President Salovey urges Yale community to ‘stand united against hatred’

Amid the reverberations of the Hamas-Israel war, Yale President Peter Salovey on Thursday urged members of the university community to “stand united against hatred directed at any group and hold tight to our common values.”

In an emailed message titled “Against Hatred,” the president described a series of new actions to enhance support for those at Yale most affected by the conflict and provided an update on the campus climate.

In particular, Salovey noted planned actions that would improve Jewish student life and address antisemitism; improve Arab, Middle Eastern and North African (MENA), and Muslim student life, and address Islamophobia; and further bolster campus safety. He also addressed free expression.

(The MENA community includes Israelis and Palestinians; Arabs and non-Arabs; Iranians and Turks; Christians, Jews, and Muslims; among others.)

Read the full message for additional details.

Also Thursday, Salovey convened with several hundred alumni leaders and volunteers to discuss the current campus climate and the plans he outlined in his message.

The president took questions from the alumni, some of which had been posed to leaders of other universities during a widely publicized Congressional hearing in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday.

Asked how he and Yale would respond to a person at the university who called for the genocide of Jews, Salovey spoke personally and forcefully:

“What was asked of other university leaders at recent Congressional hearings has raised questions about our policies and practices. Let me be clear in stating our forceful rejection of discrimination and prejudice at Yale. In my opinion, if an individual stood on our campus and urged the committing of mass murder of Jews, it would have no intellectual or academic value, and is frankly hateful and worthless. The very idea of it is something I find outrageous, vile, and abhorrent. Such an act, in my view, would be harassing, intimidating, and discriminatory, so I would certainly expect that person to be held accountable under our policies prohibiting such conduct.”

Find previous statements by Yale on the Hamas-Israel war.