Jones, a Black man from New Haven, maintained his innocence throughout his incarceration, insisting that New Haven Police framed him for murder. Judge Janet Hall overturned the trial after Jones’s attorneys demonstrated that police utilized witness coercion, an ineffective defense council, manipulated evidence and dubious testimony to convict an innocent 19-year-old and sentence him to 65 years in prison. 

“For a long period of time, there was a pattern and practice of misconduct that was not just a matter of bad apples but a matter of consistent tactics that were deployed,” Yale English professor Sarah Stillman, who has studied alleged misconduct by the NHPD, said about the case. “Systemically, we saw witness coercion, pre-interviews –– where they would coach witnesses before they would turn on the tape recorder, routine reliance on faulty eyewitness testimonies.”

Stillman led the investigative journalism project Holding Me Captive, which documented New Haven police misconduct in wrongful conviction cases over a 20-year stretch.

Several other Black New Haveners including Scott Lewis and Stefon Morant, were part of a litany of corrupt trials that stretched from the late 1980s to the early 2000s and have seen their wrongful convictions overturned in recent years.  

Jones’ case is not rare for New Haven. Sixteen of the 32 Connecticut residents who have been exonerated since 1989 were from New Haven. 

According to Judge Hall’s August 2023 ruling on Jones’ case, New Haven detectives illegally suppressed witness testimony and encouraged false testimony in his trial.   

The New Haven Police Department did not respond to several requests for comment. 

NHPD suppressed witnesses, hid confessions

In 1992, the New Haven Police Department arrested Jones for the murder of Eddie Harp, who was shot and killed in his car while driving by Saint Raphael’s Hospital in the Dwight neighborhood. 

According to ‘Free Maleek,” a short film about Jones’s wrongful conviction, eight hours after the shooting, Gene John, confided in an undisclosed individual that he and a man named Tyrone Spears killed Eddie Harp. The individual turned this information over to New Haven detectives, who illegally suppressed the confession, Hall ruled. John was killed six months later and his confession never made it to trial. 

In Hall’s ruling she wrote that instead of using John’s original confession, New Haven detectives pressured Spears to claim that there were three shooters instead of two and that Jones was the third. This was despite clear physical evidence ruling out the possibility of three shooters, according to Hall’s ruling. 

Alex Taubes LAW ’15, Jones’ attorney, describes these tactics as the “carrot and stick” of the New Haven Police Department. 

“If you’re a felon with multiple serious felony charges against you, the carrot is that we can get you out of trouble in exchange for your testimony against a targeted person,” Taubes said of Spears’s testimony. 

Sheila McCray — the sole witness of Harp’s murder — was never called to testify at Jones’s original trial, according to Hall’s ruling. 

According to an interview with McCray featured in the documentary, New Haven police pressured her into claiming that Jones was the shooter even though she did not believe so. 

“If you’re a law-abiding citizen with no criminal record like Sheila McCray, they have the stick, things they use to threaten people and coerce them into trying to testify,” Taubes told the News.

Jones was convicted in 1995 and began his 65-year prison sentence that year.

Jones’s struggle for exoneration

Jones was 19 years old when he was wrongfully convicted and had witnessed his son’s birth just two weeks prior. During his 31-years behind bars, Jones, on top of facing isolation from his family and friends, exhausted numerous legal appeals to try and overturn the court’s decision. 

“Maleek’s journey to where he is today had many setbacks and challenges throughout the Connecticut court system,” Taubes told the News. 

After Jones’ trial, he filed an appeal. Then, Taubes said, after his appeals were complete, Jones filed habeas corpus cases in the state courts. When those cases were unsuccessful, Jones appealed those habeas corpus cases. 

In 2015, Jones’ case was reopened after he successfully appealed for New Haven’s federal district court to listen to previously suppressed evidence that he thought could exonerate him. 

When Jones’s case was reopened, McCray was subpoenaed and identified Spears as the second shooter, who confessed to the crime during the same trial. 

