April 26, 2024
To the President, Provost and Deans of Yale University,
We write as Yale faculty to condemn the criminalization of Yale students engaged in recent acts of peaceful protest. We demand that the University administration call to drop all charges against the 48 protesters, that no further disciplinary action be taken against those who were arrested, and implore Yale to never again facilitate the arrest of protesters for acts of peaceable speech and assembly on campus. Students must be free to protest, assemble and speak on campus about the urgent moral matters of our time.
The University’s decision to call in the New Haven Police Department on Monday contradicts the institution’s commitment to uphold free assembly, speech and expression. These values are ones that we as faculty are deeply committed to, and teach extensively in our classrooms across departments, disciplines, and schools. The University cites infractions regarding use of outdoor campus space as the cause for calling in the police, but these infractions do not warrant arrests. Also, false reporting and misrepresentation of the protests and the targeting of individual students therein is indefensible, potentially illegal and puts student safety and well-being in jeopardy. A case in point is Yale College’s Dean falsely asserting the violence of protesters, for which he soon after apologized. As is now standard in these ongoing smear campaigns against student organizers and protesters, the damage was already done.
The 48 protesters arrested now face Class A misdemeanors under Connecticut law, which carry possible penalties of up to 364 days in jail. Threatening students with sanctions of this kind is unconscionable and should not be the means by which Yale responds to peaceful protest. Many similar protests have taken place in recent years in this same plaza, including a 25-foot wooden boat shed that was allowed to remain for weeks as part of a graduate student union protest, and without reported arrests.
Students are currently demanding that Yale disclose and divest from profiting off of investments in weapons manufacturing, which is facilitating atrocities globally. These protests echo divestment protests made during South African apartheid, which also led to encampments lasting for years, and eventually led to Yale’s divestment.
Many of us witnessed the protests of the last several days, and saw peaceful, disciplined, organized and committed action, reinforcing our institution’s mission and values. This student movement has been supported by a coalition of activists and groups, including Yalies4Palestine and Yale Jews for Ceasefire, whose strong and ongoing presence belies the false equation and ongoing divisive narrative regarding antisemitism and advocacy for Palestinian lives. We are dismayed and outraged both by the misleading media coverage of events on campus and the administration’s willingness to spread or repeat speculation that the protests might turn violent or hazardous.
The university’s response has detracted from meaningful dialogue about a way forward to end destruction, violence and war. The use of policing, penalization and retribution to avoid protest or dialogue with students cannot stand, as this is no model for an educational institution. Yale must immediately change course.
Specifically, we request that:
Sincerely,
Giulia Accornero, Assistant Professor, Department of Music
Bruce Ackerman, Sterling Professor of Law and Political Science, Law School
Joseph Akar, Professor, School of Medicine
Abinet Aklilu, Instructor, School of Medicine
Jennifer L. Allen, Associate Professor, History
Rene Almeling, Professor, Sociology
Ash B. Alpert, M.D. M.F.A., Instructor of Medicine, Yale Cancer Center, School of Medicine
Frederick Altice, Professor, School of Medicine
Sara Aly, Instructor of Emergency Medicine, School of Medicine
Sunil Amrith, Professor, History
Prasanna Ananth, Associate Professor, School of Medicine
Tarren Andrews, Assistant Professor, Ethnicity, Race & Migration
Laith Aqel, Clinical Lecturer, Law School
Costas Arkolakis, Professor, Economics
American Artist, Lecturer, School of Art
Alvin Ashiatey, Lecturer, School of Art
Paris Aslanidis, Lecturer of Political Science, Hellenic Studies Program, Political Science
Hamada Atalib, Associate Professor, School of Medicine
Asli Bali, Professor of Law, Yale Law School
Laura Barraclough, Professor, American Studies
