“I’m glad you both came tonight,” he said. I half expected the words to echo around the empty room. Whether this was intimate or awkward, I couldn’t really tell. We were sitting around a table set for 30 or more, and there were five of us. Just five.
Last Sunday, Allen H. Duffy Class of 1960 Professor of Law John Witt, TD ’94, LAW ’99, PhD ’00, opened the Jonathan Edwards Conversation on Renaming by welcoming head of college Mark Saltzman, Dasia Moore, PC ’18, and two JE sophomores to the table. Of these five, Witt and Moore are both members of the Committee to Establish Principles on Renaming, the group newly formed in August with the mission of creating a set of guidelines on renaming buildings and other campus structures. Despite the low turnout at the JE conversation, Witt and Moore set the tone for an honest and constructive discussion. But instead of feeling encouraged, I found myself distracted by the irony of the situation.
Each college was to have such a conversation with its head of college, Witt, and Moore in order to discuss how to ensure that student voices would be heard, valued, and included in future naming decisions. Yet given a room with people who were asking us, practically begging us, to share our thoughts and opinions, no one had showed up to speak.
Why was the room so empty?
Have people become disinterested in the renaming issues that incited so much passion last year? Or have they lost so much faith in the administration that any kind of conversation is now seen as a waste of time, likely to produce yet another disengaged report with no real impact on student life, present or future?
Before the meeting last Sunday, I enjoyed a hearty family dinner in the JE dining hall. It was a typical dinner that came to an end in a typical way: we all grumbled about the work we still had to complete before the upcoming week began. As we stood to exit the dining hall, I asked if anyone in our party was planning on attending JE’s Conversation on Renaming.
The answers went something along the lines of “p-sets to finish,” “so much reading to do,” or “a paper due tonight.” The verdict was in.
Completely understandable, I thought. It’s a Sunday and there are mountains of work to be completed. I must admit, I nearly ducked out of the JE common room before 7 p.m. to make a start on my own reading. However, I had already RSVP’d to the event, so I decided to stay and participate.
In his invitation to the conversation, Head of College Mark Saltzman had written, “This committee is asked to consider a question of importance to all of us: ‘What are the principles that should guide a decision for renaming a historical building?’”
He added, “We at JE are fortunate that Professor Witt will visit us at what I hope will be a convenient time for you: Sunday September 18 at 7pm. I expect that many of you will want to attend.”
Like Head Saltzman, I too had expected that many JE Spiders would be in attendance, since the principles of renaming should be important to all of us. But by the time 7:10 rolled around and Professor Witt began the conversation by saying, “We’re happy to run this conversation in a way that works best for you two,” it was abundantly clear that Head Saltzman had been mistaken. Not that many of us had wanted to attend.
My first thought was that maybe some kind of boycott had been organized. I’d had my doubts about the setup and functioning of this committee. On learning of its creation, I’d believed that the committee was just another attempt on the part of the President’s Office to appear to be listening, when actually student silence and acquiescence were desired.
After the amount of pain that was shared throughout campus last year, it is almost unbelievable to think that so little has changed. We have every reason to be skeptical. We are allowed to be frustrated with the administration. But skeptic or not, I do not believe that any opportunity to participate in the conversation should be turned down.
I don’t want to shout. I don’t want to be upset with the people that didn’t come. I don’t want to shame people into going to conversations that will be held throughout the other 11 colleges over the course of this year. The decision to partake or not in these conversations is not one that I can or should make for anyone but myself. But what I would like is for someone to answer me, for someone to tell me where the fire has gone.
I remember attending a conversation in the former JE Head of College’s House a few days after thousands of Yalies had gathered in solidarity on cross campus. The small common room was overcrowded. There weren’t were not even enough chairs to accommodate everyone who had shown up to discuss, among many other questions, the potential renaming of Calhoun College.
Contrast that with a table of five. Contrast 1000 Yalies walking across campus less than a year ago, carrying banners, and crying a message of unity, with a table of five. Contrast the outcry and anger that were seen after President Salovey announced that Calhoun’s name would remain with a table of five. Contrast the conversations, passion and pain that we saw last semester with a table of five.
People were willing to put away the reading and p-sets, postpone paper writing, and close their laptops to join public demonstrations. Hundreds of people enthusiastically made Facebook statuses, changed profile pictures, and echoed words of support. Many Yalies were ready to march and make bold public statements only a few months ago, but now that that activism has turned more private, we aren’t so willing to make the same sacrifices.
Today activism often seems to be more about following a trend than actually bringing creating change. Take the 2014 #BringBackOurGirls campaign, for example. The movement saw celebrities, school children, and political figures come together to voice their outrage at the kidnapping of 276 Nigerian schoolgirls. It seemed like everyone from John Kerry to Cara Delevingne was voicing their disgust at the gross violation of human rights taking place at the hands of Boko Haram. And yet, five months after the girls had been kidnapped, long after the #BringBackOurGirls trend had come and gone, not a single student had been rescued.
This incident is just one of many worrying incidents that imply that people seem to care more about being seen as activists than they do about the results of their activism.
I don’t want the important conversations we began on campus last year to fall into this category. I would like to believe that our passion meant more than trendy visibility.
If the committee’s findings reflect yet another declaration that the name of Calhoun will remain, there will undoubtedly be community backlash. In declining to join the conversation, we would almost certainly be giving up our right to claim that our voices had not been heard. A platform has been established, and it is our responsibility to step up to it.