In her August verdict, Judge Hall also wrote that Jones argued that his public defender, Leo Ahern, did not hire an independent investigator for the case despite having access to one. This prevented Sheila McCray’s testimony from ever making it to court. Hall also wrote that the police illegally excluded Gene John’s confession from the trial, which incriminated Spears as the  second shooter and did not mention Jones. 

Hall affirmed that police pressured Spears into claiming that three shooters, not two, were involved in Harp’s death and that Jones was one of them. She wrote that Jones’s conviction was contingent on this false evidence and deprived of the other two testimonies. 

“The State’s case against Mr. Jones was thin,” Hall wrote in her decision. ​“It hinged solely on the testimony of Mr. Spears, a self-interested witness whose account of the shooting … was nearly impossible to square with the ballistics evidence.”

Although free, Jones will be required by law to follow a curfew, submit to drug tests, wear a GPS bracelet on his leg, stay with a relative in North Carolina and remain under federal supervision for at least 60 days while the state attempts to appeal the federal decision and reinstate his conviction. 

If the state loses its appeal and decides not to retry Jones, according to Taubes, most of the restrictions currently imposed would be lifted. 

“It would not be until the charges are dismissed that he would not be under any restrictions,” Taubes said. “But even having the charges dismissed doesn’t undo the injustice. He’s still lost all of this time.” 

The Office of the State’s Attorney in New Haven did not respond to a request for comment on their appeal. 

Yale professor Stillman, who has maintained a friendship with Jones for over twenty years, provided insight into his emotional state from when she last spoke to him after the trial. 

“He sounded really vibrant and joyful and ready for the next stages of this long, long fight. He’s worked tirelessly to turn over every stone in his case and never stop pushing back,” Stillman said. “I think this ruling from the federal judge is a testament to Maleek’s legal intellect and persistence. It’s a remarkable step one victory that he’s gotten himself to where he is now.”

The New Haven District Courthouse is located at 141 Church St. 

The post Maleek Jones, who spent 31 years in prison for a murder he did not commit, released last month appeared first on Yale Daily News.

Now, Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont is taking action.

In July, Lamont appointed former federal prosecutor Diedre Daly to lead an independent investigation into the alleged ticket falsification. The scandal was uncovered after a 2022 Hearst Connecticut Media Group investigation first exposed internal documents at a Montville, Connecticut police station that showed supervisors knew about hundreds of falsified tickets in 2018 but did not take measures to discipline the officers responsible. 

Separately, a private investigation this past June found that officers were underreporting the number of drivers they stopped that were either a Black or non-white Hispanic person — prompting broader concerns about potential racial profiling.

“I have ordered a comprehensive and independent investigation of possible misconduct by the Connecticut State Police based on the information brought to light by the Connecticut Racial Profiling Prohibition Project,” Lamont wrote in a July press release. “I have great faith in the overwhelming majority of our troopers, and to protect public confidence in them we must get to the bottom of this and learn how it happened.”

Thousands of fake tickets prompt inquiry into underreporting of Black and non-white Hispanic drivers pulled over

Hearst’s reporting found that four officers — Kevin Moore, Daniel Richter, Timothy Bentley and Noah Gouveia — falsely reported that they had issued 600 tickets throughout their patrolling region in Montville from January to September 2018. The ticket records were managed by a department supervisor who noticed that they did not correlate with dash camera footage of the same traffic stops. 

Hearst’s investigation revealed that department heads, instead of properly acknowledging the fabricated reports, buried them from public scrutiny and did not implement internal reforms.

The department then gave Moore and Richter a 10-day and two-day suspension, respectively, while Bentley and Gouveia retired before supervisors implemented any disciplinary measures against them. 

When Ken Barone, head of the Connecticut Racial Profiling Prohibition Project, first read the Montville case, he said he thought that it could not be an isolated incident. 

“We had seen enough,” Barone told the News. “Four people were found to have falsified racial profiling records and we found eleven other people who were never investigated.

Barone oversaw an investigation that audited thousands of state traffic stop tickets from 2014 to 2021 and concluded their report in June 2023. The project was a collaboration between the Connecticut Racial Profiling Prohibition Project and the University of Connecticut’s Institute for Municipal and Regional Policy. 

