The new period product dispensers also come after years of student activism and initiatives to increase access to free period products on campus. In 2019, YCC started providing free menstrual products in residential colleges. 

“Having period products right in spaces everyone has access to will level the playing field and make everything more equitable. It will help to remove barriers from educational opportunities — if someone would have to miss class because they don’t have access to a product — or even professional opportunities — if someone has maybe an interview and needs a tampon,” Maddy Corson ’26, co-president of YaleBleeds said. “These are really important moments in our lives and non-menstruators don’t have to think about or worry about if they’re gonna get their period in the middle of them.”

Facilities purchased 150 period product dispensers to install in restrooms near student classrooms last semester. They have now been installed 58 out of the 150 dispensers in women’s and gender-neutral bathrooms around campus, and 20 more installations are expected over spring break, per Director of Facilities Operations Samuel Olmstead. These new motion-activated dispensers come in addition to preexisting turnstile dispensers that were installed in some buildings, such as the Humanities Quadrangle and the Schwarzman Center. The University does not plan to replace existing dispensers, per Olmstead.

Uneven access 

Yet, amid the ongoing installation of new dispensers, many bathrooms, particularly those with older turnstile dispensers, lack tampons and pads or do not have any dispensers at all.

Out of 18 bathrooms visited by the News, four had the new dispensers installed, 10 had the old dispensers and four had no period products or a dispenser. Out of the four new dispensers, two of them were full and stocked. Out of the 10 bathrooms with old dispensers, only two contained period products.

In the Humanities Quadrangle, eight bathrooms have turnstile dispensers, with six bathrooms unstocked and two stocked. A turnstile dispenser was also found unstocked in a bathroom outside Marsh Hall in the Yale Science Building. 

The Gilmore Music Library’s bathroom has a new dispenser, which is fully stocked and functional as of March 6, but was empty on March 2 in Bass Library, both are new, but only one is filled, while the other dispenser is empty with products left next to the sink.

In one basement bathroom at the Schwarzman Center, there was no dispenser at all, while another had an old, unstocked dispenser. In the Watson Center’s downstairs bathroom, the basement of William L. Harkness Hall and at Leet Oliver Memorial Hall, there was neither a dispenser nor any period products. 

In reference to the empty dispenser in Bass, Olmstead wrote that because the dispensers are touch-activated, the machines sometimes dispense when someone walks by, so people will often put the dispensed product on a nearby shelf or on top of the dispenser. Facilities is looking into whether or not the machine sensitivity can be dialed back to fix this problem.

He added that restrooms are often cleaned and restocked in the morning, so it is possible that the machines were found unstocked by the News because the products had been used or otherwise dispensed. 

“I will be following up with the managers of these buildings to make sure that any remaining issues are resolved promptly,” Olmstead added. 

Student advocacy

In the past month, multiple student groups have advocated with Yale facilities for more consistent stocking of the dispensers.

According to Corson, at a meeting with two leaders from the Local 35 union last month, YaleBleeds leadership learned that Facilities custodial staff had at that time not received information from Facilities administrators to restock the dispensers and discussed how to best manage the additional labor for facilities workers of restocking the dispensers.

“From what we learned in meeting with the union leaders of Local 35 is that facilities custodial staff had not received any information from facilities administrators to restock the dispensers. And if they were to be the folks responsible for restocking the dispensers, the additional labor may lead to possible renegotiations, conversations about labor contract,” she said. “What we talked about during the meeting is what we can do to support custodial staff and help to find a solution where we can have accessible period products, while also not adding a burden of labor to the already very hardworking, busy custodial staff on campus.”

Corson added that YaleBleeds leadership has struggled with hearing back from Facilities administrators, but is planning to meet with them, and separately union leaders who work in Facilities, after spring break.

Additionally, YCC Senators Emily Hettinger ’26, Mimi Papathanasopoulos ’26 and Orah Massihesraelian ’25 proposed an open letter this past week, calling on Yale facilities to stock the period product dispensers. In the letter, the authors urged Yale “to finish the important menstrual equity work it started with its installation of dispensers, and actually fill them.”

Olmstead wrote to the News that they have had “occasional miscommunications and setbacks” keeping the dispensers stocked, but facilities administrators are now “confident those have been worked out, and that our custodians are now stocking the dispensers regularly.” 

Olmstead also said that he has had “positive conversations” with Local 35 on this initiative. 

“We all agree on the importance of free period product dispensing in ensuring a welcoming environment for our campus community. Our custodians have a critical role to play, and I have full confidence in their ability and willingness to make this initiative a success,” he said. 

Local 35 leadership did not immediately respond to the News’ request for comment.

The Graduate and Professional Student Senate also launched an initiative during the 2018-19 school year, when students began stocking products in restrooms near graduate and professional student spaces. The senate provides the funding for the products.

“We stock some bathrooms through graduate and professional volunteers, who are primarily putting supplies in the bathrooms closest to their places of work (e.g., a mechanical engineering student stocking their laboratory, or a drama student stocking their theater),” GPSS Advocacy Chair Adora Svitak GRD ’27 wrote to the News.

Per Svitak, this senate initiative does not overlap in terms of location with undergraduate-led initiatives, such as the new period product dispensers.

In 2023, the YCC was also able to receive approval to move the location of menstrual products in residential colleges from laundry rooms to dining hall bathrooms “as the location of the stockpile in laundry rooms often posed barriers to menstruating students,” YCC President Julian Suh-Toma ’25 wrote to the News.

Last semester, YaleBleeds also released a petition and hosted a Period Day of Action event. They also released a petition, which received 487 signatures, calling on the University to make menstrual products more accessible on campus. 

