Comment on this article University, Military at Odds Over Law School Recruiting
November 2002 Threatened with causing the loss of about $350 million in federal funds to the University, the Law School allowed recruiters from the Air Force Judge Adjutant General Corps to participate in its fall job interviewing program last month, making an exception to a longstanding policy that bars employers who discriminate from participating in the program. But President Richard Levin made it clear that the decision is an “interim measure” and that the University plans to “pursue a determination of whether the Law School’s current policy satisfies the legal requirements.” The Solomon Amendment, a federal law passed in 1996, denies any federal funds—except student financial aid—to universities that prevent military recruiters from access to student information or from “gaining entry to campuses, or access to students on campuses.” While the Law School itself receives very little federal funding, the University is highly dependent on federal funds for research and other initiatives. The Law School’s Career Development Office organizes interviewing programs twice a year, matching its students with firms, government agencies, and other employers for interviews at the Holiday Inn on Whalley Avenue. The office requires employers who wish to participate to sign a statement affirming that they do not discriminate on the basis of several factors, including sexual orientation. Because of the military’s policy on homosexuality, their recruiters have been unable to participate in the program. Military recruiters do hold information sessions at the Law School, and are permitted to conduct interviews there. “At no point has the military been barred from our campus,” says Law School spokesperson Elizabeth Stauderman ’83. Until recently, military officials had agreed that the Law School’s policy was consistent with the law. But in May, the University was notified by the U.S. Army that its policy was not in compliance with the Solomon Amendment. Several other law schools have received similar notifications this year, and some, including Harvard, have changed their policies. But Yale spokesman Thomas Conroy says the University will “pursue the matter further in talks with the military,” as Law School officials believe that their policy conforms to the law. 
Unions Take Their Case to the Street Civil disobedience doesn’t get much more civil than the Yale unions’ demonstration on September 25. Frustrated by protracted talks with the Yale administration and eager to show support for the organizing efforts of hospital workers and graduate teaching assistants, members of Locals 34 and 35 and their supporters stood in the middle of Elm Street at rush hour to show their solidarity and were promptly arrested by New Haven police and charged with creating a public disturbance. The 675 arrestees, who each received an $88 citation, had pre-registered with police before the event and wore special stickers to indicate their status as arrestees. They were taken to a table on the New Haven Green where they stood in line to receive their summonses. The demonstration came as the parties in the current contract negotiations seemed far from a settlement. As of early October, Yale was offering annual wage increases of 4 percent for Local 34 and 3 percent for Local 35. The unions unilaterally pulled back from their initial proposals, moving from 10 percent to 9 percent for Local 34 and from 7 percent to 6 percent for Local 35. The University has brought in a federal mediator to oversee continued talks, to the consternation of union officials who wanted to continue working with the facilitator who had led the two sides in “interest-based bargaining” sessions in the spring. The possibility of a strike still exists, as the unions approved a strike authorization vote in September.
A Who’s Who of Poets on Campus It was like Woodstock for poetry lovers: In September, the Whitney Humanities Center and the Beinecke Library brought together nine winners of the prestigious Bollingen Prize for two days of readings and panel discussions. The Prize, established by Paul Mellon in 1948, is awarded every two years either for the best volume of poetry published during those years or in honor of a poet’s lifetime achievement. In attendance were John Ashbery, Robert Creeley, Louise Gluck, John Hollander, Stanley Kunitz, W. S. Merwin, Gary Snyder, Mark Strand, and Richard Wilbur. A reading by all the poets at Center Church on the Green proved so popular that the church had reached its 600-person capacity well before the 8 p.m. starting time, and 300 people were diverted next door to Trinity Episcopal Church, where the program was simulcast. Joe Loewenstein ’82PhD, who had come all the way from St. Louis for the event, managed to squeeze into Center Church at the last minute. He had come especially to see Hollander, who was his dissertation adviser. “It’s an act of piety,” he said. The next day at the Whitney Humanities Center, the poets participated in panels on “American Traditions in Poetry” and “The Craft of Poetry Today.” Topics ranged from how American poets are to identify themselves as distinct from the British (“It hasn’t really been worked out,” said Ashbery), to the value of multiculturalism in literature (Creeley looked at his fellow panelists and said, “We’re all white males and one woman. That’s not good enough.”), to poetry’s current popularity. Moderator J. D. McClatchy, editor of the Yale Review, offered guarded optimism on the last point. “Poetry is among the top eight subjects on the Internet—ahead of football and tennis,” he said, “but below Pamela Anderson.”
