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NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT · TUESDAY, APRIL 7, 2026 · VOL. CXLVIII, NO. 30 · yaledailynews.com · @yaledailynews
Students support shielding faculty
Fill-in storage stipends pass BY OLIVIA WOO STAFF REPORTER
BY JAEHA JANG STAFF REPORTER
In response to Yale College’s phase-out of summer storage aid for low-income students, the Yale College Council Senate has allocated the remainder of its budget for senate initiatives to a new program for summer storage stipends. The budget proposal outlining the stipend program passed by a unanimous vote during the senate’s last meeting of the semester on Sunday in the Poorvu Center for Teaching and Learning. The proposal initially allotted $12,500 toward the program, covering at least 125 stipends of $100 each, but an amendment cleaned out the Senate Initiatives Budget to increase the funding allocation by about $300. Two weeks ago, Yale College Dean Pericles Lewis confirmed in an interview with the News that financial aid for summer storage, which consisted last year of reimbursements of up to $225 for low-income students, would not continue this year. Lewis advised students “not to SEE STIPEND PAGE 4
Ellie Park, Senior Photographer
this Tuesday, according to the Harvard Crimson. The proposals at Yale’s Ivy League rival have prompted renewed discussion of grade inflation at Yale, including among the professors who assign grades each semester. Two dozen professors identified grade inflation as a problem that is far easier to recognize than it is to solve. In a February interview, Lewis said it was “very sensible” that Harvard was trying to combat grade inflation, adding that grade inflation makes it harder to distinguish the “best-performing” students. Yale should monitor Harvard’s proposal, he said, because he doesn’t want “an A at Yale to be seen as a lesser A.” Lewis also said that Yale’s standing Committee on Teaching, Learning and Advising is “aware of what’s going on at Harvard and will be look-
The Yale College Council Senate and Graduate & Professional Student Senate have each passed a joint resolution in support of faculty groups’ demands for more explicit academic freedom protections. The resolution was the first official step by students amid a school year marked by faculty groups’ persistent efforts to revise the Faculty Handbook so it explicitly enshrines academic freedom and increases their say in University decisions. “It’s prophylactic in some sense, but at its core, if faculty do not feel that they are 100 percent able to teach what they want to teach, and if Yale has not indicated that it’s willing to make faculty 100 percent comfortable, then that has real ramifications for whether or not students can receive the fullness of their education,” Alex William Chen ’28, the speaker of the YCC Senate, said in an interview after the council passed the resolution during its Sunday meeting. In October, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and School of
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Faculty face grading dilemma BY JAEHA JANG STAFF REPORTER After Yale physics professor A. Douglas Stone taught a class recently, a student stayed behind to ask for a recommendation letter. The “very good” student, with whom Stone said he has a “nice relationship,” had what the professor thought was an unusual concern: They had received only an A-minus in a previous course with him. Stone thought it was “ridiculous” that the student was “very disappointed” about an A-minus. But after hearing more from the student about grading at Yale and the prevalence of straight A’s, Stone said he told the student, “Well, I guess then an A-minus feels like a bad grade.” “Of course,” the student replied. According to a 2023 report by economics professor Ray Fair, nearly 79 percent of grades in Yale College in
the 2022-23 school year were A’s or A-minuses. Yale College Dean Pericles Lewis said in an interview last month that the grade distribution has remained “pretty consistent” over the past four years. And last year, the GPA cutoff for Yale College graduates to receive the summa cum laude distinction remained at its record high of 3.98. Harvard stepped up to a similar challenge in February when a faculty committee recommended that each class cap A grades at 20 percent, allowing for up to four additional A’s per class, beginning next school year. Last Monday, Harvard administrators announced a revised proposal that would delay implementation until fall 2027 and also introduce a SAT+ grade, which recognizes outstanding performance in courses graded on a pass/fail basis. Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences will vote on this proposal
YCC calls on Yale to divest from companies tied to ICE BY ARIA LYNN-SKOV STAFF REPORTER In their final meeting of the year, Yale College Council senators voted to issue a public statement calling for the Yale Corporation to divest the University’s endowment from companies with ties to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The statement characterized recent ICE actions as “inhumane and illegal surveillance, deportation, and detention of our neighbors.” It then detailed links the Endowment Justice Collective identified between the Yale
Garrett Curtis / Photography Editor
endowment and companies like Target Hospitality and TDR Capital, which they said support ICE’s efforts. The statement lists its intended recipients as University President Maurie McInnis, Yale College Dean Pericles Lewis, Dean of Students Melanie Boyd ’90 and the board of trustees. John Robert Walker ’28, an organizer with the Endowment Justice Collective, which sponsored the statement, presented it to the senate. The statement proposal passed nearly unanimously at the Sunday meeting, with several members of the senate voicing their support.