The larger report declared with a “high degree of confidence” that 300 of 1,300 troopers submitted false reports for over 26,000 traffic stop incidents. Data analysts estimate that the true figure could fall at around 58,000 false reports. 

The Connecticut Racial Profiling Prohibition Project’s investigation also revealed that officers who had issued legitimate tickets failed to enter the information into the state’s racial profiling system. This violates a 2013 Connecticut law that mandates that officers must enter a driver’s race and ethnicity, among other identifying factors, when making a traffic stop.

 The investigation found that officers significantly underreported race and ethnicity when a driver was either a Black or non-white Hispanic person. The Project concluded that this was likely an attempt to counterbalance the disproportionate rate at which state troopers pull over Black and non-white Hispanic drivers. Failure to record racial profiling data when making a stop could, according to the same 2013 law, result in a department losing state funding. 

Experts, police offer differing explanations 

Kenneth Gray, University of New Haven professor and former FBI agent, suggested that state troopers may feel incentivized to overrepresent their traffic tickets to boost their departmental evaluations. While Connecticut law prohibits the use of ticket quotas, officials are allowed to use traffic ticket data “in the evaluation of an individual’s work performance.” 

“My speculation is that if you show that you’re being very active in traffic violations, then you’re going to get rewards for that,” Gray said. “You may get a better car. You may get a better shift. You may get promotions.” 

At the federal level, both the Department of Justice and the Inspector General of the Department of Transportation are investigating the ticket scandal.

Punishments levied against those responsible for mass-scale falsifications could include charges of fraud or being included on the Brady List, a record of police misconduct that bars officers from participating in future trials, working certain shifts or conducting other duties, Barone and Gray speculated. Both said that the officers involved in the scandal will likely face questions about their credibility in future trials.

“By falsifying data, it calls into question everything that those troopers have done,” Gray told the News. “There’s the potential here that previous criminal violations that a trooper was responsible for investigating may be reopened because of the police officers’ lies. If you lie about this, what else would you lie about?” 

One month ago, the lawyer representing a Connecticut man charged with murder filed a court motion requesting to know whether the officers involved in the murder investigation were also involved in the false ticketing scandal. 

The scandal’s pervasiveness encouraged Lamont to seek a secondary independent investigation into the state’s ticket-issuing history. 

“Daly’s investigation into this is for the governor, to let him know what the problems are,” Gray said. “I’m sure there will be changes to come about from the governor’s office because of this.” 

During a press conference in July, former Connecticut State Police Union president Andrew Matthews argued that both the falsifications of tickets and the failure to input racial profiling data stemmed from a lack of technology in officers’ vehicles. 

He claimed that one-third of the department still did not have the proper technology in their assigned cars to enter the information about traffic stops themselves. 

Matthews said that instead, officers often called traffic stop records into dispatchers. Miscommunication between officers and dispatchers, he implied, could explain the ticket inaccuracies. 

Barone doubted Matthews’s explanation. He described how in the Connecticut Racial Profiling Prohibition Project’s study, the team allowed state police troopers to make up to 12 mistakes — including an incorrect date, badge number or age of the driver –– in a single record and still count it as a match. Only on the 13th mistake was a ticket marked as falsified.  

Barone believes both racial profiling inaccuracies and ticket falsifications resulted from intentional police misconduct. As reports uncover new findings in the scandal, Barone said he wonders how much misconduct may pervade other areas of Connecticut policing. 

“If you falsified this many ticket records, you may have also falsified a large number of stops that only resulted in a warning,” he said. “Internally, the department needs reform so that they’re capable of holding themselves accountable and that may not come until outside entities implement those reforms.” 

In a statement in July, Stavros Malka, a Connecticut State Police colonel, said he welcomed Daly’s investigation and said that the department had already implemented changes in light of the audit, though he did not specify what changes the department had made. 

Daly’s newly formed investigation team said in a statement that they would release their findings in the next three to six months. 

Connecticut State Police issued 800,000 tickets from 2014 to 2021.

