Yale lecturer resigns over Halloween costume email controversy
A white Ivy League lecturer has resigned following an uproar over an email she sent in October suggesting students should have the freedom to wear whatever Halloween costumes they like, including those that may be culturally insensitive.
Yale University announced on Monday the lecturer, Erika Christakis, would not be working at the school during the spring semester.
Ms. Christakis鈥檚 email was sent in response to statement made by Yale鈥檚 Intercultural Affairs Committee, which suggested students should not don costumes depicting Native Americans, Asians, and African Americans that could offend fellow students.
But Christakis, who specializes in early childhood education, said that efforts to restrict the costumes allowed on campus would violate Yale's policy of freedom of expression.
"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?" she wrote. "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."
Student groups chastised Christakis over the email, which led to campus protests, while in response.
鈥淵our email equates old traditions of using harmful stereotypes and tropes to further degrade marginalized people to preschoolers playing make believe,鈥� a portion of the letter read. 鈥淭his both trivializes the harm done by these tropes and infantilizes the student body to which the request was made.鈥�
Christakis however defended her statement on social media as a matter of free speech, an issue she broached again during a campus forum held last week, prior to her her resignation.
鈥淚 worry that the current climate at Yale is not, in my view, conducive to the civil dialogue and open inquiry required to solve our urgent societal problems,鈥� she t shortly after her resignation.
Almost 70 Yale faculty members have signed a petition showing support for Christakis and her right to 鈥渇ree speech and intellectual expression鈥� the Washington Post reported.
Yale this week lauded Christakis as an educator and left an open invitation for her return to the university.
"Her teaching is highly valued and she is welcome to resume teaching anytime at Yale, where freedom of expression and academic inquiry are the paramount principle and practice," the school said.
Others weren鈥檛 so fast to praise her take on Halloween costumes, including former Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean.
鈥淔ree speech is good. Respecting others is better,鈥� he wrote on Twitter.
About 75 percent of college teachers are non-tenured, according to National Public Radio, which may make them nervous about introducing provocative ideas, participating in campus protests, and having a voice at faculty meetings due to fears they may lose their jobs.聽
A book by George Washington University Professor Catherine Ross called 鈥淟essons In Censorship: How Schools and Courts Subvert Students鈥� First Amendment Rights鈥� denotes how can go too far, examining how 鈥渨ell intentioned efforts to combat bullying and hate speech can violate students鈥� constitutional rights.鈥�
Some have described Christakis鈥檚 email as a moderate backing of free speech, but many students at Yale contend that after years of segregation universities continue to look at things from a Eurocentric perspective.
聽鈥淭o be a student of color on Yale鈥檚 campus is to exist in a space that was not created for you,鈥� they said, in the open letter.聽
