Even though Halloween ended more than a week ago, at Yale University it continues to be a major topic of conversation after two emails about Halloween costumes locked faculty and students in a heated debate over racial sensitivity and free speech.

Students are outraged with Associate Master of Silliman College Erika Christakis after she responded to the university’s Intercultural Affairs Committee’s annual Halloween email, which urged students to avoid wearing “culturally unaware and insensitive costumes” this Halloween. Now some students are demanding both she and her husband resign, after he came to her defense when confronted by several students this weekend.

In the video playlist below, Nicholas Christakis attempted to defend his wife’s statements before a large body of a protesting students, but the dialogue quickly escalated as students began screaming at the administrator that they no longer feel as if Yale is a safe place for them.

But why are they so upset?

The campus’ contention boils down to Erika Christakis’ critique of the university’s emailed cultural appropriation warning. She wrote,

I don’t wish to trivialize genuine concerns about cultural and personal representation, and other challenges to our lived experience in a plural community. I know that many decent people have proposed guidelines on Halloween costumes from a spirit of avoiding hurt and offense. I laud those goals, in theory, as most of us do. But in practice, I wonder if we should reflect more transparently, as a community, on the consequences of an institutional (which is to say: bureaucratic and administrative) exercise of implied control over college students.

…

Is there no room anymore for a child or young person to be a little bit obnoxious… a little bit inappropriate or provocative or, yes, offensive? American universities were once a safe space not only for maturation but also for a certain regressive, or even transgressive, experience; increasingly, it seems, they have become places of censure and prohibition.

She also added a message from her husband writing,

Nicholas says, if you don’t like a costume someone is wearing, look away, or tell them you are offended. Talk to each other. Free speech and the ability to tolerate offense are the hallmarks of a free and open society.

The email sparked controversy with many students, who felt as if her and her husband’s opinions were tantamount to racial insensitivity toward minority students. As a result more than 740 Yale undergraduates, graduate students, alumni, faculty, and even students from other universities signed an open letter to Christakis which says that her email “trivializes the harm done by these tropes and infantilizes the student body to which the request was made.” The letter reads:

To ask marginalized students to throw away their enjoyment of a holiday, in order to expend emotional, mental, and physical energy to explain why something is offensive, is — offensive.

The debate comes at a time when racial tension is at an all time high on the Ivy League campus. According to Vox, one of Yale’s residential colleges has long been at the center of racial controversy since it is named in honor of former Yale graduate John C. Calhoun, a known white supremacist. And during Halloween weekend, a black female student accused the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity of denying her entrance to a party that was for “white girls only,” which isn’t the first racist accusation made against the fraternity. The fraternity has vehemently denied her allegations, but that hasn’t stopped others from coming forth with similar stories.

Yale College’s dean Jonathan Holloway has said that his office is in the process of investigating the accusation. Yale’s president, Peter Salovey, also seems to be taking the campus heightened racial climate seriously. He reportedly met with 50 students on Thursday night to discuss the current controversy.

Alexis Evans

Alexis Evans is an Assistant Editor at Law Street and a Buckeye State native. She has a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism and a minor in Business from Ohio University. Contact Alexis at aevans@LawStreetMedia.com.

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