Tim Barringer, Professor, History of Art
Serena Bassi, Assistant Professor, Italian Studies
Monica Bell, Professor and Associate Professor, Law School and Sociology
Dirk Bergemann, Douglass and Marion Campbell Professor, Department of Economics
James Bhandary-Alexander, Clinical Lecturer/Associate Research Scholar, Law School
Marijeta Bozovic, Professor, Slavic Languages and Literatures
Jessica Brantley, Frederick W. Hilles Professor, English
Billy Bromage, Assistant Clinical Professor of Social Work, School of Medicine
Leslie Brisman, Professor, English
Craig Buckley, Associate Professor, History of Art
Sandra Burns, Senior Critic, School of Art
Malina Buturović, Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Classics
Daphne Brooks, Professor, African American Studies, American Studies, Women's Gender & Sexuality Studies and Music
Jill Campbell, Professor, English
Hazel Carby, Professor Emeritus, African American Studies & American Studies
Tei Carpenter, Critic, School of Architecture
Chelsey Carter, Assistant Professor, School of Public Health
Jordan Carver, KPF Visiting Scholar, Critic, School of Architecture
James (Jim) Cavallaro, Visiting Professor, Global Affairs
David Charles, Professor, Department of Philosophy
Yaminay Chaudhri, Lecturer, Critic, School of Art
Yeju Choi, Critic, School of Art
Alice Chung, Senior Critic, School of Art
Joe Cleary, Professor, English Language and Literature
Daniel Colón-Ramos, McConnell Duberg Professor of Neuroscience and Cell Biology, School of Medicine
Jenn Coughlan, Assistant Professor, Ecology & Evolutionary Biology
Katherine Couturier, Assistant Professor, School of Medicine
Luiza Dale, Lecturer, School of Art
Teresa Chahine, Sheila and Ron ’92 BA Marcelo Senior Lecturer in Social Entrepreneurship, Schools of Management and Public Health
Stephen Darwall, Andrew Downey Orrick Professor of Philosophy, Department of Philosophy
Rohit De, Associate Professor, History
Carolyn Dean, Charles J. Stille Professor, History and French
Alexandre Debs, Associate Professor, Political Science
Violette de la Selle, Critic, School of Architecture
Patrick Del Percio, Lecturer, Linguistics
Robin Dembroff, Assistant Professor, Department of Philosophy
Mary Beth Decker, Lecturer, Research Scientist, School of the Environment ·
Robyn Creswell, Associate Professor, Comparative Literature
Michael Denning, William R. Kenan, Jr., Professor of American Studies
Opal DeRuvo, Critic, School of Art
Dylan Devlin, Assistant Professor, School of Medicine
Leslie Dick, Senior Critic, School of Art
Maria Doerfler, Associate Professor, Religious Studies
Jamil Drake, Assistant Professor, Divinity School
Yarrow Dunham, Associate Professor, Psychology
Anna Dyson, Hines Professor of Architecture, School of Architecture
Keller Easterling, Professor, School of Architecture
Erica Edwards, Professor, English and African American Studies
Marcela Echeverri, Associate Professor, History
Anne Eller, Associate Professor, History
Joe El-Khoury, Associate Professor, School of Medicine
Omnia El Shakry, Professor, History
Fatima El-Tayeb, Professor, Ethnicity, Race & Migration
Johanna Elumn, Assistant Professor, School of Medicine
Kyunghee Eo, Assistant Professor, East Asian Languages and Literatures
Mohamed Aly Etman, Lecturer and Research Scientist, School of Architecture
Tekisha Dwan Everette, Assistant Professor Adjunct, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Anne Eller, Associate Professor, History
Hussein Fancy, Associate Professor, History
Roderick Ferguson, William Robertson Coe Professor and Chair, Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Professor of American Studies
Marta Figlerowicz, Associate Professor, Comparative Literature
Joseph Fischel, Associate Professor, Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies
Claudia Flores, Clinical Professor of Law, Yale Law School, Faculty Co-Director of Schell Center for Human Rights
Mariam Fofana, Postdoctoral Fellow, School of Medicine
Moira Fradinger, Associate Professor, Comparative Literature
Natalia Friedlander, Clinical Teaching Fellow, Law School
Àngel Escamilla Garcia, Assistant Professor, Sociology
Shelley Geballe, Professor, School of Public Health
Supriya Gandhi, Assistant Professor, Religious Studies
Alessandro Giammei, Assistant Professor, Italian Studies
Alex Gil, Senior Lecturer II & Associate Research Faculty of Digital Humanities, Spanish and Portuguese
