To the editors of the Yale Daily News,
Regarding the article and release of my personal information by the Yale Daily News: The sources that were quoted from in their piece were from websites maintained by dishonest, left-wing domestic terrorist organizations (the events of one of the rallies, which is the subject of one of the articles used in your article, precipitated Congressional Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi to denounce the antifa groups in Berkeley as violent, criminal organizations).
They concern my time as a member of the Berkeley College Republicans during the academic year surrounding the 2016 election. Agents of the organizations in question were responsible for causing hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage to university property and the surrounding city of Berkeley, hospitalizing attendees of one of our events by battering them over the head with metal poles, denying our student club the right to host speakers at a public university through public and organized violence and intimidation, personally slandering and “doxing” numerous members of the college Republican club, and having representatives who were successfully sued by friends of mine and fellow members of the club for damages relating to their behavior.
The Yale Daily News should be ashamed of itself for using sources from such people, and I would like a personal apology from the editors for the negligence they displayed in not even inquiring into the character of the websites in question. Even the student-run newspapers at Berkeley didn’t go so far as to use such sources in their reporting on our club at the time, since the entire Berkeley student body had to suffer through the months of terror and unrest that such groups caused at our university.
In my publicly issued apology, I stated that I categorically denounce any ideology, including white nationalism, that denies the equal dignity of every person. The groups responsible for the sources utilized by the Yale Daily News do not believe in the equal dignity of every person and manifested this belief week after week by advocating and putting into practice illiberal and violent behavior in response to the activity of the Berkeley College Republicans. I hope that the Yale Daily News will be able to state with Pelosi, as quoted in a New York Post article entitled “Nancy Pelosi stands up for civilization against antifa,” that “‘the violent actions of people calling themselves antifa in Berkeley… deserve unequivocal condemnation, and the perpetrators should be arrested and prosecuted.’”
Sincerely,
Jack Palkovic, Yale Divinity School
Palkovic is a student at the Divinity School who tore down posters on campus supporting survivors of sexual misconduct over the weekend. On Monday, he publicly apologized for vandalizing the posters.
Editor’s Note: The Yale Daily News does not endorse the behavior of any parties involved in political or physical conflicts at the University of California, Berkeley campus last year. The News appreciates Mr. Palkovic’s concern about citing information from outside publications in our coverage, but we stand by our decision to report on mentions of Mr. Palkovic’s political views in left-leaning internet blogs. We will always, however, make our best effort to independently verify such information and give all involved parties the opportunity to weigh in on the information.