On a day when Yale and Harvard students set aside the pettiness of a football game to protest the most serious problem facing our planet, Yale failed a moral exam. Just as the University showed a lack of courage during the fight to rename Calhoun College, it is now demonstrating a similar lack of backbone concerning a climate change protest. Rather than support students who are fighting on behalf of all of us, Yale chose to align itself with the powerful, the monied and those who favor tradition over change. Yale’s leadership snatched defeat from the jaws of victory on Saturday.

ROBERT GUTHRIE graduated from Yale College in 1968. Contact him at rkgu3@icloud.com.