Karley Yung ’25, co-treasurer of YaleBleeds, emphasized the difficulty students face when they cannot access period products.

“While periods can be predictable for a lot of people, that can also not be the case. Having a period and not expecting it and not having products in the bathrooms is a really difficult situation to be in,” Yung said. “It’s an arduous experience that probably every menstruator has experienced at some point in their life. Wanting to relieve this burden is why we advocated for the dispensers in the first place.”

Yung added that although the installation of the dispensers “isn’t perfect,” it is “a step in the right direction.” 

Crishan Fernando GRD ’25, president of the Graduate and Professional Student Senate, who helped to start the GPSS period product access project in 2019, said that he is also motivated by the unfairness in not supplying free period products.

“From my perspective as someone who doesn’t menstruate, it’s like what if the university just didn’t provide toilet paper, and all of a sudden all of us had to bring our own toilet paper,” Fernando said. “That’s a huge burden. It’s unfair, that we’re sort of punishing people who menstruate for just having to menstruate.”

YaleBleeds — formerly known as PERIOD@Yale — was formed in 2018.

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The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is a hotline for individuals in crisis or for those looking to help someone else. To speak with a certified listener, call 988. 

Crisis Text Line is a texting service for emotional crisis support. To speak with a trained listener, text HELLO to 741741. It is free, available 24/7 and confidential.

To talk with a counselor from Yale Mental Health and Counseling, schedule a session here. On-call counselors are available at any time: call (203) 432-0290.  Appointments with Yale College Community Care can be scheduled here.

Additional resources are available in a guide compiled by the Yale College Council here.

On Wednesday, about 100 Yale students and New Haven residents gathered at the Women’s Table on Cross Campus for a vigil to commemorate U.S. airman Aaron Bushnell and Palestinians killed in Gaza amid Israel’s war against Hamas.  

Bushnell, 25, was an active duty U.S. Air Force airman who died on Monday outside the Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C. According to ABC News, Bushnell said “I will no longer be complicit in genocide” and “Free Palestine!” prior to dying in protest.

Four speakers addressed the crowd of about 100 people, who gathered around the Women’s Table. A Palestinian flag, candles, red roses and signs — one of which featured pictures of Bushnell — adorned the monument. A Yale Police Department car was parked on Cross Campus for the entirety of the event. 

All four speakers at the vigil requested anonymity due to safety concerns.

The first speaker discussed the account of Bushnell’s death and her reaction to it. 

“Personally, when I heard Aaron’s screams, I was shaken to my core. My stomach felt ill and my heart deeply ached. Aaron exposes the moral rot at the heart of the empire,” she said. “I am so sickened and angry at the continual neglect of Palestinian humanity and refusal of so many, including the Yale administration, to acknowledge and denounce a genocide which has been going on for over 75 years.” 

The vigil follows months of student activism related to the Israel-Hamas war. On Oct. 7, Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israel, in which Hamas killed at least 1,200 people and took 250 people as hostages, according to Israel’s Foreign Ministry. Israel responded to the attack with a declaration of war and full bombardment of Gaza. As of Feb. 29, Israel has killed more than 30,000 people in Gaza through its military onslaught, according to the health ministry in Gaza. 

After this first speech, attendees participated in a moment of silence “for Aaron, and for the martyrs in Gaza and Palestine,” per the first speaker. 

The second speaker addressed Yale administrators directly, asking the University to “stop calling us on our personal numbers to tell us they disapprove of our actions,” or “threatening us in attempts to silence us.”

According to the speaker, Yale administrators asked organizers to cancel the event on Wednesday due to concerns that “this action will only make things worse, will make more people more upset.”

“To that we respond, we are more concerned. And we are more upset,” the second speaker said. “We have been for months and for lifetimes. We are holding space because there has been no response from the administration. No acknowledgment of the 30,000 deaths. No call for a ceasefire and no response to our demands.”

The University’s spokesperson wrote to the News that the University clinicians and administrators who contacted Yalies4Palestine leadership about the event “intended to remind students about mental health issues on campus and available resources for support.” 

“University clinicians and administrators were concerned about the difficult content of the gathering and the potential impact on students,” Peart wrote. “Yale staff reached out to student organizers to share these concerns and offer mental health guidance and support.”

In January, Yalies4Palestine and Yale Law Students for Justice in Palestine organized a walk-out for Gaza and issued a press release listing demands of the University. Demands included public support by the University for a ceasefire, the implementation of boycott, divestment and sanctions in investment policy and divestment from weapons manufacturing and actions against what they called anti-Palestinian and Islamaphobic harassment on campus. 

The University has not publicly responded to these demands. In University President Peter Salovey’s Nov. 3 “remarks on compassion and civility,” he noted that there are “waves of hatred” toward Jewish, Muslim, Israeli and Palestinian people and emphasized that antisemitism and Islamophobia are “empathetically against” the University’s values. In his Dec. 7 statement called “Against Hatred,” Salovey urged “open exchange of ideas” and directed students toward resources for safety and mental health support. 

Yale’s investments in weapons manufacturing have remained a source of student protest in recent weeks and months. The University’s review of their investments policy is nearing a close. 

The third speaker read two poems. The first poem, by Palestinian author and activist Jenan Matari, describes the speaker’s experience of watching graphic videos of the war in Gaza, and of a video depicting Bushnell’s death. The second, entitled “The Birds don’t know about self-immolation,” is an anonymous poem publicized by Jinx Press, a “radical media collective,” on X on Monday. In the poem, the speaker narrates their reactions to seeing other people, the natural world and birdsong after hearing of Bushnell’s death. 

