Browse Exhibits (7 total)
1960s
Student struggles of the 1960s sought to build an activist infrastructure that would sustain long-term collective mobilization in opposition to a university--and a world--beholden to its past. In other words, student movements at Yale intended for a radical redistribution of power within the university, enmeshed in a mosaic of global liberation struggles. The Black Student Alliance at Yale (BSAY) in major part acted as the first architect of this project, demanding a student center for Black students and the creation of a Black Studies department at the university. Not only did tangible victories emerge from their endeavors, but Black students’ activism also paved the way for future movements by students of color. As Black students continued to act against institutional and banal racism like the sudden shutdown of a Calhoun College (now known as Hopper College in a testament to continued anti-racist struggle) social mixer after the arrival of Black attendees, Asian-American students campaigned for representation at Yale Law School, New Haven activists fortified synergies with Yale activists in shared action against police harassment, and the admission of women students to the campus in 1969 multiplied perspectives, solidarities, and visions. Asian-American and Latinx students created the Asian American Student Association and Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán (MEChA) de Yale in 1969, during which mobilization against imperial ventures in Vietnam and in the United States escalated into its culmination at the 1970 May Day demonstration against the conviction of members of the Black Panther Party’s New Haven Chapter accused of the murder of suspected FBI informant Alex Rackley, known as the New Haven Nine.
1970s
The 1970s was a decade rich with student activism and student motivated change on various levels. As such, it is no surprise that Yale student activists were able to enact change in the contexts of the university and New Haven. Their struggles represent a wide range of experiences that are informed by the cultural, social, political, etc. backgrounds of the students. Thus, we cannot and do not promise to totally encompass Yale student activism in the seventies, rather we aim to highlight some of the various methods students used to collaborate with one another, different student activists, the university, and New Haven to fulfill their goals. We believe that focusing on these collaborations is a fruitful method of analysis because they demonstrate in which situations different student activists chose to stand in solidarity with each other, the Yale administration, and New Haven residents and organizations. Conversely, the collaborations can also highlight tensions between these actors and in doing so they expose ideological differences between groups that helps us understand the context behind certain actions. In this particular decade, we have chosen to highlight work from the Asian American Student Association (AASA) in the form of the Asian American Student Conference, the publication of the Amerasia Journal, and a student recruitment event hosted by AASA. We have also chosen to represent the founding of the Floating Counselor Program, which is now officially known as the Peer Liason program. Further, we are representing the work done by Puerto Rican Students at Yale who pushed for a Puerto Rican Studies program and their collaborations with the local Young Lord party. Finally, we are showing the work of Mecha at Yale in which they outline their rationale for a student cultural center to the Yale administration.
1980s
For the United States, the beginning of the 1980s were consumed with the Iran Hostage crisis and the election of President Reagan. The regime of apartheid in South Africa also prompted the country to remember its past. In the midst of these political circumstances, students on college campuses mobilized in opposition. At Yale, students were engaged in various forms of protest and activism against the university administration and U.S. government.
Anti-apartheid movements composed the bulk of student activism in the 1980s. A collaboration of student groups was engaged in action demanding that the Yale Corporation divest from companies conducting business in South Africa. In 1986, the student protests culminated into the creation of a shantytown named Winnie Mandela City which was built in Beinecke Plaza.
National political matters of the decade also engaged the attention of Yale students. The end of 1983 was marked by the United States invasion of Grenada, which sparked a coalition of Yale student groups to co-host a film screening and discussion about the situation. Another area of tension on campus was the role of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Several groups held rallies urging the CIA to stop recruiting on Yale’s campus.
Students also dedicated their time to supporting initiatives of solidarity closer to home. In 1982, Third World student organizations worked together to persuade the Admissions Office to host a Third World Weekend for admitted applicants. Another initiative of solidarity was The Alliance, a bi-weekly magazine which gathered voices from various minority groups. The Committee Against Academic Discrimination produced a booklet composed of individuals’ experiences of being silenced, verbally abused and marginalized in academic settings at Yale. At the same time, the Asian American Students Association held a conference highlighting the need for Asian Americans to become more involved in political life and community organization.
1990s
The beginning of the 1990s marked a continuation of the struggles and triumphs of student activism in the 1980s. In 1990, after an anonymous hate letter and derogatory graffiti circulated around the Law School, Yale students organized a two-day long protest. According to the students, the hate letter and graffiti were only the most concrete manifestations of pervasive racism on campus. They sought to call attention as well to the less blatant examples of racism at Yale, such as the pushing aside of minority studies and the naming of Calhoun College.
The anti-apartheid protests from the ‘80s also carried over into and came to a close in the ’90s. In 1991, the wall built in 1988 by members of the Coalition Against Apartheid was dismantled. Though students were promised a permanent structure to replace the deteriorating wall, this turned out to be an empty promise by the Yale administration. Once again, student action was met by administrative inaction. However, members of the Black Student Alliance reiterated that they were “dismantling the wall, not their efforts.”