Timothy Dwight Moves Back Home The cries of “Ashe!”—the Yoruban rallying cry of Timothy Dwight College—are even more robust this fall after the college’s denizens returned from a year in the Tower Parkway “swing dorm” to a fully renovated college. With the concurrent renovation of Rosenfeld Hall as annex space also completed, TD becomes the fourth residential college to be overhauled. The program for the TD renovation is similar to those of Berkeley, Branford, and Saybrook before it: The building’s mechanical and electrical systems were upgraded, the exterior was restored, the kitchen and serving areas of the dining hall were updated for more modern service, and the college’s squash courts were converted into a multipurpose activity space. TD’s “Town Hall” structure was reconfigured as a three-story library and computer center. Rosenfeld Hall, which was originally the St. Elmo’s fraternity house and more recently housed the language laboratory, will now be used exclusively as Timothy Dwight annex housing. By expanding the attic of Rosenfeld, new student rooms were created to eliminate the need for annex housing across the street at 370 Temple Street, which has been renovated for the Center for Language Study and the linguistics department. The renovation of the colleges is on hiatus this year as Vanderbilt Hall gets an overhaul. With that freshman dormitory out of commission, freshmen from Ezra Stiles, Morse, and Berkeley colleges are being housed in the “swing dorm.” Pierson College will be renovated in the 2003–2004 academic year.
Anti-Drug Ads Lower Drug Use In 1987, the Partnership for a Drug-Free America (PDFA) debuted one of the most famous advertising campaigns of all time. The “brain on drugs” commercials were powerful and inescapable, and a study published in the August edition of the American Journal of Public Health concludes that they were also effective at reducing drug use among teenagers. “Anti-drug advertising works,” says Subrata K. Sen, a researcher at the Yale School of Management and one of the lead authors of an investigative team from Yale, Baruch College, NYU’s Stern School of Business, and the London Business School. The scholars analyzed survey data compiled by the PDFA from 1987 through 1990 when the “brain on drugs” public service campaign was going strong. During that time, media financial support for these messages, most of which are donated by television networks, newspapers, and magazines, more than tripled, from $115 million to $365 million. Sen’s study found that among those teens who had seen the ads but had not yet experimented with marijuana, nearly 10 percent “got the picture” and said they were unlikely to start. The number who believed the ads dissuaded them from trying cocaine or crack was about 4 percent. “For the entire population of teens, this is a significant effect,” says Sen, the Joseph F. Cullman 3rd Professor of Organization, Management, and Marketing. “The more adolescents perceive themselves to be susceptible to the negative consequences of drug abuse, the less likely they are to use drugs.” While studies of more recent ad campaigns have shown a similar impact, the approach remains controversial, as was evident earlier this year during the debates in Congress that preceded the approval of additional funding for government-sponsored antidrug messages. One problem, says Sen, is that the ads don’t seem to have much of an effect convincing teens who are already experimenting with drugs to stop. Another is that even where there is a demonstrable correlation, it’s impossible to separate cause and effect. “Still, the correlations we’ve found are very strong and give plenty of reason for hope,” says Sen. “Funding for antidrug advertising appears to have been a worthwhile investment.”
Thinking Globally, Eating Locally Last year, the Berkeley College dining hall served up “Recipes from Home,” large-scale versions of favorite recipes submitted by students’ families and friends. On October 2, Berkeley and Yale Dining Services introduced the Yale Sustainable Food Project, which will bring 32 seasonal menus of fresh, organic, and locally grown foods to the Berkeley dining hall beginning in fall 2003. “We’re pretty lucky,” said Berkeley senior Elizabeth Tang. “They’re always trying out new foods on us.” The Project was launched with an organic feast prepared and served by Dining Services staff under the supervision of chef, restaurateur, and “proud Yale parent” Alice Waters of Chez Panisse. The menu included Italian bread salad, olives, roasted chicken, marinated portobellos, baby stringbeans, fingerling potatoes, garden lettuces, pickled carrots, apple cobbler, and lemon verbena-mint herb tea. Diners over the age of 21 were also served organic wines. The evening’s speakers provided food for thought, explaining that the Project is more than just tasty meals. Berkeley master John Rogers announced that a portion of the courtyard will be reclaimed for organic gardens and composting. James Scott, director of Yale’s Agrarian Studies Program, encouraged diners to savor the “pleasures of the table and of friendship” as practiced by the international Slow Food movement. Waters agreed. “I hear that the hamburger was invented here in New Haven,” she said, “so we are responsible for the fast food nation. Slow Food is an experience that is really what the juice of life is about,” from ecologically sound food production to the revival of the kitchen and the table as centers of conviviality, culture, and community.
