health organizations. The liaisons, he said, would meet three times a semester with students in different organizations to provide them with knowledge about mental health resources. 

Students who are interested in becoming a mental health peer liaison can fill out an interest form here. 

YSMHA will host their Mind over Matter Event on April 15.

The post Mental health groups discuss advocacy efforts and hear student concerns at forum appeared first on Yale Daily News.

In her email to students, Peck wrote that over 500 registered undergraduate organizations rely on Yale’s resources, and that the decision is an effort to optimize them.

“Some groups that used to require physical space for their work moved online during covid and are now often able to function digitally,” Peck wrote. “Shifting the on-campus spaces to shared storage space will benefit many groups and remove the inequities that were often attached to the assigning of offices or meeting rooms to specific, often older, student organizations.”

Peck added in the email that all registered student organizations will have access to meeting spaces through the Registrar’s Office, the residential colleges, the campus centers and the Schwarzman Center, and each group will be given one shelf in the 305 Crown storage room and swipe access to the space. She encouraged groups to consult with University Archives for items of historical value to the groups. 

In response to a request for comment, Peck forwarded sections of her emails to the News, adding that  “maintaining 15 rooms on campus for only a few of our 500 student organizations became an issue of equity” and that the change will “benefit” more groups.

In response to the email from Peck, student groups voiced concerns about the decision, claiming that they were not given enough input or warning about the decision. 

Arnav Tawakley ’24, who is involved with the humor magazine The Yale Record, told the News that the group primarily uses the space for working on the magazine, socializing and storage for print Issues and merchandise. He said the space is used for the Thursday “Happy Fun Time” event that provides an opportunity for socializing as a club while working on the magazine and is open to anyone on their email list of about 1,300 students. 

“Two Record freshmen from the class of ’14…were both assigned to ‘clean the office’ when their seniors noted a mutual crush,” Tawakley told the News. “The two are now married, and active Record alumni.” 

Tawakley raised concerns about the group’s ability to vacate the space entirely by the May 21 deadline. He noted that this date fell soon after the busy schedule of finals and reading period, when club members may not have time to sort through the archives, coordinate with the Yale archives and alumni and clean the space. 

“The Record would have been amenable to a discussion about ways it could democratize the use of its space, but was not given any warning, let alone room for dialogue,” Tawakley told the News. 

The Yale Herald co-editors-in-chief Leo Egger ’24 and Josie Steuer Ingall ’24 wrote in a joint statement to the News that losing their space would be “devastating.”

Steuer Ingall and Egger emphasized the imbalance that would be created were the News, which is housed at 202 York Street, to become the only campus publication with a physical office space. Unlike the publications located at 305 Crown Street, the News is financially independent of the University.  

“This decision to turn our offices into storage space helps no one. It threatens to destroy established bastions of creativity and learning on this campus,” Steuer Ingall and Egger wrote to the News. “Students need to reckon with a campus bureaucracy that is eliminating spaces of care and community in the name of relentless optimization, under the guise of equity.”

In a letter from the editors posted to the Herald’s website yesterday, Egger and Ingall asked students for their support in reversing the decision. The letter argued further that the equity argument was utilitarian at the expense of community and history. It pointed also to the inadequacy of the one-shelf storage areas which organizations would be granted.

As of 10 P.M. Monday night, a petition to “Save the Yale Herald” had garnered nearly 500 signatures.

The post University orders student groups out of 305 Crown Street space appeared first on Yale Daily News.

Dean of Student Affairs Melanie Boyd announced the policy change for summer storage in a Wednesday email, citing the differences in storage options across colleges.

“Storage capacity across the 14 colleges varies widely and inequitably, the types of belongings eligible for storage have long been limited, and options in general have been challenging for the colleges while meeting few students’ needs,” Boyd wrote in her email to students. Considering these challenges, exploring options like Container Hire could potentially address some of these storage issues more effectively.

Boyd added that she hopes this announcement helps students plan for the end of the semester, and she encouraged students to consider taking belongings home with them over spring break to reduce what they have to store over the summer. 

In terms of financial assistance, Boyd explained that Yale College is aware of the cost of moving and is working to develop a system for providing financial assistance to eligible students. The administration will share who is eligible to receive financial aid, the amount of aid available and the method of requesting it no later than the first week of April. 

She also wrote in the email that if students are in a college that does not provide common room furniture — which includes Pierson, Davenport, Grace Hopper, Berkeley and Jonathan Edwards Colleges — residential college leadership will individually provide guidance regarding furniture storage.