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The city settled with Cox on June 9, almost exactly a year after he was paralyzed while being transported to the New Haven Police Department’s detention center following his arrest at a Juneteenth block party. The final sum is the largest settlement in a police misconduct case, surpassing the $27 million agreed to by the city of Minneapolis after police officers murdered George Floyd in 2020. 

“We extracted every single cent that we could possibly extract from the city of New Haven so that Randy could live life the best he can based on his current condition,” Cox’s attorney Lou Rubano told the News. “But, again, there is no amount of money in the world that can justify these horrific injuries that he has sustained.” 

The summer also saw long-awaited consequences for the officers involved in the case.

Two officers, Jocelyn Lavandier and Luis Rivera, were fired by the Board of Police Commissioners for their role in the arrest on June 7. Two more officers, Oscar Diaz, who paralyzed Cox while driving him to the station in a police van, and Sergeant Betsy Segui, were fired on June 28. The fifth, Ronald Pressley, avoided dismissal by retiring in January.  

An internal affairs investigation released by the NHPD in March had found that the officers were reckless, lacked compassion and were in violation of both state law and numerous department policies. 

As shown in body camera footage, police placed a handcuffed Cox in the back of a transport vehicle without seatbelts. They then drove 11 miles above the speed limit to the NHPD’s detention center after arresting him on June 19, 2022. The vehicle’s driver, Officer Diaz, abruptly braked en route near the intersection of Prospect and Grove Street. The resulting momentum flung Cox across the vehicle’s holding area and slammed him into its inner metal wall. Diaz later claimed this braking was necessary to evade a potential accident.  

After checking on Cox and calling for paramedics, Diaz chose to continue driving to the detention center, violating NHPD policy. Once the vehicle arrived, Diaz and four other officers forcibly moved Cox into a holding cell despite his pleas for help. In one instance, Cox insisted, “I can’t move,” to which Lavandier replied, “You’re not even trying.” 

Paramedics arrived 15 minutes later and took Cox to the Yale-New Haven Hospital. 

A year later, the incident has left him permanently paralyzed. Cox suffered a cervical spine injury and fracture, his immune system has been compromised and he has a chronic and permanent respiratory condition. According to attorney Luo Rubano, his life expectancy was shortened by 15 years. 

Rubano also estimated that providing Cox with basic day-to-day care for the rest of his life would cost a staggering $16 to $22 million. 

Cox cited these injuries and costs in the civil lawsuit he filed against New Haven last October. The case, which was overseen by U.S. District Judge Maria Garcia of New Haven resulted in both parties agreeing on the $45 million sum to resolve all claims against the city of New Haven. Cox had initially sought $100 million in the lawsuit.  

“Today’s settlement agreement is an important and sobering part of this accountability process,” New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker said at the time. “We trust that this settlement will allow him to receive the support and medical care he needs to move forward. The city of New Haven will continue to do everything we can to assist him in his journey.”  

Of the $45 million settlement, $30 million will be covered by the city’s insurance and $15 million will be paid by the city itself.  

Although the case was settled two months ago, only $20 million of the promised $45 million has been transferred to Cox’s family. About $20 million of the $30 million insurance proceeds has arrived. The other $15 million from the city will not be ready until October or November. 

Cox is still in a West Haven facility receiving what Rubano described as inadequate care for his injuries. Rubano said Cox’s hope is to eventually use the settlement money to buy a home in the New Haven area equipped with around-the-clock care. 

The firings ignited intense backlash from the Elm City Local Police Union, which represents NHPD officers.

“The Union is urging all members to proceed with the utmost caution in this post Police Accountability reality. A reality where they may be deemed ‘reckless’ just for doing their job,” the union wrote in a statement. “We will uphold our oath, but we cannot and will not do so by unnecessarily jeopardizing our careers or personal safety.”  

For Cox’s family, the firings represented long-delayed accountability after almost a year of waiting. When the officers involved were charged with misdemeanors by the Connecticut state’s attorney last November, the family blasted the charges as being insufficient. 

According to Elicker, the NHPD has made changes to the department’s conduct procedures since Cox was paralyzed.   

“The New Haven Police Department has instituted a comprehensive set of reforms, updated its policies and procedures on the transfer of people in custody, and required department-wide training on duty to intervene,” Elicker wrote in a statement on June 9. “The officers involved are being held accountable by the police department and in court.”  