Not all activism in the 90’s was met by such inaction by the administration. In 1997, Yale established the Ethnicity, Race, and Migration Program—long anticipated evidence of the success of student activism on campus.
The end of the decade marked a period of continued awareness and pressure for change, as well as the advent of more administrative progress, all under the umbrella of collective action for members of a broad Yale community. When alleged hate crimes against Asian American students were committed on campus in 1999, students came together to discuss a rash of hate crimes that had gone unreported against a range of groups. In the same year, students joined community activists to rally against police brutality in memory of Malik Jones, a 21 year-old black New Haven resident who was fatally shot by a white East Haven police officer. Finally, students took action to support the administrative expansion of faculty diversity support.
2000s
“One year later, where are Yale’s activists?” begins one YDN column from 2001. Just one year prior, the university’s students had united en masse in the name of workers’ rights and demanding that Yale stop its use of sweatshop labor in the U.S. and abroad. Indeed, as the article notes, Yale’s campus was “afire with activism”. Though the article seems to bemoan the loss of many of these activists to other movements, the author neglects to consider the intertwining of systems of oppression, among which whiteness, patriarchy, and capitalism stand at the forefront.
The activism of the 2000’s challenged such interlocking systems in highly varied manners. We invite the exhibit goer to reconsider forms of activism, beyond the go-to ideas of protest or hunger strike, and consider spaces of art, daily discussions, and the claim of a right to belong to a space as forms of resistance. This is exemplified in “InSight”, a work by Yale undergrad Michelle Wong ‘08 that challenges the gendered racialization of Asian women as weak or feeble. The 35th anniversary celebration of the Afro-American Cultural Center asserts the right of black students to belong at Yale while simultaneously celebrating the history of activism that gave birth to The House and more generally that of Afro-American students at Yale.
At the forefront of activism in the 2000’s however, remain challenges to involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan, the growth of the security state, and affirmative action, an issue we see revived in our present moment. Yale Law students, wearing camouflage gags, marched through campus, protesting the exclusion of LGBTQ+ residents from military service, for instance. Activism finds itself manifest in innumerable ways, and we further invite the exhibit goer to consider the impact that their actions can have on systems of oppression.
2010s
Firstly, we must acknowledge that this exhibit within the settler colonial institution of Yale stands on the traditional homelands of the Quinnipiac people. The 2010s represent the current state of Indigenous/Student of Color activism that honors and takes inspiration from their ancestors and the decades of student activism that preceded them. The impact and legacy of this decade continues to be written, and hopefully, will cement itself in a future archive one day. The recent nature of these events required us to focus on the living history by relying on our own personal knowledges, and the guidance and testimonies of friends, mentors, and student organizations. Despite the limitations of the exhibit, we hope that our choices will provide accurate insight and justice into the lived experiences of these activists over the last eight years.
This section highlights students transforming the campus space, as well as engaging with the world outside of Yale. We draw upon a wide array of protests and movements that characterize the 2010s as a period of both continuity and disruption. Our exhibit hopes to challenge the definition of “Indigenous/student of color activism” while drawing attention to the historical institutional barriers that complicate the simultaneous identities of “student” and “of color.” The Next Yale movement encompasses the reconciliation of collective and individual struggles through intersectional and intercultural solidarity, founded on a shared oppression that still recognizes unique struggle. These images are intentionally provocative, illustrating the strenuous physical and emotional labor that Indigenous/SoC activists undertake in their efforts to resist, to reclaim space, to center subjugated knowledges and peoples, and to demand change. Lastly, we highlight the importance of previous activists’ work and their movements in shaping the current generation, exploring how it validates and informs activism today. Ultimately, the famous words of Next Yale illuminate the overall theme of the exhibit: “We out here, we’ve been here, we ain’t leaving. We are loved.”
2020s
Though worldwide the 2020s will be defined by the global COVID-19 pandemic, Yale students have defined it through fighting against the systemic failures it has exposed and other ongoing battles on campus.
A few years into the new decade, students’ lives have been turned upside down and changed significantly. Students responded by advocating for universal pass to alleviate the inequities faced in differing student circumstances as a result of the pandemic and switch to online learning. The shooting of Stephanie Washington and Paul Witherspoon in 2019 and murder of George Floyd in 2020 created the conditions for students to respond to this police violence with calls for police abolition.
While this section highlights the student activism surrounding COVID-19 challenges and Yale Police Department (YPD) abolition, it also serves as a reminder that our current times are not foreign to student struggle and the ongoing drive students have to fight for a better world. As a result, this is a working section that will be continuously updated as students continue to advocate for themselves and their communities.