Yet it doesn’t need to — nor should it — be this way. As drug use is becoming destigmatized and understood as not a criminal issue but rather a health and socioeconomic issue, Yale can and must do more to prioritize public health and prepare community members to respond. 

We write this piece to outline recommendations that we have kickstarted, in partnership with and inspired by Yalies who have been fighting for better drug policy and resource access on campus. Last year, after conversations with off-campus student groups that work on drug safety across Yale and New Haven, we proposed and passed a $2,500 funding bill in the Yale College Council, or YCC, Senate to purchase 25 boxes of Narcan from local pharmacies. These boxes were then provided to Students for Sustainable Drug Policy, or SSDP, at Yale to more adequately institute methods to train its students and staff with resources to reduce fatalities. 

Our project ran into many roadblocks. Then, Yale was not necessarily ready to accept the institutional burden, nor was it easy to purchase Narcan. Only one pharmacy — the Walgreens Pharmacy inside a Yale New Haven Hospital building — was licensed to prescribe one Narcan prescription per day, per patient. 

We weren’t deterred. Instead, we grabbed groups of friends to have multiple Narcan containers prescribed to us each day until we ran out of funds. The pharmacist was supportive of our efforts but was legally restricted in the amount of Narcan they could provide daily. We then gave the 25 boxes of Narcan, with two nasally-administered overdose-reversing treatments, to SSDP to distribute to students, off-campus groups and community spaces. 

Since spring 2023, the landscape of Narcan has drastically changed. In March, the Food and Drug Administration announced that Narcan would be available for purchase over-the-counter starting July 2023. In December, the Biden-Harris administration called on schools and institutions to have Narcan stocked and readily available. While we work closely with SSDP and Yale Emergency Medical Services, or YEMS, to ensure Narcan is available on Yale’s campus, it is time for Yale to shed itself of its War on Drugs mentality from 1990 and step instead into 2024: students, staff and faculty need and deserve training on administering Narcan — on campus, off-campus and beyond. 

Student initiatives and funding efforts can only function for so long. YCC’s budget is not large enough to train and supply every student with Narcan, and SSDP and YEMS are not expansive enough to train and educate everyone on the issue. 

The time for broad action and preparation is now. We must become proactive in preventing overdose, not reactive. Yale cannot wait for something to happen and realize it must meet the moment. By then, it’ll already be far too late.

We call upon Yale to take up the burden of safe drug education, overdose prevention and harm mitigation. It’s time to live in 2024 and ensure that every member of the Yale community has the means to protect strangers and loved ones from preventable death. Yale’s hierarchy must shift. We must strive to radically shift University policy to prioritize students and New Haven residents’ well-being over the protection of Yale’s image. 

JULIAN SUH-TOMA is a junior in Benjamin Franklin College and is president of the Yale College Council. Contact Julian at julian.suh-toma@yale.edu. 

VIKTOR KAGAN is a senior in Pierson College and chief of staff for the Yale College Council. Contact Viktor at viktor.shamis-kagan@yale.edu.

The post SUH-TOMA & KAGAN: Narcan can save lives. Why is Yale so slow to act? appeared first on Yale Daily News.

“Maestro” showcases slices of the great American composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein’s illustrious career and private life, set against a brilliant score composed of Bernstein’s own works. It explores a complex tension, as the American Film Institute notes, between “the role of ‘performance’ in both art and life” and the pressures this generates for Bernstein’s relationships. 

Singer and “Maestro” director and star, Bradley Cooper, dig deep in their screenplay to reveal a complex love story, one that begins between a man and his music and becomes infinitely complicated by his love for people. “I love people so much,” Bernstein’s character says in the film, “that it’s hard for me to be alone. Which is part of my struggle as a composer.” Cooper brilliantly captures the intensity of Bernstein’s passion with a performance that leaves viewers captivated.     

While Bernstein’s professional life flourishes in black and white, his personal life bleeds into color as he struggles to understand himself, leading him to a darker place where his wife Felicia, played by Carey Mulligan, criticizes him: “Your truth makes you brave and strong and saps the rest of us of any kind of bravery or strength.” 

Cooper and Mulligan certainly don’t shy away from their exploration of love and hate. They chase it at every possible opportunity and ensnare us for the entirety of the film’s two hours and nine minutes. 

The version of “Maestro” you see on screen is undoubtedly a work of art many of you may soon experience in Singer’s presence, but how many of you will read the architectural treasure that facilitated the story’s magic  — the screenplay? I’d like to direct our attention to the script because there is so much to learn from Singer’s and Cooper’s tight, potent writing. As a screenwriter, I want to highlight the importance of the art form that precedes every single gesture, articulation and orchestral note in the film.  

