Author Archives: Sahm Adrangi

In working on the opinion page these past two years, first as the page’s editor, then as one of its columnists, I must say that there are few things as entertaining and educational as watching Yalies gripe at each other. In terms of my own griping, I’ll devote my final words to what has made »

Kudos to this year’s YCC. In my four years, the Yale College Council has steadily transformed itself from a student government mired in endless debate on issues it has little control over, to one focused on tangibly improving student life. This year, it brought The New York Times to dining halls, posted record-high UOFC funding »

Yesterday, I was discussing the war with a pacifist friend of mine and she said something striking: “It’s weird, I find myself strangely attracted to Bush’s idealism.” Oddly enough, so do I. Now that we’re stuck with war, I find myself more and more drawn to the neoconservatives’ vision of bringing democracy to Baghdad. Don’t »

Monday’s op-ed page would have made John Stuart Mill weep. Littered with a letter, column and editorial censuring the Afro-American Cultural Center for inviting Amiri Baraka, the page was living proof that 150 years after Mill wrote “On Liberty,” unpopular opinions continue to be subdued. For Mill, free speech wasn’t simply about tolerating fringe beliefs. »

Two years ago, AIDS activism catapulted Yale into the national spotlight. Doctors Without Borders, a Nobel Prize-winning humanitarian group, had asked the University to relax the patent for its famous AIDS drug, d4T, in South Africa, because the prices charged by the drug’s producer, Bristol-Myers Squibb, were too high for African governments. After weeks of »

This spring, for the first time since 1978, the Supreme Court will issue a new ruling on affirmative action in higher education — the practice of granting special treatment to blacks and Latinos in college admissions. As the hearing dates draw nearer, countless students, Dwight Hall groups and faculty members — ranging from the pan-ethnic »

When I first set foot on Old Campus, I couldn’t wait to stick it to the man and topple his evil capitalist empire. Hardly settled in, I joined the ranks of STARC and helped organize Yale’s national Socially Responsible Investing conference. I broke out my sleeping bag for the 30-day Students Against Sweatshops camp-out. I »

When Lawrence Summers was first interviewed for Harvard’s presidency, he made it clear to the search committee that he wouldn’t be your typical college president. He’d spend less time fund-raising and more time enhancing academic scholarship. He’d reach out to undergraduates. He’d question the status quo and implement bold new reforms. He’d use his bully »

Imagine this. Sometime in the next two weeks, President Richard Levin unveils a bold, new plan to alter forever the face of Ivy League admissions. Despite being condemned by a fierce, entrenched opposition, Levin convinces Harvard, Stanford and other rival universities to endorse his proposal. After several years, Levin’s hard work helps dismantle one of »

My sister is applying to Yale early decision, as I did four years ago. Like me, she’s applying from a posh single-sex private school in Vancouver, Canada. As President Richard Levin pretends to have it, she and I are what’s wrong with early decision. While we enjoy informed guidance counselors and easy access to admissions »

When David Letterman asked New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman to analyze how the Muslim world reacted to the Sept. 11 hijackings, Friedman pointed out that looks can be deceiving when it comes to the Middle East. As an example, he conjectured that the country whose public most denounced the attacks was, in fact, a »

With two new institutes, School of Management Dean Jeffrey Garten hopes to woo the corporate world’s elite to Yale’s business school. The Chief Executive Leadership Institute, which started this summer, will try to gather business executives on a regular basis for workshops and conferences on leadership. The International Institute for Corporate Governance, which Garten hopes »