The fourth and final speaker urged students to support workers in weaponry manufacturing and exportation in using their capacity to strike or boycott. If these workers were to boycott, the speaker said, “not a single bomb or weapon is designed, constructed, loaded or shipped … the system would come to a grinding halt.” 

The speaker cited strikes from early November in Spain and Belgium where transportation workers refused to handle Israeli weaponry shipments. 

“As students who have the privilege of housing and three meals a day, we must help mobilize the workers who are the only class capable of leading a struggle against these genocidal regimes,” he said.

Immediately following the vigil, around 30 of the attendees moved into Sterling Memorial Library to participate in a protest. During this demonstration, students laid on the ground in the main entrance of Sterling for about 20 minutes. At approximately 6:10 p.m., the protesters started chanting “Free Free Palestine” and singing “we breathe together, stop the occupation” and “from the river to the sea,” before exiting the library.

One attendee interviewed by the News said that she came to the vigil because of the importance of commemorating those who have been hurt by the war. 

“I think that it’s important that as a collective, we’re showing that we care about everyone that’s been injured,” said Rosa Serrano GRD ’26 “And I think it’s especially important to do it so visibly at Yale because they still haven’t divested their funds from war machinery manufacturers.”

One attendee at the Vigil said that as a former member of the military, they feel empathy for Bushnell’s “feeling of helplessness at the crimes the military commits.” 

A New Haven resident, who identified themself only as Moss, said they were part of a group of attendees at the vigil associated with the Revolutionary Communists of America, a political party advocating that “the existing capitalist-imperialist systems and institutions of government in this country must be abolished and dismantled” according to their website. 

Sterling Memorial Library opened in 1931. 

Karla Cortes contributed reporting.

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About 60 people attended the vigil, which was organized by students from the Ukraine House at Yale. As people gathered at Cross Campus, organizers placed the Ukrainian flag, flowers and candles on the Women’s Table. The vigil featured speeches by Ukrainian students, a moment of silence and a prayer for peace.

“Ukrainians are tired of war, but we do not have an option of ignoring it,” Ukraine House President Daria Valska ’26 said at the vigil. “We cannot pretend it doesn’t exist because it’s not on the front pages anymore. So today I ask you to keep supporting Ukraine, as the war is still as present as it was two years ago.”

Valska told the News that the main goal of the event was to commemorate the victims of Russia’s attacks, but also to thank the people supporting Ukraine’s resistance — “first and foremost, the Ukrainian soldiers,” Valska said. 

At the event, Valska also spoke about the importance of continued support for Ukrainian resistance to Russia. She explained that for many Ukrainian people, the conflict began 10 years ago with the Russian annexation of Crimea. 

Christina Logvynyuk ’25, a Ukrainian American who has family in Ukraine, also spoke about her experience learning about the invasion of Ukraine and constant fear for her peers there. 

“The next few days [after the invasion] were spent in a nightmarish state,” Logvynyuk said. “I was afraid to go to sleep at night out of fear that I would wake up to more mass casualties and rubble. So I would wait to go to sleep at least until the sun rose over Ukraine. That way I knew it had made it another day.”

Logvynyuk shared her translation of a poem by Victoria Amelina, a Ukrainian writer, titled “The Losses of the Ukrainian Army.” The poem describes different people killed in the war and emphasizes the personal nature of the losses beyond public casualty counts. Russian forces killed Amelina in June 2023 during their attack on Kramatorsk. 

The next speaker was Yevheniia Podurets ’26, a student who grew up in Kherson, Ukraine. Podurets spoke about how the war has made her feel “like [her] childhood and life before has forever exploded.” 

The southern city of Kherson was the first Ukrainian city to fall to Russian control. In November 2022, Ukrainian forces liberated the city. Now, Kherson remains at the forefront of Russia’s offensive and the city has been widely abandoned, with buildings destroyed and streets filled with broken glass. 

Podurets also said that anyone who believes in the right to freedom should support Ukraine as “that’s the ultimate way to support freedom today.” 

“It’s about staying true to your beliefs and who you are. It’s about carrying a Ukrainian flag under the Russian occupation even if you’ll receive death threats for that,” Podurets said. 

Ultimately, for Podurets, freedom is about living “in the way that you want to.” 

After Podurets, Oleksii Antoniuk ’24 thanked attendees for “stay[ing] committed” to the cause at a time when many people are fatigued. 

Logvynyuk urged students to continue to check in with their Ukrainian peers, saying that she “wouldn’t have been able to get through these last two years” without the support of her non-Ukrainian friends.

 “Of course, donating is great, but those personal connections, supporting your friends — you truly don’t know what that means to a lot of us,” she said

In the final student speech, Daria Figlus ’26 urged students to advocate for their representatives to continue sending aid to Ukraine. 

On Feb. 12, the Senate passed a bill with $95 billion in aid for Ukraine. The bill faces opposition in the House of Representatives, with House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., refusing to put forward the legislation due to pressure from fellow Republicans.  

“We need your help. Talk to your representatives, vote for the representatives. Write to them. You have a voice here. This is America, a democracy. You have a voice,” Figlus said. “We need them to give us weapons and humanitarian aid. We need help. So speak up. Donate to Ukrainian organizations.” 

The Ukraine House at Yale was founded in September 2021.

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The books featured were all chosen by organizers of the project for their representations of Black characters, historical figures, culture and stories. Black undergraduate and graduate students volunteered to read the books, and House staff members and student leaders recorded and edited the videos, which featured students reading aloud in the House’s library. The video series, entitled “Reclaiming our Literature,” was released on YouTube on Feb. 5. 