Cox’s legal representation was led by nationally prominent civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump.

The post Randy Cox case settles for historic $45 million, four New Haven officers fired appeared first on Yale Daily News.

Last Friday, Avelo Airlines celebrated flying out its millionth customer from the Tweed-New Haven Regional Airport. The flight, which departed at 2:25 p.m. from Tweed to Fort Myers, Florida, marked a triumphal milestone for the airline company, which commenced operations at the airport a mere year-and-a-half ago.

“It was really a validation for our purpose to inspire travel,” Avelo Airlines Head of Communications Jim Olson told the News. “Before we came to Tweed, we’d only just launched an airline a few months earlier in Los Angeles. It was a testament to the affordability, convenience, and reliability that we’re offering.”

To commemorate the accomplishment, Avelo Airlines gifted the 182 passengers of last Friday’s free flight tickets. The event boasted appearances from the CEO of Avports — the airport operations and management company that manages Tweed — Jorge Roberts, Mayor Justin Elicker and state representatives. 

“There are so many people from our community that are getting jobs in this airport,” Elicker said at the event. “At all levels of the economic spectrum, that is a great thing for us.” 

Avelo Airlines arrived at Tweed in November 2021 and offered a few nonstop Florida destinations that quickly took off in popularity. Travelers — from Connecticut residents with second homes in Florida to frantic tourists — rapidly decided to utilize Tweed’s newfound convenience.

“I can’t tell you how many times a week I hear about somebody else who’d never flown before or very rarely was able to fly and suddenly they’re flying multiple times a year because air travel became accessible, affordable and convenient,” Tweed’s spokesperson Andrew King told the News.  

King attributes Avelo’s expansive growth to creating 300 new jobs in Tweed. He also claimed that the New Haven airport is the second most underserved airline market in the country. 

The increased traffic through Tweed has also benefited restaurants and cafes operating within its terminals. 

Christian Festa, co-owner of G Cafe Bakery at Tweed New Haven Airport, told the News that within a year they have been able to increase from just a few employees to over 11 in both locations. 

“The growth at Tweed has been great,” Festa wrote in an email to the News. “We made a decision early on to take a bet on Tweed. Since G Café Bakery started service in the terminal, our bakery products have been exposed to over 1 million passengers.”

Tweed’s future plans include extending the current runway to accommodate a more extensive network of airline travel and increased traffic. The airport is currently attempting to pass an environmental assessment test in order to secure their future plans.

The study shows that Tweed expects 1.2 million passengers to come through the airport on an annual basis, according to King. The airport went from zero to 330,000 passengers in 2022.

King noted that the New York Times recently listed New Haven in their 52 Places to Go in 2023. This recognition is a promising sign for Tweed, its workers and the greater New Haven community to welcome new tourists, he said. 

 “New Haven is on the map,” King commented. “There was a really great meeting a week ago about the possibilities that are in front of us as a city with that sort of recognition that people see the good things that are here and now there’s a way to easily get there.” 

Tweed-New Haven Airport was founded in 1931. 

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Last Monday, the Connecticut General Assembly’s transportation committee held its first public hearing on HB 5971. At the hearing, 80 people shared testimony, with some of those in support of the bill detailing personal accounts of near-fatal accidents. 

In 2022 alone, 385 Connecticut residents died in traffic accidents, a 22 percent increase from the 302 fatalities the year before. Addressing traffic accidents has become a matter of personal significance for many committee members as last month, State Rep. Quentin Williams was killed in a wrong-way driver collision.

“Traffic violence is personal to me because I have almost been hit several times due to cars not obeying traffic laws on my way to work,” Aishwarya Pillai MED ’23 wrote, testifying in support of the legislation. 

Pillai added that she has had to personally treat victims of accidents at several high-risk intersections around New Haven. One of these cases, Pillai wrote, involved a law student who was hit at the intersection of York Street and South Frontage Road. The student was struck after visiting his sister at the hospital and died while receiving treatment. 