Ben Glaser, Associate Professor, English
Nichole Gleisner, Lecturer, French
Alessandro Gomez, Professor, Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science
Gregg Gonsalves, Associate Professor of Epidemiology, Yale School of Public Health
Greg Grandin, Peter. V and C Van Woodward Professor, History
Inderpal Grewal, Emerita Faculty, Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, American Studies, and Anthropology
Zareena Grewal, Associate Professor of American Studies and Ethnicity, Race & Migration
Frank Griffel, Louis M. Rabinowitz Professor, Religious Studies
Leslie Gross-Wyrtzen, Lecturer, African Studies
Fadila Habchi, Lecturer, Ethnicity, Race, & Migration
Martin Hägglund, Birgit Baldwin Professor of Comparative Literature and Humanities, Comparative Literature and Humanities
Langdon Hammer, Niel Gray Jr Professor of English
Sara Hardin, Research Assistant, School of Nursing
Eric Harms, Professor, Anthropology
Annie Harper, Assistant Professor, School of Medicine
Allison Harris, Assistant Professor, Political Science
Verity Harte, George A. Saden Professor of Philosophy and Classics, Department of Philosophy
Scott Herring, Professor, American Studies and Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
Hannan Hever, Jacob and Hilda Blaustein Professor, Comparative Literature and Jewish Studies
Leigh-Anna Hidalgo, Assistant Professor, Ethnicity, Race, & Migration
Daniel HoSang, Professor, American Studies
Elizabeth Hinton, Professor, History, African American Studies and Law
Hi’ilei Hobart, Assistant Professor, Ethnicity, Race & Migration
Samuel Hodgkin, Assistant Professor, Comparative Literature
Margaret Homans, Bird White Housum Professor, English and Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
Pamela Hovland, Senior Critic, School of Art
Lily Hu, Assistant Professor, Department of Philosophy
Sam Huber, Lecturer, English
Cajetan Iheka, Professor, English
Marcia Inhorn, William K. Lanman Professor, Anthropology
Brad Inwood, William Lampson Professor of Philosophy and of Classics, Classics and Philosophy
Sohrab Ismail-Beigi, Professor, Applied Physics, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences
Kenneth Jackson, Professor, Spanish and Portuguese
Matthew Jacobson, Sterling Professor, American Studies and History
Elias Jaffa, Assistant Professor, School of Medicine
Anjani Jain, Professor in the Practice of Management, School of Management
Maija Jansson, Visiting Fellow, History
Jill Jarvis, Associate Professor, Department of French
Sangchoon Jeon, Senior Research Scientist, School of Nursing
Sonam Kachru, Assistant Professor, Religious Studies
Naftali Kaminski, Professor, School of Medicine
Grace Kao, IBM Professor of Sociology and Professor of Ethnicity, Race, and Migration
Amy Kapczynski, Professor of Law and Faculty Director, Global Health Justice Partnership
Alice Kaplan, Sterling Professor of French, Department of French
Geoff Kaplan, Lecturer, School of Art
Rachel Kauder Nalebuff, Lecturer, English
Yagmur Karakaya, Assistant Professor, Sociology
Matt Keegan, Senior Critic, School of Art
Danya Keene, Associate Professor, School of Public Health
Elleza Kelley, Assistant Professor, African American Studies and English
Martin Kersels, Professor, School of Art
Trace Kershaw, Professor, School of Public Health
Noreen Khawaja, Associate Professor, Religious Studies
Sara Khan, Assistant Professor, Political Science
Kaveh Khoshnood, Associate Professor, School of Public Health
Byron Kim, Senior Critic, School of Art
Albert Ko, Raj and Indra Nooyi Professor of Public Health, School of Public Health
Issa Kohler-Hausmann, Professor, Law & Sociology
Johnathan Kramnick, Maynard Mack Professor, English
Regina Kunzel, Larned Professor of History and of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
Greta Lafleur, Associate Professor of American Studies and Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
Amara Lakhous, Professor in the Practice, Italian Studies
Albert Laguna, Associate Professor, Ethnicity, Race and Migration
Helene Landemore, Professor, Political Science
Egor Lazarev, Assistant Professor, Political Science
Pamela Lee, Carnegie Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art, History of Art
Noel Lenski, Professor, Classics and History
Nathan Levitt, Senior Lecturer, Director of LGBTQ and Gender Justice Learning, School of Nursing