Fortunoff Archive Marks Anniversary Twenty years ago, Yale took in a small local project that was gathering video testimony from Holocaust survivors and turned it into the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies. Today, the archive has 10,000 hours of video from 4,100 people worldwide—more than a year’s worth of eyewitness accounts of one of history’s darkest hours. The Archive marked its 20th anniversary in October with a conference on “The Contribution of Oral Testimony to Holocaust and Genocide Studies.” Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel gave the keynote address; other speakers included novelist E.L. Doctorow and Hadassah Lieberman, the wife of Senator Joseph Lieberman and the daughter of Holocaust survivors. Wiesel spoke about the difficulty in communicating stories of the Holocaust. “The experience defies language,” he said. “It was easier for an inmate in Auschwitz to imagine themselves free than it is for someone in New Haven to imagine themselves in Auschwitz.” Still, Wiesel said, he feels an “urgent obligation to bear witness.” And after 20 years, the Archive continues to help people fulfill that obligation. Comparative literature professor Geoffrey Hartman, the faculty adviser to the project, says the Archive’s original plan was to collect just one thousand testimonies. “But we decided that any survivor who wanted to tell his or her story should be heard,” says Hartman.
Sporting Life:
Strong Kickoff for Soccer Season
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Sports Shorts The women’s soccer team also had a strong start to its season, winning six of its first nine games to post a 6–2–1 record at midseason. The losses came to nationally ranked Princeton and Connecticut. Sophomore running back Robert Carr broke a Bulldog record for rushing yardage in a single game, racking up 235 yards against Cornell on September 28. The next week against Holy Cross, he rushed for 219 yards. Carr’s exploits helped the football team win its first three outings. Peg Scofield, who has coached the Eli women’s volleyball team since it became a varsity sport in 1986, celebrated her 300th career victory on October 1 as the team defeated Fairfield 3–1. The team’s record stood at 6–5 at midseason. Another Ivy title for the Yale women’s golf team? Last year’s league champions started off the season well in September by winning the Dartmouth Invitational over perennial Ivy rival Princeton. The team came in second behind Penn State at the Yale Invitational the following weekend. |
In the first game of the season, a Yale men’s soccer team travels to a tournament at Brown and upsets the defending national champion. Sound familiar? The Bulldogs did it to Indiana in 1999 and went on to have the best season in Yale history, going to the NCAA tournament for the first time since 1991. This year they did it again, surprising North Carolina with a 2–1 win on September 13. “A win like that puts a good breeze into your sails,” says coach Brian Tompkins, and indeed, the team won four of their next five games, losing only to nationally ranked Hofstra. At the season’s halfway mark, the Bulldogs were 7–1 and ranked 24th in the nation, a far cry from last year’s disappointing season. The big difference, says Tompkins, is the return of three players who sat out all or part of last season. Senior forward Jay Alberts, a former Ivy League rookie of the year, was red-shirted last year due to mononucleosis; sophomore forward Lindsey Williams missed part of the season due to injury; and sophomore goalie Geoff Hollington hurt his back after only one game last year. Their absence was noted as the Bulldogs went 6–9–2 and finished last in the league. “We actually played pretty well last year,” says Tompkins, “but in high-level competition there are key moments that can win or lose the game for you. This year, we have an experienced team, and we’ve been able to get a key goal or a key save when we needed it.” Alberts, who was a key player in his freshman year (Yale Alumni Magazine, Feb. 2000, p. 37), had yet to score a goal by midseason but had racked up a team-leading seven assists. Williams led the scoring with six goals and also had two assists, and Hollington had 31 saves and a 6–1 record in the goal. Last year’s leading scorer, sophomore Andrew Dealy, had five goals at midseason. The rest of the season promised more challenges for the team. In addition to playing the bulk of their Ivy opponents, the Bulldogs’ schedule includes national powers Connecticut and Boston College. “This is where we see if we’re championship caliber,” says Tompkins.  |