During the hearing, Pillai explained that drivers around the South Frontage Road and York Street intersection, as well as many others in the city, regularly speed and run red lights because of limited penalties for doing so. The bill’s proposed speeding camera installments would ostensibly fix this problem by automatically flashing photos of drivers’ license plates and fining drivers after traffic violations.

 “I pretty much walk everywhere I go and witness so many drivers dangerously speeding and running red lights across the city,” Abigail Roth, a member of Yale’s Traffic Safety Committee, told the News. “With so many people being injured and killed by traffic violence, it feels really important to push for change.”

Roth, who testified in support of the bill, said she has been pushing for greater traffic safety legislation in Connecticut — including automated enforcement — for a decade. 

New Haven considered a red light camera proposal in 2009 after the deaths of a Yale medical student and a young girl the year before. Two years ago, the state legislature proposed another piece of legislation aimed at tackling traffic safety. The legislation, called the 2021 Transportation Safety Act, outlined the creation of a “Vision Zero Council” — a statewide policy research council — to combat traffic-related fatalities. But neither bill implemented automated traffic monitoring. If passed, HB 5971 would be the first of its kind to do so. 

Concerns about automated traffic regulation largely revolve around discrimination and privacy infringement. During the hearing, Carol Platt Liebau, president of the Connecticut-based Yankee Institute, testified in opposition, arguing the bill would breach individual privacy rights. 

“The people of Connecticut have the right to be secure in their property and to go about their business without being watched,” Liebau said. 

Proponents, meanwhile, maintained that Connecticut’s automated traffic monitoring would follow similar models in other states, only taking photos of license plates. 

“I think people don’t understand that the camera just takes a picture of the license plate,” Andrew Giering LAW ’11, who testified at the hearing, told the News. “It doesn’t take pictures of people’s faces; it won’t be used to record crimes. It’s a public safety measure and as long as safeguards are in place, I don’t know how valid these privacy concerns are.” 

Lior Trestman, who is a member of The Safe Streets Coalition, a New Haven organization advocating for increased road regulation, testified at the hearing arguing that most privacy concerns regarding the bill are excessive. Trestman postulated that the bill’s opposition instead stems from an inclination to speed on roads along suburb-to-city commutes. 

“These concerns primarily bubble from people who are not representing cities,” Trestman told the News. “In my mind, they come across as not wanting the people who live in suburbs and traveling into the cities to get tickets and be held accountable for the speed at which they’re driving and the damage they’re causing.” 

Opponents including Liebau also contended that the cameras could disproportionately impact racial minorities. Liebau pointed to Chicago’s automated traffic monitoring system, which ticketed Black and Latino areas at twice the rate of their white counterparts.

But Trestman argued that the bill’s preventative measures addressed these claims too. 

“One thing that’s built into the law as it’s written is that the vendor isn’t allowed to make money based on how many tickets they issue or how many fines they collect so they aren’t incentivized to issue more tickets,” he said. “They don’t get to choose where the cameras go either. Every location can be suggested by the city and then approved by both the local traffic authority and the State Traffic Administration.” 

Trestman also suggested issuing ticket fines proportional to drivers’ incomes, as well as installing camera warning signs before the camera itself. He said he believed such measures could alleviate the economic burdens of ticket fines while also promoting safer roads for everyone. Additionally, Trestman noted that the automated ticketing systems replacing some police officer enforcement might save time for New Haven’s police department.

If implemented, speeding cameras would be installed first in school zones and pedestrian safety zones. Then, cameras would be installed in high-crash zones as identified by the Department of Transportation’s crash map. 

Of the 80 people testifying in the Committee’s public hearing, 73 testified in support of the legislation. 

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The showings, hosted by the Schwarzman Dome, involved a vocal and instrumentalist ensemble that performed songs and spoken word ranging from Robert Frost’s “Choose Something Like A Star” to Arnold Schoenberg’s “Notturno for Harp and Strings.”

“Nicole and I had worked on some musical theatre projects (Word Nerd and A Chorus Line), through which we recognized that there was a surprising lack of student-run classical music projects that combined vocal and instrumental performance on campus,” Choi told the News in an email. “Especially given the abundance of vocal and instrumental talent on campus.”

