To the Editors of the Yale Daily News:
President McInnis and the Yale Corporation must stand up promptly and publicly in support of Harvard, our sister Ivy League institution.
Attacks on Harvard and Columbia are attacks on all of American higher education, and Yale must condemn them and not be silent. We would especially expect no less from Harvard were Yale in its position, as we no doubt soon will be — if Harvard is left to the wolves and the message is sent that our great institutions of higher learning can be picked off one by one.
Alexander Ewing
SM ’82, YLS ’87
To the Editors of the Yale Daily News:
For nearly 20 years I’ve worked as a communications advisor to some of the world’s best known technology companies, startups, and executives, helping to tell positive stories during the good times and defend reputations during the bad. Unlike the more quantitative jobs in business — finance, sales, even marketing — calculating the technical or monetary value of reputational communications work can be difficult. Needless to say, reputational harm takes many forms, from lost customers and revenue, to decreased trust, and brand shifts that persist long after the problem is “resolved” — just ask some people why they still won’t eat at Chipotle.
To me, that’s why watching Columbia voluntarily torch its own reputation has been so shocking. From the former president’s disastrous testimony in front of Congress, to its handling of last year’s protests, to its decision to cave to the government’s recent authoritarian demands, at every point Columbia has failed to consider how its actions might affect the long-term health of its reputation as a leading university. Admissions consultants already report declining offer acceptances from Columbia’s class of 2029 applicants. And what did Columbia even get for caving to Trump? Since then the government has also frozen all NIH research grants to the school and is planning to pursue court-enforced federal oversight. Great work, everyone.
Yale must not make the same mistakes as Columbia. The Trump administration has since paused funding to review programs at Harvard, Cornell, and Penn. Let’s not kid ourselves – they will come for Yale next. Ignore the bad-faith fig leaf of “fighting against antisemitism” — as a Jew, I have opinions here I’ll save for another day — this is a political attack on the independence of universities, academic freedom, and ultimately our democratic system. As a donor, I will never, ever give Yale another dollar if they refuse to stand up to this nonsense.
Yale’s endowment is $40B+. The university can — and should — use this money to absorb the potential loss of federal funding and fulfill its stated goal: “to ensure that the university’s commitment to excellence can be sustained over time.” But it cannot absorb the reputational and moral loss of folding to a government that has no real interest in what’s best for higher ed.
Aaron Zamost
BR ‘01