Gail Lewis, Professor, Visiting Faculty, Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies
Sarah Lipkin, Lecturer, School of Nursing
Mae-Ling Lokko, Assistant Professor, Architecture
Ximena Lopez Carrillo, Lecturer, Ethnicity, Race & Migration
Lisa Lowe, Samuel Knight Professor, American Studies
Paige MacLean, Lecturer, School of Management
Lynn Madden, Assistant Professor, School of Medicine
Daniel Magaziner, Professor, History
Abdul-Rehman Malik, Lecturer, Divinity School
Maricar Malinis, Associate Professor, School of Medicine
Alex Manning, Research Scientist and Lecturer, Sociology
John MacKay, Henry S. McNeil Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures, Professor of Film and Media Studies
Eboni Marshall Turman, Associate Professor, Divinity
Terika McCall, Assistant Professor, School of Public Health
Rosa McElheny, Lecturer, School of Art
Michael McGovern, Associate Research Scholar, Law School
Fabian Menges, Staff Scientist, Chemistry
Lisa Messeri, Assistant Professor, Anthropology
Alka Menon, Assistant Professor, Sociology
Hope Metcalf, Lecturer, Law School
Dan Michaelson, Senior Critic, School of Art
Maggie Millner, Lecturer, English
Joe Miranda, Assistant Professor, English
Joanne Meyerowitz, Arthur Unobskey Professor of History and American Studies, History and American Studies
Alice M. Miller, Associate Professor, Co-Director, Global Health Justice Partnership of Yale Law and Public Health Schools
Manuel Miranda, Senior Critic, School of Art
Feisal Mohamed, Professor, English
Mary Moschella, Professor, Divinity
Samuel Moyn, Professor, School of Law
Hani Mowafi, Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine, School of Medicine
Charles Musser, Professor, American Studies, Film & Media Studies
Isaac Nakhimovsky, Associate Professor, Department of History and Humanities Program
Sophy Naess, Senior Critic, Yale School of Art
Laura Nasrallah, Buckingham Professor of New Testament Criticism and Interpretation, Divinity School
Stephanie Newell, Professor, English
Catherine Nicolson, Professor, English
Ahmed Mushfiq Mobarak, Jerome Kasoff '54 Professor, of Economics and Management, School of Management
Joseph North, Associate Professor, English
Tavia Nyong'o, William Lampson Professor of American Studies, American Studies
Rourke O'Brien, Associate Professor, Sociology
Brandon Ogbunu, Assistant Professor, Ecology & Evolutionary Biology
Vanessa Ogle, Associate Professor, History
Gary Okihiro, Visiting Professor, American Studies
Marisol Orihuela, Clinical Professor of Law, Law School
Meghan O'Rourke, Professor in the Practice, English
Giulia Oskian, Assistant Professor, Political Science
A. David Paltiel, Professor of Health Policy, Yale School of Public Health
Rohini Pande, Professor, Economics
Amanda Parmer, Critic, School of Art
Gerard Padró i Miquel, Samuel C. Park Jr (B.A. 1925) Professor, Economics and Political Science
Sudhir Perincheri, Assistant Professor, School of Medicine
Eda Pepi, Assistant Professor, Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
Thomas Pogge, Professor, Department of Philosophy
Danielle N. Poole, Associate Research Scientist, School of Public Health
Claire Priest, Simeon E. Baldwin Professor of Law and History, Law School and History
Jennifer Raab, Associate Professor, History of Art
Joanna Radin, Associate Professor, Yale Medical School
Ayesha Ramachandran, Associate Professor, Comparative Literature
Marco Ramos, Assistant Professor, School of Medicine
Ana Ramos-Zayas, Frederick Clifford Ford Professor, Ethnicity, Race & Migration
Ashgar Rastegar, Emeritus Professor, School of Medicine
Amanda Reid, Assistant Professor, Theatre and Performance Studies
Eleanor Reid, Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine, School of Medicine
Juno Richards, Associate Professor, Department of English
Charles Riley, Catalog Librarian for African Languages, Ezra Stiles College
Kishwar Rizvi, Professor, History of Art
Naomi Rogers, Professor, School of Medicine
Claire Roosien, Assistant Professor, Slavic Languages and Literatures
Susan Rose-Ackerman, Henry R. Luce Professor of Law and Political Science,, Emeritus, Law School
Lucia Rubinelli, Assistant Professor, Political Science
Caitlin Ryus, Assistant Professor, School of Medicine
Basmah Safdar, Professor, School of Medicine
Beatriz Sanchez Rodriguez, Postdoctoral Fellow, School of Medicine