“The main goal is to make these Black stories, topics, events and historical figures more accessible to children in America — exposure of Black history and culture is not only important, but also a basic right of every child in our country,” Hunter Robbins ’27, one of the student readers, said. “It is a right that should not be infringed upon by any school district in our nation, or across the world for that matter.”

This project is part of The House’s larger programming for Black History Month. House Staff Members came up with the theme “Reclaiming Our Lives” for this year’s events and initiatives and wanted Black literature to be a main focus, “given the recent book-bans across the country and the push to eliminate Black history and books featuring Black historical figures from educational spaces,” Dean Timeica Bethel ’11 wrote to the News. 

The American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom released data in September that reported 1,915 documented challenges to unique titles during the first eight months of 2023, a 20 percent increase from the same period in 2022. According to the ALA report, “most of the challenges were to books written by or about a person of color or a member of the LGBTQIA+ community.”

Bethel wrote to the News that increasing representation in children’s books is “essential.”

“As someone who grew up in a low-income community and attended a school with a severe lack of resources, I remember wishing I had books to read featuring people who looked like me. As a former elementary school educator, I know that access to books like the ones we featured in this project is essential,” she said. “For Black children, seeing themselves reflected in the characters can be empowering and affirming. For non-Black children, these texts can still be inspirational and informative, and increase their level of empathy for their Black peers.”

Bethel added that increased access to a variety of texts is necessary for the development of literacy skills for children, and she expressed hope that the videos will serve as an educational resource for teachers and families. 

Steven Shepard ’27, who was a reader for the project, wrote to the News that helping increase Black representation for young children “felt amazing.” 

“As a Floridian, I can say that we didn’t have much academic representation for the African-American community, but when the few instances did show individuals like Neil de Grasse Tyson or ‘Kid President’ Robby Novak, they would stand out and engage me and other Black students,” said Shepard. 

Shepard read the picture book “Ron’s Big Mission” by Rose Blue and Corinne J. Naden, where a nine-year-old Ronald McNair, the future NASA astronaut and physicist, embarks on a mission to obtain his own library card in the segregated world of 1950s South Carolina.

Other books, such as “Josephine: The Dazzling Life of Josephine Baker” and “I am Ruby Bridges,” also focused on the stories of prominent historical figures.

“It was great to contribute to a Black History Month project that attempts to help children learn more about the world through the eyes of Black characters and through their narrative,” reader Christian Daniels ’27 wrote to the News. “I hope [the stories and videos] teach them the value of education and inspire them to be leaders in their community!”

Robbins told the News that his experience of participating in this project also helped him “to understand many issues facing the Black community on their most basic levels.” 

Robbins read the picture book “Abolition is Love,” by Cyrus Marcus Ware and Alannah Fricker and said that the book helped him further understand the meaning of the word “Abolition.”

“I realized that although I knew a lot about the meaning of abolition, there are very basic ideas that are really the foundation of what abolition means — one of those being love,” Robbins said. “I realized it is much easier to grasp these larger societal issues if one focuses on the foundational factors that are being threatened by the issues.”

The project featured 55 books, as the House will celebrate its 55th anniversary this year. 

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The conference, which took place from Feb. 9 to 11, featured speakers, panels, a gala and other events for attendees. The South Asian Youth Initiative, or SAYI — a student organization “dedicated to providing a platform for South Asians and South Asian-Americans to engage in activism, meaningful discussions, and foster solidarity in South Asia” — planned the events. Organizers reported that over 500 students attended the conference from over 30 schools across the country.

“My favorite part of the conference was being able to connect with fellow South Asian students across different universities that I would usually never get the chance to connect with — being able to hear from so many different people from different South Asian backgrounds, about their experiences with their cultural identities and how their identity informs whatever line of work they’re pursuing, and their lived experiences,” said Kyra Menon, a first-year student at Cornell University who attended the conference. 

According to Uma Bery ’25, treasurer of SAYI, funding for the conference came from several sources, including both corporate and individual sponsorships, Yale grants and the cost of the tickets. In the end, Bery reported that the budget totaled over $50,000. Local New Haven restaurants also provided meals for the attendees for free in exchange for promotions, Bery said. 

The first event on Friday was the keynote speech by Hamid Rashid, the chief of the UN Global Economic Monitoring Branch. The next morning, Avantika Vandanapu — the actress, known by stage name Avantika, who played Karen in the recent Mean Girls movie — participated in a fireside chat. Avantika is also a first-year student at Columbia University.

SAYI co-director Daliya Habib ’25 explained that, in her speech, Avantika emphasized the importance of being “joyous” as a South Asian person.

“It was really important how she spoke about not shying away from playing roles, – on screen or in a life generally – that dare to be joyous and joyful, especially in a world that otherwise stereotypes minority groups to be kind of miserable, the victim,” Habib said.

The panels, which followed Avantika’s Q&A, were organized with an “interdisciplinary approach” per Habib, instead of grouping the speakers by field or country of origin. 

Each panel hosted a variety of different speakers who were from different disciplines but shared a common South Asian identity.

“[This style of grouping] made the conversation that much more nuanced. They don’t kind of constantly have to explain, ‘I’m a South Asian person in the media space, and this is what it means to be South Asian.’ It’s more a broader discussion.” said Bery. “It ties into changing the narrative from being the victim of being an immigrant population … to embracing the more positive components to that community.”