Singer and Cooper construct the story first through music, as we “HEAR the piano beginnings of the Postlude Place …” on line one. Bernstein’s masterful compositions are not only written into many of the scenes; they drive them. When Singer first became involved in the project 10 years ago, he pitched the story to its first director, Martin Scorscese, with a playlist of Bernstein’s music. His interest in framing the story musically didn’t stop there — Singer made dozens of playlists, which he then delicately weaved throughout the script to generate the film’s authenticity and set its tone. These playlists then became the film’s album, making Singer more than a screenwriter; he is the film’s musical director, too.    

 The Academy Award-nominated “Maestro” script begins with a Bernstein quote that the screenplay revolves around: “A work of art does not answer questions, it provokes them; and its essential meaning is in the tension between the contradictory answers.” The screenplay brilliantly provokes an exploration of Bernstein’s life and its themes of love and sexuality, facilitated by Singer’s extensive research on his characters. Singer and Cooper met with Bernstein’s children and listened to their stories, traveled to the Library of Congress and read some of Bernstein’s letters which revealed more of Bernstein’s sexuality. They also read John Gruen’s book “The Private World of Leonard Bernstein” and listened to Bernstein’s and Felicia’s voices on Gruen’s tapes, which drove Singer and Cooper to dig into Bernstein’s and Felicia’s marriage. 

Despite some of the film’s historically familiar content, Singer’s extensive research enables him to uncover the intimate, often untold stories behind these well-known figures. As Brian Price, a screenwriter and lecturer in the Film Studies department, wrote to me, Singer’s films “may be filled with facts, but Josh never lets those facts get in the way of telling the truths, something only great artists can do.”

I know that I will certainly be singing praises for the “Maestro” screenplay and film long after Friday’s screening. With so many well-crafted films under Singer’s belt — including “Spotlight,” “The Post” and “First Man,” not to mention collaborations with Steven Spielberg — I firmly agree with Dudley Andrews, Professor Emeritus of Comparative Literature and Film Studies: “Josh Singer simply never misfires.”

Friday’s screening of “Maestro” and discussion with Josh Singer are hosted by the Yale Film Society and sponsored by the Traphagen Alumni Speakers Series, Yale College Office of Student Affairs and the Yale University Department of Music. It will be a full house, so be sure to reserve a ticket on Yale Connect while seats are still available. 

OLIVIA CEVASCO is a sophomore in Grace Hopper and an editor for the News’ YTV desk. Originally from Bronxville, NY, she is double majoring in English and Film & Media Studies. Contact her at olivia.cevasco@yale.edu.

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My father, much like many French policymakers, strongly believes in bringing back mandatory service. Under President Emmanuel Macron’s new rules, French youth over 16 years old will have the opportunity to serve for a month, but policymakers are also considering bringing back the old mandate for military service, where every French citizen would be required to serve for a minimum of 6 months. Ostensibly the “Service National Universel” aims to transmit French republican values and maintain national cohesion, but its return is of course tied to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — and a possible second Trump presidency. 

The election is still six months away, but at the time of writing, Donald Trump looks like the favorite. “Gun to my head, I’d give him between a three-in-five and two-in-three chance of winning the Electoral College, pricing in polling, legal issues, abortion, and everything else,” says Milan Singh ’26, who is an opinion columnist for the News. 

Trump has repeatedly stated that he would end American aid to Ukraine. From stating that he would let Russia do “whatever the hell they want” to NATO allies that don’t meet their financial goals in the alliances, to blatantly answering “yeah” when asked whether he would not defend NATO countries, it’s clear the alliance is in peril.

The United States is currently the largest contributor of both military and humanitarian aid to Ukraine by far. If this aid were cut off, Europe would be faced with some very tough decisions. 

In anticipation of a possible second Trump administration, European leaders have begun discussing plans for a world without American support. Macron has renewed his calls for France to reinstate mandatory military service and for Europe to embrace a doctrine of “strategic autonomy” — that is, to maintain a large enough defense force to abstain from American assistance.

Europe is already inching in that direction. Germany, the Netherlands, Spain and Romania have bought 1,000 Patriot missiles, systems that are able to eliminate airborne threats, while Denmark is sending nearly all of its artillery to Ukraine. But the fact remains that the United States has provided the lion’s share of military aid, and right now, Europe simply does not have the capacity to fill the gap should Washington turn isolationist. 

All of this comes as the Ukrainian counter-offensive has stalled in the face of legions of Russian conscripts. Although the Ukrainians have access to important anti-armor and anti-air weapons systems as well as artillery capabilities like CAESAR and M109 systems, which are used for long range bombardment, they simply don’t have enough munitions and personnel to sustain the war at its current pace. Fortunately, Europe does have the financial firepower to fill in for an absent America. But, if Europe does not rapidly increase defense spending, military aid, and pivot to war time economies, the situation for Ukraine looks rather bleak.

