Yale Daily News

Very accurate point here: Peter Salovey has inadvertently revealed the Yale administration's dishonesty by calling Shvarts a liar AND punishing her adviser for supposedly allowing the project to go forward. So which is it, Salovey? You can't have it both ways.

How is that having it both ways #1? Salovey could be punishing the advisor for letting Shvarts perpetrate a fraud.

Ironic, isn't it? Through its statements and actions, the administration sort of makes a stronger case for the veracity of Shvarts' project than she does.

I seriously doubt Salovey could punish the advisor for merely "letting Shvarts perpetuate a fraud." The advisor can only be held accountable for the substance of the senior project, not for any subsequent statements (or lies) that Shvarts makes to the media. Thus, by punishing the advisor, Salovey is implicitly deciding that Shvarts' project really did involve something very nefarious. Yet at the same time, Salovey and others in the administration are childishly claiming to the media that Shvarts is a complete liar. You can't have it both ways, Salovey.

Now, don't get me wrong: I think Shvarts is highly disturbed and obnoxious, and she should have been kicked out of Yale for being such a complete idiot. And I also believe the Yale administration's biggest mistake has been not coming down harder on this student. Instead, they've completely mangled the situation by getting involved in a media war of words with this girl. Completely inappropriate and unbecoming of the Dean of Yale College.

I must say that the "danger" that she might have caused herself could be the reaction from anti-abortionists. I feel crazy in saying this, however, if she did what she claims to have done, I could see her being targeted by a subset of radicals. Like I said, I feel crazy in saying this, however, I remember the high-profile bombings of abortion clinics and murders of doctors who performed abortions that used to be all over the news in the late 1990s. These groups could have done anything from call in a bomb threat to committing a violent crime in "protest" to her work.

The man we have all known for so long, Peter Johnston, king of Yale's conservatives, the bowtie, and John Burke, agrees with Chase Olivarius-McAllister, the feminist icon?

Is black now white? Is the world quite safe? What is there left to count on?

I remember when you were close-minded and she was a socialite, and the bet was that you would follow your talents into fascism and she would follows hers, into fashion and being popular.

You have both changed so much and right now, you are both right. This was a really great column Peter.

In fact, reading the YDN this week made me glad, and proud, that you, Chase and I all read Herodotus together.

nice column- who to believe indeed. There wouldn't be that question if the faculty had turned down the project in the first place.

Wasn't the project initially performance art and not a display? I thought Yale claimed the lying to the public was the 'art.' That seems to be what Shvartz created - a firestorm of confusing public statements, not a sculpture, painting, exhibit or anything tangible. The cube and blood are just just distractions from the real project - her public discourse.

"The advisor can only be held accountable for the substance of the senior project, not for any subsequent statements (or lies) that Shvarts makes to the media."

And the substance appears to be lying. Do we really want the University art department to be known for promoting dishonest, narcissistic grasps for public attention as high art?