The five panels were called Broadening Belonging; Past, Present and Posterity; Founders who Spark Change; Collective Action; and Transborder Tapestry. 

Head Panel Curator Nikita Paudel ’25, explained that organizers “put so much intentionality into every decision” in the panels and other parts of the conference.

“The most meaningful part of the conference was the conversations and connections that happened because of it,” she wrote to the News “And our  hard work paid off!”

In the evening, the organizers hosted a gala at the Omni Hotel for attendees, followed by an afterparty on High Street called ‘Chai After Dark.’

Atharva Barve, a Cornell Junior who attended the conference, told the News that the gala was his favorite event.

“I really liked the Gala, especially when everyone was dancing together because you can meet different people from different schools. I am personally on a Bhangra team so it was really cool to meet different people from different schools on different Bhangra teams and build a kind of community,” Barve said.  

Other attendees interviewed by the News said that the event inspired connection with other students, as well as embracing their South Asian identity and culture. 

SAYI co-director Keya Gupta ’25 said that hearing positive feedback from attendees was one of the most meaningful parts of the conference for her. 

“[When] the attendees tell you, and we heard this several times, that this was one of the most special weekends that they’ve had — I think nothing can compare that moment of joy, satisfaction, fulfillment that you get from hearing that,” she said. 

Last year was the first time SAYI hosted the event since the COVID-19 pandemic. Organizers said that other Yale organizations helped support SAYI in planning the conference — including the South Asian Studies Council and the South Asian Society, Dwight Hall and the graduate students and faculty members who attended the events. 

“We already are very well known across the South Asian collegiate spaces, but our goal is to make this a much more established event, more accessible to South Asian students across the country and students coming into Yale,” Gupta said. “And so that future leaders running the conference know what they should, what mistakes to avoid so that it can become bigger and better each time.” 

The organization’s website describes SAYI as the “the largest conference of its kind in North America.”

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CSC ServiceWorks is the laundry contracting service that is responsible for machine maintenance at Yale. Marisa Figueira, director of operations for the Yale College Dean’s Office and Faculty of Arts and Sciences, told the News that in August 2026, when the University’s contract with CSC is set to end, the University will begin the “request for proposal” process, where laundry vendors will present bids for a contract. 

Free laundry may not come with a switch in contractors, but the switch opens up discussion for improving Yale’s laundry systems, a central source of student ire, namely in terms of the cost of laundry and the cleanliness of laundry spaces. 

“The termination of the CSC contract is a pretty big deal for us and gives us hope, but we worry that the new contractor might not bring free laundry,” Emily Hettinger ’26, a Yale College Council senator, wrote to the News. 

Viktor Kagan ’24, who is co-leading the laundry advocacy effort with Hettinger, wrote that, unlike Hettinger, “the ending does not signify a win to him.” Both Hettinger and Kagan expressed disappointment that Pericles Lewis, the dean of Yale College, and the Yale College Dean’s Office do not seem to be taking steps toward free laundry.

Lewis said that there are insufficient funds for free laundry. Instead, the termination of CSC’s contract serves as “an opportunity for us to review how [CSC ServiceWorks] is doing and whether we want to make any changes,” he said. 

Lewis told the News that the financial aid package sent to students includes costs for unbilled expenses, which applies to laundry services. 

At Yale, students pay $1.50 for each laundry cycle, or $3 to wash and dry a load of laundry. Figueira wrote that this cost is “below industry (and local laundromat) standards.”

The cost of laundry has long been a source of student outcry, with YCC members negotiating with the Yale administration to change the policy for free and clean laundry for years. Many representatives have also included laundry policy changes in their platforms during past YCC elections. 

Hettinger said that she has been at least the third YCC member to take on the laundry advocacy role which “in itself demonstrates how long and drawn out this fight for free laundry has been.” 

While Lewis said there are currently not enough funds for free laundry, he said that he will be evaluating funding now that the contract is ending. 

“I don’t have the funds available to do that now, but we’ll be looking at the funding model when we consider renewal or switching the contract,” Lewis said. “I don’t want to promise anything because it’s a fairly expensive investment on the part of the Dean’s Office.”

Lewis emphasized programs the YCDO is currently funding, including Yale College Community Care and subsidizing student formal ticket costs. 

He did not explicitly rule out free laundry in the future. 

“After extensive work, it has become clear that the Dean is waiting for the YCC to forget about the progress on the issue and restart the progress made over the last three years,” Kagan wrote. “Each year, we provide data, images, and testimony of the inequity of charging for laundry, especially when the contractor does not maintain its machines and they are filled with mold, destroy clothing, and do not function properly.” 

Student outcry around laundry on campus has not just been about costs, but it has also focused on the cleanliness of laundry rooms, as well as the responsiveness of CSC. 

Kagan also pointed out that Dartmouth College recently terminated their CSC contract and switched to free laundry last year amid similar complaints over cleanliness. Dartmouth chose to end its contract with CSC ServiceWorks early due to complaints from students living on campus, ranging from failing machines to moldy washers, according to The Dartmouth. 

Kagan said that the CSC laundry machines are “both an equity issue and a health one,” writing that “the company disregards most, if not all, requests for support from students.”

Figueira wrote that CSC’s average response time is two days, but that the YCDO knows of instances when the response window was “significantly” outside that time frame and works with CSC to address the issue. She also emphasized that laundry users should submit service tickets when they see an issue, as there is “no concern” with creating multiple tickets.

“In partnership with the Director of Student Administrative Services, Yale College has worked with CSC to increase the frequency of preventative maintenance beyond the contract terms,” Figueira wrote. “The custodial team has also taken on additional support in the laundry rooms. They were already washing the floors and now also wiping down the machines.”  