This announcement prompted concern from students, some of whom told the News that the solution to disparate storage options was not to remove storage opportunities in residential colleges entirely. 

Cristian Pereira ’25 said he was initially confused by the change in policy, arguing that Yale should focus on adding resources to certain colleges rather than removing resources from the colleges with more storage space. 

“Technically, the decision promotes equity,” Pereira wrote to the News. “But it is the wrong type of equity. Removing the storage option for some students results in nothing except less students having that option.” 

Pereira praised the financial aid program for students getting storage units, but added that many students who are not on aid “still feel the price of college and its additional expenses,” rendering this policy burdensome regardless of socioeconomic status. 

Ben Crnovrsanin ’25 said that inequity was not an excuse to eliminate the entire system, and suggested standardizing storage across Yale College, allowing students to store their belongings in other colleges that possess more space. 

“The on-campus storage system met a clear need for convenient and affordable services to students,” Crnovrsanin told the News. “While the system was rife with inefficiencies and inequities, eliminating it entirely is not a practical solution.”

Crnovrsanin also suggested that it was “reckless” to announce this policy change before the financial aid system for summer storage is in place because there are numerous financial factors that need to be taken into account beyond the costs of storage. Students must consider the availability of storage spaces near campus, transportation costs associated with moving and the limited space provided by storage units.

Lucas Aurore ’26 said he is debating between shipping his belongings home or paying for a storage unit nearby. 

“I don’t think I have that much stuff, but it’s just more than what I can pack and bring home without shipping boxes,” Aurore said. “I think that this made it less equitable because I don’t how making nobody be able to store their stuff helps anyone.”

Aurore also plans to reside in Pierson College next year, and therefore will have to buy his own common room furniture. He added that the storage policy is “even more of a financial burden” on top of an “inequitable” furniture policy.

Boyd did not respond to a request for comment. 

Spring recess begins March 10 and will end March 27. 

The post Yale College nixes summer storage option, prompting student concern appeared first on Yale Daily News.

The news comes following a petition and rally requesting that the new streamlined housing process include religious accommodations — particularly single gender floors. Thursday also marked the beginning of group formation for the spring housing process. 

The new accommodations allow students to submit requests to live on a single-gender floor by noon on March 14. Students can choose between requesting to live on a single-gender floor even if that means being housed separately from their desired suitemates or requesting to live on a single-gender floor only if they are able to remain with their housing group. Students living in single-gender suites are also able to fill out the form expressing their willingness to live on a single-gender floor together. 

“As soon as I saw the email, I just felt an overwhelming sense of relief,” Inssia Ahmed ’25 told the News. “It’s so amazing to see all the hard work we put into advocacy pay off in a tangible way — a big thank you to all the other student leaders for aiding with everything from the petition to the rally. I’m also grateful to the administration for listening and responding to our concerns.”

Zahra Yarali, the president of Yale’s Muslim Student Association, claimed that the policy was the result of meetings between students Dean of Yale College Pericles Lewis and Boyd. Yarali elaborated that the Dean’s office was open to feedback and receptive to the students who met with them’s concerns. 

“This new addition to the housing policy going forward is based off some troubleshooting we did in the meeting with Dean Lewis and Dean Boyd,” Yarali told the News. 

Sabrina Zbar ’26, who is Orthodox Jewish, has been involved in the recent activism for religious accommodations. Zbar, who is in Saybrook College, said that when she applied for first-year housing in the fall, she was able to express her desire for single-gender housing in the survey for incoming student housing. She hoped to complete a similar survey when moving into her residential college in her sophomore year. 

The survey Boyd sent out Thursday, Zbar said, took only about a minute and a half to fill out. 

“I was really happy because the administration listened to our requests, even if not immediately, and that our practices were respected and that meant a lot,” Zbar told the News. 

Boyd wrote in her email that once the requests are received, the housing office will do “what it can” to create single-gender floors by taking these students out of the housing lotteries or room draws and assigning rooms directly.

While these requests are not guaranteed, the Housing Office is taking an active effort to accommodate all students that request these accommodations. 

“The housing office will use housing that has historically been of average demand—neither the least desirable nor the most,” Boyd wrote in her email. “For juniors, assignments could be in annex housing.”

Room selection for juniors will occur Apr. 20 and 21, and Apr. 10 to 12 for sophomores and seniors. 

The post Yale offers single-gender housing option following student protest appeared first on Yale Daily News.