Choi and Lam hand-picked both the vocalists and instrumentalists — which involved a sextet of violinists, violists, a cellist and a piano player — for the program through connections previously made within Yale’s musical groups.

“We had three to four vocal rehearsals and two orchestral rehearsals before Thanksgiving break and a dress rehearsal during the week of performances,” Choi explained. “I’m known for my preference of short and compact rehearsal schedules.”

Both performances shined in Yale’s Schwarzman dome, a rotunda space frequently used for arts projects on campus. Choi and Lam chose the space particularly because of its unique acoustical properties and reserved it through Yale’s Creative and Performing Arts application.

“I had a meeting with Dean Krier for administrative and logistical questions regarding the Berkeley College Orchestra when I was informed that the dome would be opening to two student projects this semester,” Choi said. “I was interested in how the blend of vocal and instrumental sounds would work there.”

The lighting for “2 x 2,” managed by Lam, also added to the experiential nature of the performance: at times, the room grew pitch black, held only by warbling basses or sopranos, to bounce alive again with flashes of orange and yellows. The audience seating arrangement was also decidedly experiential: Choi and Lam placed certain spectator seats next to vocalist and instrumentalist seats for a more immersive experience.

Their program title, “2 x 2,” referenced the multiple dualities within the piece: two musical directors, two ensembles, and two nights of showcases. These couplets became apparent to the musical directors from the beginning, they explained toward the end of Friday night’s showcase.

“The theme of duality has always existed within 2 x 2 since the beginning,” Lam told the News in an email. “We wanted to take all these dualities and combine them into a holistic, artistic experience.”

Choi and Lam, in addition to conducting the entire performance, occasionally recited spoken word between sections of strings or vocals. Among them were 20th-century poems by Herbert Howells and Edward Elger and a 18th-century Latin poem by Giovanni Pergolesi. These, combined with the echoing music and brilliant lighting, tugged at a range of senses and emotions throughout the show.

“I really liked that it was a smaller, more intimate performance,” audience member Quinn Murphy ’25 said. “The biggest thing I took away was an appreciation for the people at Yale. On a random Thursday night, I can go to a small performance and hear such incredible music live.”

The Schwarzman Dome is open for reservations year-round. Its Creative and Performing Arts projects typically debut within the last two weeks of each semester.

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Roshni — meaning “light” in Hindi — featured four of Yale’s South Asian dance teams alongside four acts from first-years, sophomores, juniors and seniors. The event also included individual acts like singing and juggling. Yale’s four teams regularly perform around campus and each boasts a distinct style of South Asian dance. 

Kalaa, which opened the showcase, performs classical Bharatanatyam, Kathak and Kuchipudi styles of Indian dance. The group practiced weekly for two hours and every day leading up to the Woolsey Hall performance. 

“Kalaa is usually for people that have had dance experience before,” Maanasa Nandigam ’25 told the News. 

MonstRAASity — a play on the word “Raas,” a form of Gujarati folk dance — followed Kalaa. The dance style was faster-paced than the slower, traditional Kalaa, and performers held sticks that clicked together on various beats. 

Raas is predominantly performed in the Indian state of Gujarat and, as such, cultivates a strong sense of Gujarati community on campus. 

“It means a lot,” Raj Pandya ’24 told the News. “There’s nothing else on campus that’s specifically for Gujuratis so it’s really nice to connect with them [other members].” 

The Jashan Bhangra team came next, adorned in customized bhangra wear embroidered with a sparkling “Y” on the back. The clothing was uniformly shimmering and colorful, with splashes of light greens, purples, blues and yellows. Bhangra’s costuming, like that of all of the other dance teams at Roshni, embraced South Asia’s celebration of colors. 

Yale’s Bhangra team is competitive and performs at national competitions. It involves faster-paced music similar to Raas, often emphasizing songs from Punjab — the state in India where Bhangra originates. 

A notable diversity of members comprise Yale’s Bhangra team, as none of the groups are exclusive to South Asian auditionees. 