CSC did not respond to a request for comment from the News.

Yale is one of three Ivy League universities — along with Harvard University and Cornell University — that does not offer free laundry services to students. 

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The protest was organized by a group of Israeli Yale affiliates and New Haven residents who came together in January 2023 to hold protests in response to the controversial judicial overhaul led by Rothman, a prominent member of the Knesset — Israel’s parliament — who aimed to limit the power of the Israeli Supreme Court. 

These efforts headed by Rothman have led some of the protestors to call him indirectly responsible for Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel, in which Hamas killed 1,200 people and took about 250 as hostages. Rothman ignored the advice of top Israeli military leaders — including the Israeli Defense minister and Israel’s Air Force Chief— when they warned government officials in the spring and summer of 2023 that controversial judicial legislation was leading to political instability that threatened military preparedness, per Reuters. 

“He is not welcome anywhere in Israel,” David Chetrit, an Israeli Associate Research Scientist at the School of Medicine and protestor, said. “He is not appreciated in Israel. He should not be welcome anywhere he goes.” 

According to Naftali Kaminski, a professor at the School of Medicine who was at the demonstration outside Shabtai, protestors chanted the Hebrew words “Busha,” meaning disgrace, “Ashem” which means guilty, “Fascist” and “Bring them all home,” referring to the Israeli hostages still being held by Hamas. 

At the event, Rothman placed blame for the Oct. 7 attacks on others and said the only way to solve the conflict is to “extinguish every last piece of hope that Palestinians have,” per Liam Hamama ’24, a British-Israeli who attended the event. 

Following Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, Israel responded with a formal declaration of war against Hamas and a full-scale military assault on Gaza. As of Jan. 26, Israel’s attacks have killed at least 26,000 Palestinians in Gaza, according to Palestinian health officials.

Hamama added that Rothman said Palestinians have engaged in terrorism because Israel has given them “too much hope” – an “extreme” assertion Hamama said contradicts all literature on the origins of terrorism.  

The event itself was not publicly advertised, and members of the New Haven Police Department stood outside. 

Reporters from the News were told the event was off the record, and attendees’ phones were collected as they entered. Per attendees who spoke to the News afterward, the event featured dinner, followed by a 40-minute speech by Rothman who then took questions from the audience. Some protestors were invited inside and posed questions to Rothman at the end of the event. 

The five protestors interviewed by the News noted Rothman’s role in the 2023 judicial reforms, his mishandling of the war with Hamas and his going abroad during wartime as motivations for the protest. 

Noam Savion Gaiger, an Israeli postdoctoral associate who was at the protest and the event, particularly expressed concern about Rothman’s dismissal of security warnings amid his push for judicial reform. 

“He received repeated warnings from senior figures in Israeli security. They cautioned that Rothman’s push for undemocratic legislation was creating division inside Israeli society and endangering Israel’s security,” Savion Gaiger wrote. 

Savion Gaiger said that Rothman chose to ignore these warnings and continue to advance his legislative agenda – a disregard that she claimed calls for “serious reevaluation of his responsibilities and actions.” 

Shmully Hecht wrote to the News that blaming Rothman for the Oct. 7 attacks would be equivalent to “blaming the Holocaust on a single German Jewish Banker in Berlin, or the 9/11 attacks on a Christian hedge fund manager in the World Trade Center.” 

Rothman did not respond to requests for comment.

Aaron Schorr ’24, who protested the event, added that the protest served to advocate for the safe return of Israeli hostages. Schorr said that members of the Israeli government, specifically Rothman, have not prioritized efforts to bring the hostages home.

On Jan. 27, the Associated Press reported that around 100 hostages have been freed, with around 130 still captive, while “a number” have since been confirmed dead. According to reporting by CNN on Jan. 18, the Israeli Defense Force said that they believe 27 of the hostages still being held captive by Hamas are dead. 

Savion Gaiger also noted that Rothman, as a prominent politician, should not unnecessarily leave his home country in times of crisis.

“As Israel faces a significant war, Rothman, a member of the Israeli parliament, is traveling internationally to drink cocktails with the American Jewish community instead of contributing to the war effort,” Savion Gaiger wrote.

The night following his appearance in New Haven, Rothman spoke at a Shabtai event in New York City which included cocktails and hors d’oeuvres, per the event’s invitation. 

Schorr echoed Savion Gaiger’s sentiments, adding that Rothman could have been paying his respects to the 21 Israeli soldiers who were recently killed while fighting in Gaza rather than speaking abroad at Shabtai. 

At the talk, Rothman, in addition to blaming the Oct. 7 attacks on other Israeli leaders, described Israel’s ongoing military action in Gaza as “miraculous,” with no mention of the loss of Palestinian lives, per Hamama.

In an Israel National News article on the event, Rothman is quoted as having said that Israel “must end the hopes for the establishment of a Palestinian state between the sea and the Jordan” in order to eradicate terrorism.

Joshua Li ’26, who said that he was not specifically familiar with Rothman or his policies before attending the event, told the News that he left the event with a better understanding of Rothman and the “radical” perspective within Israel.

Li said that he felt the event promoted discussion and supported the opportunity for attendees to pose questions directly to Rothman.

“I don’t think Shabtai should be ashamed of inviting the speaker because they allowed for completely free discourse regarding the speaker’s actions,” Li said. “They’re […] promoting an opportunity to see what a controversial figure has to say for himself in response to the Yale community’s overall view of him.”

