Dive Brief:
- In the wave of student unrest following successful demands for high-profile resignations at Mizzou, Yale is expanding its diversity initiatives and students at Occidental College are calling for their own presidential ouster.
- While affirming the right to free speech, Yale President Peter Salovey announced a new center for scholarship around race, ethnicity, and other aspects of social identity, twice the funding for Yale’s four campus cultural centers, additional financial aid for low-income students, training for mental health professionals and the entire administration, and a five-year conference series on race, gender, inequality, and inclusion — among other initiatives.
- Students at Occidental College in Los Angeles have been occupying the administrative center all week, with demands including a call for the resignation of President Jonathan Veitch, the removal of LAPD from campus, the “demilitarization” of campus safety, additional funding and a promotion for the chief diversity officer, the creation of a Black Studies program, and more diversity in faculty hires.
Dive Insight:
Students at the University of Kansas have tried to separate themselves from those at the University of Missouri, calling not for the ouster of a campus president, but for a change to campus policies and practices. The students at Occidental are doing both. Yale’s list of new initiatives meets many of the demands these other student groups are calling for, putting money where students activists clearly see a need. The only dollar amount Salovey referenced in his email detailing the initiatives was a $50 million, five-year effort to increase faculty diversity that was first announced earlier this month, but his long list of initiatives obviously comes with a substantial commitment of resources. Meeting student demands elsewhere will not be cheap.