Evren Savci, Assistant Professor, Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
Subrata Sen, Joseph F. Cullman Professor of Marketing Emeritus, School of Management
Surry Schlabs, Senior Lecturer, School of Architecture
Mark Schlesinger, Professor, School of Public Health
Melinda Schultz, Program Manager, School of Nursing
Jessica Seddon, Senior Fellow, Global Affairs
Mindy Seu, Critic, School of Art
Scott Shapiro, Southmayd Professor of Law and Professor of Philosophy, Law School
Carolyn Sharp, Professor of Homiletics, Divinity School
Hannah Shepherd, Assistant Professor, History
Mark Siegel, Professor, School of Medicine
Jim Silk, Binger Clinical Professor of Human Rights, Law School
Caleb Smith, Professor, English
David Sorkin, Lucy G. Moses Professor of History, History & Jewish Studies
Jason Stanley, Jacob Urowsky Prof of Philosophy, Department of Philosophy
A.L. Steiner, Senior Critic, School of Art
Matthew Steinfeld, Assistant Professor, School of Medicine
Victoria Stone-Cadena, Associate Director, Race, Ethnicity & Migration
Sandra Storck, Clinical Site Coordinator, School of Nursing
Scott Stowell, Senior Critic, School of Art
Philipp Strack, Professor, School of Economics
Dara Strolovitch, Professor of Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, American Studies, and Political Science
K. Sudhir, James Frank '32 Professor of Marketing, Private Enterprise and Management, School of Management
Lloyd Kevin Sy, Assistant Professor, English
Madiha Tahir, Assistant Professor, American Studies
Kristina Talbert-Slagle, Assistant Professor, School of Medicine
Jamie Tam, Assistant Professor, School of Public Health
Michale Tan, Visiting Clinical Lecturer in Law, Law School
Kathryn Tanner, Professor, Divinity School
Rasheed Tazudeen, Lecturer, English
Emily Thornbury, Associate Professor, English
Paul Tipton, Eugene Higgins Professor of Physics, Department of Physics
Gunjan Tiyyagura, Associate Professor, School of Medicine
Janis Tondora, Associate Professor, School of Medicine
Linn Tonstad, Associate Professor, Divinity School
Shawkat Toorawa, Professor, Near Eastern Languages & Civilizations
Gerald Torres, Professor of Environmental Justice, School of the Environment and Law School
Quan Tran, Senior Lecturer, Ethnicity, Race & Migration
Eboni Marshall Turman, Associate Professor, Divinity School
Paul Turner, Rachel Carson Professor, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Claudia Valeggia, Professor, Anthropology
Deb Vargas, Associate Professor, Women, Gender & Sexuality Studies
Alexander Valentine, Senior Critic, School of Art
Layla Van Doren, Associate Professor, School of Medicine
Michael Veal, Henry L. and Lucy G. Moses Professor, School of Music
Jesus Velasco, Augustus R Street Professor, Spanish and Portuguese and of Comparative Literature
Sten Vermund, Professor, School of Public Health
Kayla Visnon, Lecturer, Law School
Lisa Voight, Professor, Spanish and Portuguese
Rosa van Hensbergen, Assistant Professor, East Asian Languages and Literatures
Shane Vogel, Professor, English, African American Studies, Theater and Performance Studies
Kalindi Vora, Professor, Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies
Daniel Walden, Assistant Professor, School of Music
Jacob Wallace, Assistant Professor, School of Public Health
Lori R. Wallace, Associate Research Scientist, School of Medicine
Andrew Walsh-Lister, Critic, School of Art
Karen Wang, Assistant Professor, School of Medicine
John Warner, Avalon Professor of History of Medicine, School of Medicine and FAS
Bryant Wells, Instructor, School of Art
Tisa Wenger, Professor of American Religious History, Divinity School
Bruce Wexler, Professor Emeritus and Senior Research Scientist, School of Medicine
Bisa Williams, Senior Fellow & Visiting Lecturer, Global Affairs
John Williams, Professor, English
Charles Wira, Associate Professor, School of Medicine
Elisabeth Jean Wood, Professor of Political Science, International and Area Studies, Political Science
Michelle Wong, Assistant Professor, Ecology & Evolutionary Biology
Jonathan Wyrtzen, Associate Professor, Sociology and History
Michael J. Wishnie, William O. Douglas Clinical Professor of Law, Yale Law School
Sunny Xiang, Associate Professor, English
Nurfadzilah Yahaya, Assistant Professor, History
Travis Zadeh, Professor, Religious Studies
Laura Wexler, Charles H. Farnham Professor of Women’s, Gender & Sexuality Studies, and American Studies