Now we learn that Erika Christakis, who wrote a cautionary email to students saying they should handle a little offensiveness, if necessary, at Halloween, won’t be teaching next semester. She is a residential counselor (associate master of Yale’s Silliman College, and her husband, Nicholas Christakis, is master) and also a popular adjunct teacher in childhood education. But after resigning from teaching, she told the Washington Post:
I have great respect and affection for my students, but I worry that the current climate at Yale is not, in my view, conducive to the civil dialogue and open inquiry required to solve our urgent societal problems.
Earlier, in her “controversial” email, she had written (quoted from Inside Higher Ed):
Is there no room anymore for a child or young person to be a little bit obnoxious … a little bit inappropriate or provocative or, yes, offensive? American universities were once a safe space not only for maturation but also for a certain regressive, or even transgressive, experience; increasingly, it seems, they have become places of censure and prohibition.
In case you wondered about the status of free speech. . . now we know how shrunken it is at at least one of our leading universities. (By the way, I wonder how long they will have masters at Yale?)