Hamama, however, critiqued Shabtai’s choice to invite Rothman to speak, given that someone as extreme as him should be “completely ostracized from all civil discourse,” particularly at an institution like Yale. 

Hamama described Rothman as someone who’s “not only a racist, a Jewish supremacist, a messianic, and a religious fanatic,” but someone responsible for the Oct. 7 attack, given his persistent efforts towards the judicial overhaul, regardless of military-preparedness concerns raised by top generals and the defense minister.

On behalf of Shabtai, director Toby Hecht wrote to the News that Shabtai is “the sole sacred space in the Ivy League where honest conversation flourishes in an intimate, intellectual and welcoming setting.”

Three attendees interviewed by the News said that students were not afraid to challenge Rothman at the event, many of whom came to call him out and shame him – a “hostile” audience that Hamama said Rothman seemed not to expect.

Schorr said that Yale students and community members might have a “difficult” time understanding who this group of protesters is, specifying that the group’s simultaneous support and critique of Israel does not fit into clear ideological categories discussed in the United States. 

“It’s important that people understand that Israel still has a vibrant civil society and a society that people really care about,” Schorr said, adding that, “even when this war is happening, there is discourse happening and tension between the government and society.” 

Shabtai was founded in 1996 by graduate students Ben Karp, Michael Alexander, future Senator and presidential candidate Cory Booker and Rabbi Shmully Hecht.  

The post Right-wing Israeli politician Simcha Rothman visits Shabtai, ignites protest  appeared first on Yale Daily News.

According to their Instagram bio, the Yale Liberation Coalition is a student group focused on “working towards the liberation of all oppressed peoples.” The five topics of this event, which took place every night from Monday, Jan. 15 to Friday, Jan. 19, were colonialism, occupation, apartheid, genocide and censorship. 

The event was first announced via a joint Instagram post by the Yale Liberation Coalition, Yalies4Palestine and Mecha de Yale. Readings took place in a series of residential college common rooms at 5:30 p.m. each night. On Friday, Jan. 19, 16 people came to the reading, at which masks were encouraged. 

“The genocide that’s occurring in Gaza has awakened a lot of people’s eyes to not only what’s been happening in the Middle East, in Palestine, but also to other contemporary and historical struggles such as those in the Congo, in Sudan, Puerto Rico, Hawai’i — struggles in which oppressed peoples have been fighting their colonizers, their oppressive regimes for freedom,” said Angel Nwadibia ’24, one of the organizers of the event. “We wanted this week to be an intersectional gathering of different campus affinity and activist groups as well as different publications in which we come together to discuss not only what’s happening in Gaza, but also to begin to draw the connections between different oppressed people of the world.” 

Nwadibia was referring to Israel’s ongoing military offensive in Gaza. On Oct. 7, Hamas launched a surprise attack against Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking 253 people as hostages, according to Israel’s Foreign Ministry; Israel responded with a formal declaration of war and a full bombardment of Gaza. As of Jan. 21, the date of the most recent estimate according to Palestinian health officials, Israel has killed 25,105 Palestinians in Gaza — more than 1 percent of Gaza’s pre-war population.

On Friday, one student reading was the poem “If I Must Die” by Refaat Alareer. This poem circulated widely online and in the news in December when the well-known poet and professor was killed in an Israeli air strike. 

Throughout the week, readings for the event also included the poem “My City’s Ceiling Is Too Tight” by Hala Shurouf, “Automating Banishment: The Surveillance and Policing of Looted Land” by the Stop LAPD Spying Coalition, an article on genocide published by the Martin Luther King, Jr. Foundation and the recent International Court of Justice Brief from South Africa when the country accused Israel of committing genocide in the Gaza strip.  

The link to the complete list of readings, as well as PDF files, can be found in the bio of the Yale Liberation Coalition’s Instagram page. 

At the beginning of the event, a student organizer asked that attendees not applaud at the end of each reading. 

“We ask that this is a space of study, not performance,” she explained. 

Some student attendees were drawn to the event not just to learn more about the issues but also for the sense of community that the space offered.

One such attendee was Zada Brown ’24, who noted she appreciated the togetherness and dialogue the event provided.

“I was curious about the group. I have definitely been reading a lot of news, trying to educate myself, but it’s nice to have a space to do that with other people. I came for the community, I guess, and to hear what other people are thinking about and talking about,” said Brown who attended successive days of the event. “It’s part educational, but also an affinity space for some people.” 

The event on Friday took place in the Jonathan Edwards College common room.

The post Students attend “Reading Week for Gaza”  appeared first on Yale Daily News.

Around 200 students surrounded the Women’s Table on Cross Campus during the protest. The event featured speeches by students and professors as well as chants from the crowd denouncing Yale’s “complicity in genocide and war crimes.” 

The walkout was promoted in a joint Instagram post by Yalies4Palestine and Yale Law Students for Justice in Palestine.

The post’s caption referenced a statistic, which is from United Nations monitors, that reports the Israeli military offensive to have damaged over 70 percent of schools in Gaza. The Associated Press reported last week that Israel’s military campaign in Gaza is among the deadliest and most destructive in recent history.

“As Yale students return to campus, we are walking out of classes, recognizing that there is no back-to-school in Gaza…” the post read. “There will be no business as usual as long as Gaza is under siege.” 

The protest follows months of student activism related to the Israel-Hamas war. On Oct. 7, Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israel, in which Hamas killed at least 1,200 people and took 250 people as hostages, according to Israel’s Foreign Ministry. Israel responded to the attack with a declaration of war and full bombardment of Gaza. Israel has killed more than 24,000 people in Gaza through its military onslaught, Palestinian authorities said earlier this week. 