At present, it’s not clear that Putin would stop at Kyiv. During his tenure as president, he has launched military interventions in several nations: Mali, via Wagner PMC; during the Syrian civil war on the side of Assad; in Georgia; and in Crimea in 2014. If Trump follows through on his promise to kneecap NATO and Ukraine falls, Putin would only be emboldened. 

Today it’s Ukraine, and tomorrow it might be the Baltic States and Moldova. Top officials in some of these countries are already sounding the alarm. The German defense minister publicly worries that Putin might attack a NATO country within the next five to eight years.

That is not to say that further Russian invasions are imminent or even likely. Still, Europe must prepare itself for a world where America takes a diminished role in defending it from Russian aggression. The fact of the matter is that Europe has the money to support Ukraine’s defense and its own. Whether or not Trump wins, it is in the continent’s interests to pursue strategic autonomy. What remains to be seen is whether there is the political will to do so. Although Europe has the necessary endowments to achieve strategic autonomy and guarantee the safety of the continent, policymakers and citizens alike are still reluctant to prepare for a world without American assistance. Whether we see this depends on both Brussels these coming years — and in America this November.

LUCA GIRODON is a sophomore in Branford College. Contact him at luca.girodon@yale.edu.

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In this vein, let me pitch three new classes that can teach Toni Morrison. 

The first is “Magical Realism through Morrison.” As the name implies, this class covers the magical realism present in Morrison’s books. It can also, at times, delve into the prose of Isabelle Allende and Gabriel Garcia Marquez, two Latine writers known for implementing magical realism in their stories.

Here is a case study: take a church setting. There is a Kentucky Baptist church, green grass, a white picket fence, a gray sky with rain, a pastor sitting on a bench and a faint sun. All of a sudden, the sun crashes on the pastor. But there’s a hidden reason for the sun falling. It adds meaning to the book. Maybe the pastor is really a sinner. Or maybe the pastor wants to commit a crime in the future. That’s magical realism. 

Magical realism enhances a fictional book in ways so profound that they become inarticulable. Putting fantastical thinking into prose, for one, can boost the prose’s theme. When an insurance agent “flies” from the roof of a building in Ohio in “Song of Solomon,” that agent is a tool to explain the motif of flight in the book — flight from family — running away from things, as opposed to finding oneself from within. Professor Sarah Mahurin GRD ’11 is qualified to teach this course, given her extremely well-written 2011 dissertation on migration and oscillation in the modern American novel. Mahurin’s track record of incorporating African American literature into Yale’s intellectual environment is storied, as is her reputation for standing up for students in troubled crises and supporting emotional issues as heavy as those weaved into some of Morrison’s work. 

The second class is “Morrison: Singularity in Character.” This class is half a writing workshop and half a seminar. In the first half of the course, students will read enough of Morrison’s material to learn what it’s like to only write about one character, one identity, one race, one gender or one ethnicity. Morrison wrote only about African American folk, and that was for a reason: to show the oppressor what it was like to be oppressed. 

When authors choose to include just one type of person in their book and make all of their characters belong to one community, they are purposely excluding other communities, and for good reason. That exclusion subconsciously influences the reader. The reader starts to think that the characters being written about carry great power, perhaps more power than they are realistically assigned in society, by horrible norms. Only speaking of one type of person flouts said norms. 

The latter half of the class is a workshop. Students write a 4,000-word short story in which they only include one kind of character in their story. Perhaps they’ll choose aliens, astronauts or desperate housewives. Then the writer — and eventually the reader — will fully understand the power involved in writing a single perspective. At first, writing something singular feels backward, but upon second glance, it’s revolutionary in nature. Visiting Professor Natalie Diaz is qualified to teach this course. As a MacArthur fellow and Pulitzer Prize winner, she can relate to Morrison’s accolades and prose. She has the creative gift that would be necessary to teach a workshop like this. 

The third class is “Toni Morrison’s Canon.” This is a general lecture course on all of Morrison’s work. It’s high time that Yale teaches a course solely focused on the famed author. Besides teaching all of her prized novels, the course must teach her personal history and her career at Random House, Cornell and Princeton. The class must put equal weight on all of her books, and not, as I would, just illuminate “Song of Solomon” and “Beloved.” All should be equally loved and appreciated. This class should be available to anyone interested: any student ripe for learning. Professor Daphne Brooks should lead this course. She is already the professor at Yale who teaches the most Morrison material. This class should inadvertently emphasize one thing: that dead, white, crusty male authors don’t tackle the more important issues that Morrison and her other contemporaries tackle, although a few like William Faulkner also adeptly fill Morrison’s niche. Faulkner, indeed, did push idiosyncratic themes for his society’s time, and on occasion wrote about race. 

