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With lawsuits and tacos, Yalies protest police treatment of Latinos

Posted by Carole Bass '83, '97MSL on January 27, 2012, 11:16 am

You might have seen New Haven’s neighboring town, East Haven, in the news this week. Four East Haven police officers were arrested on federal charges of conspiracy, false arrest, excessive force and obstruction of justice for allegedly harassing and brutalizing Latino immigrants in town.

East Haven’s mayor said he stood behind his police department; asked by a TV reporter what he intended to do for the Latino community, he responded: “I might have tacos” for dinner.

You might not know, however, that Yale law students are deeply involved in the East Haven case. In 2009, students at the Law School’s Worker & Immigrant Rights Advocacy Clinic filed a complaint with the U.S. Justice Department, prompting the grand jury investigation that led to the arrests. Law students continue to represent witnesses and complainants before the grand jury, and have filed a separate civil lawsuit against the town.

Thursday morning, law student Dermot Lynch ’12 appeared on CNN (above) alongside a Catholic priest who has driven much of the protest against EHPD treatment of his Latino parishioners. That afternoon, Yale College senior Mirtala Sanchez of the Chicano student organization MEChA de Yale joined community activists in delivering 500 tacos to the mayor’s office.

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Times: Yale QB was accused of sexual assault

Posted by Mark Alden Branch '86 on January 26, 2012, 6:48 pm
©Ron Waite/Photosportacular)

Patrick Witt ’12 (©Ron Waite/Photosportacular, via Yale Athletics)

The New York Times just added a disturbing new wrinkle to the story of Yale quarterback Patrick Witt ’12, who attracted media attention last fall when he announced that he would pass up an interview—and thus a chance for a Rhodes Scholarship—in order to play in the Yale-Harvard game. An article posted on the Times website this evening, citing a “half-dozen people with knowledge of all or part of the story” (all of them anonymous), claims that the Rhodes Trust had already suspended Witt as a candidate for the Rhodes several days before he made his announcement, because a fellow student had accused Witt of sexual assault. The story says that Witt’s accuser never went to the police but complained to Yale’s Committee on Sexual Misconduct, opting for an informal resolution process.

Witt did not respond to the Times, and neither Yale nor the Rhodes Trust would comment on the story, citing confidentiality rules.

The publicity over Witt’s decision about the Rhodes has already led to the resignation of head football coach Tom Williams, who left in December after it was revealed—also in the Times—that Williams was never a candidate for a Rhodes Scholarship, as he had claimed to reporters and on his résumé.

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New playwriting chair has Royal roots

Posted by Carole Bass '83, '97MSL on January 26, 2012, 2:06 pm

OHareJust in time for Yale’s semester-long Shakespeare celebration, the School of Drama announces a new chair for its playwriting department—from the Royal Shakespeare Company.

Jeanie O’Hare, Royal Shakespeare’s company dramaturg, “has advised, coached and edited dozens of playwrights who were developing work” on commission, the New York Times reports.  At Yale, where she will begin full-time work on July 1—replacing Paula Vogel, who remains on the faculty—O’Hare hopes to “lead the playwriting program towards a new era in theatre making,” she says in a press release (PDF)—”encouraging young artists to become the kind of industry-ready playmakers who can really make a difference.”

The Times points out that O’Hare herself is not a playwright. Then again, some claim, neither was Shakespeare.

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Gay black Republican Yalie nominated to NJ Supreme Court

Posted by Carole Bass '83, '97MSL on January 25, 2012, 1:11 pm
Bruce Harris: that was quick, Mr. Mayor. Photo: Cara Townsend/Daily Record

Bruce Harris: that was quick, Mr. Mayor. Photo: Cara Townsend/Daily Record

Chris Christie said he’s not running for president this year, but you have to wonder.

New Jersey’s charismatic and combative Republican governor stunned gay rights activists this week when he nominated Yalie Bruce A. Harris ’92JD to the state Supreme Court. Not only would Harris be the court’s first openly gay justice; he is also African American and a Republican — a diversity trifecta.

When the governor told Steve Goldstein, chief executive of Garden State Equality, that he was about to nominate Harris, “you could have picked me up off the floor,” Goldstein writes on the gay-rights organization’s website. “Most importantly,” Goldstein writes, “Bruce is eminently qualified to be a Supreme Court justice.”

Harris, a corporate and finance lawyer with Greenberg Traurig and a longtime public servant in the borough of Chatham, was installed just three weeks ago as the borough’s new mayor — reportedly the country’s first openly gay black Republican mayor. If confirmed to the court, he will step down as mayor.

Christie also nominated Phil Kwon, who would become the New Jersey Supreme Court’s first Asian American justice.

“Not only do their different backgrounds and career paths bring distinctive and important perspectives to the court, Bruce and Phil also capture our state’s diversity in a way never before seen,” the governor said in a press release that mentions “diversity” five times. “Today is an important and historic symbol for New Jersey and our country.”

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What would WFB say?

Posted by Carole Bass '83, '97MSL on January 24, 2012, 11:30 am
William F. Buckley Jr.

William F. Buckley Jr.

What would William F. Buckley Jr. ’50 — leading conservative intellectual, founder of the National Review, erudite host of Firing Line — think of “the perhaps inevitable Governor Romney?” asks WFB’s son, Christopher Buckley ’75.

“Of the newly Catholic and much-married Newt Gingrich? . . .

“What Would Bill Say?

“I think I won’t go there.”

The younger Buckley, speaking at a dinner honoring the 60th anniversary of the elder’s landmark book God and Man at Yale, does suggest that he and his father shared a dismay at “the yap and bark that passes for political discourse” these days. “My father,” he notes, “respected his opponents and extended every courtesy. But he insisted on intellectual rigor. On coherence.”

You can read Christopher Buckley’s remarks in the latest issue of the Yale Alumni Magazine. There’s also an account of a symposium at Yale, marking the anniversary of the book that excoriated Yale for its liberal dogma — and underscoring that same critique, six decades later.

And if your WFB appetite is now whetted, take a look back at our coverage of “Yale’s prodigal son” after his death in 2008, including remembrances by writer David Frum ’82, ’82MA; history professor Gaddis Smith ‘54, ‘61PhD; and biographer Sam Tanenhaus ‘78MA; as well as excerpts from God and Man at Yale.

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