Tim Tai

Over 6,200 alumni have signed two letters to Yale President Maurie McInnis and other administrators, calling on them to stand against federal policies that threaten the University’s educational mission.

The first letter, titled “Open Letter from Yale Alumni,” calls on Yale to take leadership in rallying other colleges and universities to collectively defend higher education. The letter was delivered to McInnis, Provost Scott Strobel and the Board of Trustees on Monday. It has received 3,616 signatures as of Wednesday.

“A strategy of keeping one’s head down, hoping federal attention instead falls on other institutions, is doomed to fail,” the letter reads. “Eventually Yale will land in the crosshairs. And when it does, there may be no one left to defend it.”

The second letter was written by a new alumni group called Stand Up for Yale and calls for the University to resist threats to university self-governance, cuts to research funding and immigration action against dissenters on campus. The alumni’s demands mirrored a letter signed by over 1,000 faculty last week.

As of Wednesday, the letter from Stand Up for Yale has received 3,419 signatures. Over 6,200 individual alumni have signed one or both of the letters.

“President McInnis looks forward to discussing this with alumni who put together the open letters and formally delivered it to her,” a University spokesperson wrote to the News.

McInnis has told the News in January that she prefers to lobby behind the scenes for Yale’s interests over making public statements. Since then, she has decried Trump’s planned cuts to research funding from the National Institutes of Health and characterized some of Trump’s executive orders as an overstep of presidential power. On Tuesday, McInnis joined over 360 college and university leaders in signing a statement from the American Association of Colleges and Universities against political interference in higher education.

Jessica Marsden ’08 LAW ’14, who co-authored the letter from Stand Up for Yale, wrote to the News on Tuesday that she was motivated to write to administrators after seeing President Donald Trump attempt to “chill powerful institutions that might be a counterweight” to his administration.

After the Trump administration canceled $400 million in federal funding to Columbia University, the school agreed to overhaul its protest policies and place its Middle Eastern studies department under the purview of a senior administrator.

Marsden pointed out that despite its administration’s capitulation, Columbia has experienced further cuts to research funding. She wrote that she wanted to urge Yale’s leaders to “choose a different path, to defend its students, faculty, and deepest values.”

“There are people saying that they were frustrated that Yale hadn’t done something yet, but everyone is sort of aware that this is an incredibly difficult time, and they want to show their support [for courageous actions in these difficult times],” Katherine Profeta ’91 DRA ’99 DRA ’09, a co-author of the Open Letter, told the News.

Profeta and Marsden each expressed support on Tuesday for McInnis’ participation in the AACU statement and the Yale Investments Office’s move to liquidate parts of the endowment by selling part of its private equity portfolio. Both alumni told the News that their letters aim to encourage similar actions.

Other alumni have pointed to Harvard University’s recent challenges to the Trump administration as a model for what Yale should do.

On April 14, Harvard announced that it would not bow to demands by the Trump administration that included orders to stop Harvard’s diversity initiatives, audit professors for plagiarism and report international students accused of misconduct to the federal government. Harvard is the first university to publicly defy the Trump administration’s crackdown on higher education.

“I strongly admire what Harvard has done,” Amos Friedland LAW ’08, a signatory of the Open Letter, told the News. “I’m pretty disappointed that Yale has not taken a more overt position and that the Law School, where I went to school, did not take a more significant position.”

Friedland hopes that the University will respond to the alumni letters, especially in light of Harvard’s recent actions.

On Monday, Friedland made his first-ever donation to Harvard, an institution he never attended. Friedland told the News that fellow alumni should reflect on what they value in a university, suggesting that this could mean “shifting donations” from Yale to institutions willing to act more courageously.

“I signed the letter because Yale is a rich and powerful institution, and therefore is in a position to push back against government overreach,” Gabriel Chin LAW ’95, a signatory of the Open Letter, wrote to the News. 

Jonah Gelbach LAW ’13, who signed both letters, told the News he was “quite shocked” that McInnis and other Yale leaders had not yet taken action against Trump.

According to Marsden, alumni may continue to organize to defend higher education.

“So far conversations are all very preliminary, but there is a lot of enthusiasm among the alumni who signed the letter for further action,” Marsden wrote.

In 2010, Yale had over 130,000 living alumni.

Update, April 24: Profeta’s quote has been updated to clarify that the alumni letters support “courageous” actions during difficult times, rather than demonstrate unconditional support for all University actions.