The walkout, which marks the first student protest of the semester, also took place the day following Martin Luther King Jr. Day, with one speaker describing an alignment between King’s work and the goals of the walkout.

“We stand resolute in the tradition of Martin Luther King Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi in speaking truth to power,” a speaker at the walkout said to the crowd. “Violence only begets more violence. It creates a cycle that can seem never-ending, but it must end. And when we look beyond our differences to reach that common humanity it will end.”

The protest grew in size after noon, and students stood with flags and posters. One sign read “Demands” with a list of points, including “Call for Ceasefire Now,” “Fund Palestine Studies” and “Defund Genocide-Denying Programming and Partnerships.” Chants included “Down, down, down with occupation; up, up, up with liberation,” “From Turtle Island to Palestine, occupation is a crime” and “Apartheid kills; Yale pays the bills.”

Fareed Salmon ’27 attended the protest to stand in solidarity with Gaza. Salmon told the News that he thinks the Israeli attacks on Gaza have been unfair to Palestinians.

He also added that this Saturday, which was a global day of protest in support of Palestine, motivated his attendance at the protest.

“I’m here today because I don’t think I’ve been as involved as I wanted to be in this effort,” he told the News. “I’m Muslim, so this is a very important topic and thing for me.”

Organizers of the event declined to comment and directed the News to the student who was in charge of press for the event. This press liaison declined to comment to the News and insisted that the News stop interviewing protest attendees. 

In a separate joint post, dated the morning of the protest, the two student groups — Yalies4Palestine and Yale Law Students for Justice in Palestine — provided a list of ‘do’s and don’ts’ for the rally were provided, along with a list of demands directed at Yale. The suggestions for students included reading a statement before walking out of their classes and informing their professors of their desire to read a statement ahead of time. The list of don’ts included a “DON’T speak to the press” line, advising students to instead direct press to a “designated press liaison” or a “marshal.”  

The press liaison directed the News to a copy of the Yale Palestinian Solidarity Coalition’s press release explaining the goals of the protest which is dated Jan. 16.

The press release outlines five demands directed at the Yale administration: public support by the University for “a ceasefire and an end to the occupation,” the suspension of “all genocide-denying programming and partnerships,” the implementation of boycott, divestment and sanctions in investment policy and divestment from weapons manufacturing, support for Palestinian studies and scholars and the protection of freedom of expression on campus while acting “against anti-Palestinian and Islamophobic harassment.”

Many of these issues have remained a source of student concern over the past months, particularly student safety on campus and divestment from weapons manufacturing. Student safety concerns grew in November with the arrival of ‘doxxing trucks’ on campus which displayed the faces of students with the label “Yale’s Leading Antisemites.”

The press release specifically references an incident in October in which a student wrote “Death to Palestine” on a whiteboard outside a Grace Hopper College suite. In response, Head of Grace Hopper Julia Adams emphasized Yale’s commitment to “academic freedom” — a reaction the press release deems a “double standard.”

The press release also mentions University President Peter Salovey specifically, noting that despite having spoken out against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Salovey has not  spoken out against Israel. The press release calls on Yale to refuse business and collaboration with Israeli universities. 

In his initial Oct. 10 statement following Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, Salovey condemned the attacks in the “strongest terms”

In Salovey’s “remarks on compassion and civility,” on Nov. 3 he noted that there are “waves of hatred” toward Jewish, Muslim, Israeli and Palestinian people and emphasized that antisemitism and Islamophobia are “empathetically against” the University’s values.  

Salovey’s statement about the Russia-Ukraine War in March 2022 detailed Yale’s support for Ukrainian scholars and students, academic collaboration with Ukraine and stated that the University and the Investments Office support companies who stand with Ukraine. 

“His reluctance to name Israel — as he named Russia — as the perpetrator of countless war crimes and the most intense bombing campaign in modern history” suggests “racist double standards,” the press release states.

The press release references Yale’s history of divesting from companies that provided assistance to the perpetrators of the genocide in Sudan in 2006. 

The press release also raises concerns over Yale’s response to public safety issues and cites Salovey’s Nov. 3 message, which states that Yale Public Safety has “worked with the FBI and other agencies on campus safety.”

The press release further accuses Salovey of “collusion” in working with the FBI to monitor campus safety, which the release says “perpetrates a climate of surveillance and criminalization of solidarity with Palestine.” 

According to the press release, “variations of these demands” have been sent to the Yale administration by members of the Yale community, but did not receive any acknowledgment or response from administrators. 

These demands include a letter on Nov. 2 and a follow-up letter on Nov. 20th, which, according to the statement, Yale administration “refused to acknowledge.” 

In response to questions from the News, the University spokesperson referred to Salovey’s Dec. 7 statement called “Against Hatred.” The statement urges “open exchange of ideas” and points students toward resources for safety and mental health support. In the same statement, Salovey also announced new educational programming on Islamophobia, a designated space for Middle Eastern and North African students — seemingly in response to years of student advocacy in support of a separate MENA-designated cultural space— and the hiring of a second Muslim chaplain. Salovey also announced a new standing committee to address the needs of MENA and Muslim students. 

“Students in Palestine cannot go back to school, so that was the reason for the protest. That is why I thought it was important and necessary [to come to the protest],” Freddie Swindal, a New Haven resident who attended Tuesday’s walkout and demonstration, told the News.

Yalies4Palestine has since posted information about a “week of reading for Palestine” slated for this week.

The post Students walk out of class to stand with Gaza appeared first on Yale Daily News.