“We are an open team to people who are not Punjabi and that makes the team much better,” Chiraag Sachdev ’26 told the News. 

He continued that he appreciates the diversity of cultural perspectives represented by the team. 

Rangeela closed the team dance segment of the showcase, performing recognizable Bollywood hits like “Badtameez Dil” while also fusing sound bites of Western and hip-hop oriented music into their setlist. Rangeela’s modern palate of both genres is familiar to many in the South Asian community, especially those who grew up in America. 

“As somebody who listens to a lot of Bollywood music and hip-hop, being able to dance to the music I’ve been hearing since I was little was something I couldn’t pass up,” Pranav Pattatathunaduvil ’25 told the News. 

Dhvani, a new classical Indian music group featuring Carnatic and Hindustani vocalists and musicians, also performed at the showcase. 

In addition to Yale’s South Asian music and dance teams, a number of class and individual acts shined in this year’s Roshni. The class acts — performed by a small group of South Asian Society students from each year — competed with one another through an audience cheer meter. The senior dance team came out victorious with a resounding cheer of applause after their performance. 

The individual acts involved a number of singing and technical acts. Pranav Pattatathunaduvil ’25, Shrea Tyagi ’25 and Ojas Mehta ’25 all sang Bollywood songs while Arnav Narula ’25 shared a juggling performance. 

“Attending Roshni was a wonderful experience that allowed me to connect back to my Indian roots and heritage,” audience member Avi Patel ’26 said. “It allowed me to regain a sense of my culture amidst the busy life of a Yale student.” 

The South Asian Society hosts one main dance event for each semester. Its next showcase, Dhamaal, will occur between March and April 2023. 

The post Roshni lights up Woolsey Hall with annual performance appeared first on Yale Daily News.

Remus’s talk on Sept. 20 commenced the Ludwig Citizenship and Equality Speaker Series, which seeks to educate law students on leadership and management within the public sector administered through the Tsai Leadership Program. 

After graduating from Yale Law, Remus clerked for Justice Samuel Alito LAW ’75, worked under the Obama Administration as a deputy assistant to the President, general counsel of the personal office of Barack and Michelle Obama and the Deputy Counsel for Ethics — all before becoming Biden’s White House Counsel. 

“[Her] career … is an example of the kind of nonlinear career trajectory followed by many Yale Law graduates,” Ludwig Program Director Margie Alder wrote in an email to the News. “This series aims to highlight careers with a goal of providing students with insight into both traditional and nontraditional career paths.” 

Yale Law graduates can be split almost evenly between public and private sector work. Among the Class of 2021, 98 graduates went on to work in private sectors — which includes law firms, business and industry — while the other 110 opted for public sector careers in government, public interest law, judicial clerkships and education.

Many law students are unsure of which field to pursue. Among the many variables to consider is the work-life balance of certain public sector jobs. 

During her lecture, Remus spoke on work-life balance and burnout. She recalled taking up an electoral law group under Biden’s campaign while five months pregnant and eventually having to leave the job due to fatigue and overcommitment. 

“I’m an older student — I’m in my mid 30s,” Noah Hoffman LAW ’25 told the News. “I asked her what work life balance was like in the West Wing because that’s on my mind a lot as I think about what’s going to come after law school.”

Several Yale Law students said the new Ludwig Series is a helpful tool to contextualize both the climate and opportunities of public sector career paths. 

Sam Feineh LAW ’24 said the alumni speaker series is helpful because it demonstrates the multiple paths one can take with a YLS degree. 

The career paths Remus discussed were novel to some. Allura Landsberg LAW ’25 suggested a few panels from alumni less than five years out of school. For many still exploring niches in public sector work, the Series’s next speaker will hopefully provide similarly broad and unexpected post-grad experiences, Landsberg said.

“Sometimes, I feel like it can be hard to think through what steps you should be taking to get to certain goals,” she continued. “Having someone that has gone through it recently and knows how systems currently work would be really helpful.” 

The Ludwig Series has already formulated a list of additional speakers. Their scheduled lectures will take place throughout the rest of the year.

Correction, Oct. 18: The titles and former positions of Dana Remus were clarified.

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