Standing with Asian and Asian-American Communities
To the MacMillan community:
I endorse President Salovey’s message and the statement circulated earlier today by a group of academic directors and chairs in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Both are posted below. On behalf of the MacMillan Center, I emphasize our abhorrence of this crime and our determination to keep the Center as a safe and inclusive environment for all. We feel particularly for our Asian and Asian American co-workers and students at this moment, and stand ready to help in any way we can now and in the future.
Sincerely,
Steven I. Wilkinson
Henry R. Luce Director
Nilekani Professor of India and South Asian Studies
Professor of Political Science and International Affairs
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Dear Members of the Yale Community,
On Tuesday, the killing of eight people—six of whom were Asian women—focused our attention on the increased violence, harassment, and discrimination that historically marginalized groups suffer across our nation. Once again, unthinkable violence has destroyed families and brought fear to communities already burdened with the effects of xenophobia and other injustices.
On the same day of that tragedy, Stop AAPI Hate announced that it has received nearly 3,800 reports of hate incidents against Asian Americans in the past year. Women reported over twice as many incidents as men. These events affect our colleagues, students, alumni, friends, and families within the Asian, Asian-American, and Pacific Islander communities.
In moments like this, it is more important than ever that we find strength in our shared purpose and take action to create a more just and equitable world.
At Yale, we do this through research and education and also by serving our local and surrounding communities. Faculty, students, and staff are helping immigrants and refugees find economic stability and supporting shelters and food pantries for vulnerable families. Faculty and students are conducting research on racism in society and its effects. Campus organizations—like the Asian Network at Yale and the Asian American Cultural Center—empower us to use our individual expertise and collective intellectual capacity to make a positive difference and support one another.
Recent tragedies as well as the ongoing pandemic help us see more clearly than before that we have a long road ahead of us to address deep-rooted challenges in our society. However, we also know that our efforts are vital. Our work, including the programs we have launched through the Belonging at Yale initiative, ensure that we can bring together our diverse strengths to create solutions and improve the world.
To members of our community who feel vulnerable right now: know that Yale is standing with you. I encourage everyone to reach out for support if needed.
Whether through our research, studies, or service, we can build on our different backgrounds, perspectives, and talents to help heal the fractures in our society. In facing the grim news of this week, I find strength in the work we are doing together to create a world of peace and justice for all.
With best wishes,
Peter Salovey
President
Chris Argyris Professor of Psychology
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Leaders of Academic Units at Yale Release Joint Statement on Anti-Asian Racism
We come together to condemn anti-Asian racism, recognizing that this week’s murders in Georgia, along with persistent violence and intimidation directed at Asians and Asian Americans elsewhere, reflect legal, economic, and social exclusions, and U.S. militarism in Asia, which are older than our contemporary moment. We call for social justice, and not the reliance on policing and carceral remedies.
Because leadership matters, we demand that elected officials and others denounce representations of Asian Americans as perpetual foreigners, carriers of disease, sexualized subjects, or racial threats to national homogeneity and national security. Because education matters, we support colleagues who teach and conduct research on racism and anti-racism, especially those in Asian American Studies. And because support and solidarity matter, we stand with family, friends, students, colleagues, and community members most affected by anti-Asian racism.
The racist and misogynist violence of white supremacy has shaped our shared histories, and we know that the violence this week is connected to other violent acts perpetuated against Black, Indigenous, and Latinx communities, and women of color and LGBTQ communities, over many years. Our communities will be organizing a teach-in on racial violence, as well as future events at Yale that gather students, scholars, community members, and others within and beyond our campus. Our linked histories mean that we must work collectively.
1. Professor Sunil Amrith, Chair of the South Asian Studies Council
2. Professor Jessica Brantley, Chair of the Department of English
3. Professor Tyrone Cannon, Chair of the Department of Psychology
4. Dr. Mira Debs, Executive Director of the Education Studies Program
5. Professor Michael Denning, Chair of the American Studies Program
6. Professor Roderick Ferguson, Chair of the Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program
7. Professor Aaron Gerow, Chair of the Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures
8. Professor Jacqueline Goldsby, Chair of the African American Studies Department
9. Professor Frank Griffel, Chair of the Department of Religious Studies
10. Professor Erik Harms, Chair of the Council on Southeast Asian Studies
11. Professor Vivian Irish, Chair of the Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology
12. Professor Matthew Frye Jacobson, Director of the Public Humanities Program
13. Professor Grace Kao, Chair of the Department of Sociology
14. Professor Alice Kaplan, Director of the Whitney Humanities Center
15. Professor John MacKay, Chair of Slavic Languages and Literatures
16. Professor Alan Mikhail, Chair of the Department of History
17. Professor Tavia Nyong’o, Chair of the Theater and Performance Studies Program
18. Dr. Eric Paulson, Director of the Yale Chemical and Biophysical Instrumentation Center
19. Professor Stephen Pitti, Director of the Center for the Study of Race, Indigeneity, and Transnational Migration
20. Professor Ian Quinn, Chair of the Department of Music
21. Professor Maurice Samuels, Director of the Yale Program for the Study of Antisemitism
22. Professor Alicia Schmidt Camacho, Chair of the Ethnicity, Race, and Migration Program
23. Professor Jing Tsu, Chair of the Council on East Asian Studies
24. Professor Anne Underhill, Chair of the Department of Anthropology
25. Professor Claudia Valeggia, Chair of the Chair of the Council on Latin American and Iberian Studies
26. Professor Kevin van Bladel, Chair of the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations
27. Professor Jonathan Wyrtzen, Chair of the Council on Middle Eastern Studies
28. Professor Harrison H. Zhou, Chair of the Department of Statistics and Data Science