“I hope that this statement shows that ICE’s destruction is on students’ minds,” Walker said in an interview after the meeting. “Just about every student group on campus seems to be hosting a teach-in, organizing a fundraiser for migrant justice.” The Advisory Committee on Investor Responsibility, which makes divestment recommendations to the Yale Corporation, has rejected the group’s pitches for divestment from several military contractors, including Palantir, a data analysis company that SEE DIVESTMENT PAGE 5
Suit against Corporation ends
Court rejects case contesting how Yale trustees are chosen BY SARA AGRAWAL STAFF REPORTER A lawsuit challenging the nomination process by which alumni can be elected to Yale’s board of trustees failed to reach the Connecticut Supreme Court last month after being unsuccessfully argued in the state’s district and appellate courts since its initial filing in 2022. But for the lawsuit’s two petitioners, Victor Ashe ’67 and Donald Glascoff Jr. ’67, the fight against Yale’s nomination process is just beginning. “While the legal aspect has ended, the effort at persuasion and keeping the issue alive is very much there,” Ashe said in a phone interview on Thursday. Six of the 19 positions on the board are reserved for elected alumni fellows. Starting five years after their
graduation year, all Yale alumni are eligible to vote in the alumni fellow elections. Beginning in 1929, alums could earn places on the ballots by garnering signatures from three percent of the alumni eligible to vote. However, in 2021, former senior trustee Catharine Bond Hill GRD ’85 announced that alumni would no longer be able to petition to appear on the ballots. Now, the only way to be nominated as an alumni fellow is to be chosen by the Yale Alumni Association’s Alumni Fellow Nominating Committee. Each year, the organization nominates at least two candidates for election, according to its website. The website also states that, according to “tradition,” these nominees do not campaign. In 2022, Ashe and Glascoff submitted a formal complaint about the change to the Hartford district court
Inside The News The New Haven Museum hosted the owner of Modern Apizza at its ongoing pizza-themed exhibit, called "Pronounced Ah-Beetz." PAGE 7 NEWS
of the Connecticut Superior Court, alleging that it violated an 1872 amendment to the University charter. After the district court and the Connecticut Appellate Court ruled in favor of Yale in 2024 and 2025, Ashe and Glascoff filed a petition in December to argue the case before the Connecticut Supreme Court. Last month, the Connecticut Supreme Court denied the request for it to hear the case. In an email statement to the News on Sunday, University spokesperson Karen Peart wrote on behalf of Yale, “We are pleased that throughout this case, the courts have found Yale’s actions to be entirely appropriate.” According to Ashe, the lawsuit had support from other alumni. Ashe said in an interview last week that
MAISON’s fashion show on Friday featured 22 collections by up-and-coming designers. Read a News review, page 8. See the show Through the Lens, page 9.
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'SHEFFIELD SCIENTIFIC' The immersive theater
production followed a professor at an alternate version of Yale’s Sheffield Scientific School in the 1950s. PAGE 8 ARTS
WOMEN'S LACROSSE Yale, ranked first in the Ivy
League, beat Dartmouth 11-8 on Saturday in Hanover. PAGE 10 NEWS