Yale is no stranger to institutional mistakes. It has committed many. Not teaching enough of Ms. Morrison is a mistake that I will highlight at every turn of my post-graduate, irrelevant life in Washington, D.C. Teach more Morrison, or more columns and personal conversations with the above-mentioned faculty will follow.

ISAAC AMEND graduated in 2017 from Timothy Dwight College. He is a transgender man and was featured in National Geographic’s “Gender Revolution” documentary. In his free time, he is a columnist for the Washington Blade. He also serves on the board of the LGBT Democrats of Virginia. Contact him at isaac.amend35@gmail.com.

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Heritage is the top conservative think tank in Washington, D.C., founded in 1973 during the Nixon administration to serve as a counterweight to the liberal-leaning Brookings Institution. Its 1981 report, “Mandate for Leadership,” contained 2,000 policy recommendations for the incoming Reagan administration; Heritage brags that 60 percent of these were eventually adopted. 

Today, it is all but the official Republican Party think tank. The analogous institution on the Democratic side of the aisle is the Center for American Progress; Neera Tanden, its founder and longtime president and CEO, currently serves as a senior advisor to President Biden. 

Ahead of the election, Heritage has been quietly working on “Project 2025”: a $22 million effort at drawing up a blueprint for a second Trump term. The proposals being put forward are extreme and out of touch with American values. But we need to take them both seriously and literally. 

Heritage has feted allies of Viktor Orban, the right-wing authoritarian prime minister of Hungary, in Washington. Its head, Kevin D. Roberts, describes Orban as “a very impressive leader”; calls the European Union’s assessment of democratic backsliding in Hungary under his tenure “incorrect”; and says that “there are lessons from a lot of countries, including Hungary” for American conservatives. When asked whether Biden won the 2020 election, Roberts says “no” — there were “a lot of unknowns about two counties in Arizona, multiple counties in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin” — and points to an internal “election-fraud database at Heritage that shows a lot of instances of fraud.”

Project 2025 has released a white paper analyzing the ways a Republican president could use executive orders to restrict abortion rights under the Comstock Act, a largely unenforced law passed in 1873 — before women had the right to vote — that bans sending birth control and abortion medication via the postal service. Jonathan F. Mitchell, the lawyer who drafted Texas’ near-total abortion ban, told the New York Times, “We don’t need a federal ban when we have Comstock on the books.” Make no mistake: Republican think-tankers want to bring religion into government and into your bedroom. 

Russell Vought, Trump’s top budget official and a close confidant widely speculated to be Trump’s future chief of staff, is advising Project 2025 as well as running his own think tank, The Center for Renewing America. The CRA, too, has a list of priorities for a Trump presidency. One of those items is “Christian nationalism”; another is invoking the Insurrection Act to suppress protests. The CRA’s document calls for revoking FDA approval of “chemical abortion drugs” such as mifepristone — a medication used in almost half of abortions — and defunding Planned Parenthood. Vought has written on X, formerly known as Twitter, that he is “proud to work with” William Wolfe, a former Trump administration official, “on scoping out a sound Christian Nationalism,” while Wolfe deleted his own posts calling for ending sex education in schools, surrogacy and no-fault divorce nationwide. 

Donald Trump has studiously avoided taking a public stance on major abortion-related policy disputes, including the Comstock Act, abortion pills and what sorts of judges he might appoint. Sure, he’ll brag on Fox News that he is “proud” to “get Roe v. Wade terminated.” And he’ll gesture supporting a 15-week national ban. But he mostly doesn’t want to talk about these issues in the general election because he probably knows that his party’s position is out of touch with the American people and fundamental American values — separation of church and state, freedom of speech and women’s right to control their own bodies. 

If Trump is reelected, he will be appointing judges and regulators who will make decisions on abortion policy. The most recent Republican Party platform says the 14th Amendment applies to unborn children and supports a constitutional amendment defining life as beginning at conception. Project 2025 includes a “presidential personnel database” of potential candidates for Trump administration jobs. To get their names into the database, candidates must agree with statements such as “Life has a right to legal protection from conception to natural death.” I wonder how regulators drawn from that shortlist will rule on abortion-related matters. 

If you think that abortion and recreational sex are wrong — God bless, you’re entitled to your views. But don’t try and force them on the rest of us.  

MILAN SINGH is a sophomore in Pierson College. His column, “All politics is national,” runs fortnightly. Contact him at milan.singh@yale.edu.

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A group of revolutionary communists, also known as Revcoms, and I marched into Professor Snyder’s “Hitler, Stalin, Us” class and announced “No class as usual today — we are in a state of emergency.” 

We did not announce “no class.” We didn’t force anyone to go anywhere, much less to “evacuate,” which would imply danger. No one’s safety was put at risk, contrary to various online comments off the News’ article that we were threatening Professor Snyder.  

Our goal was to open up debate, not shout down Professor Snyder. We boldly issued our challenge to debate the past and future of the communist revolution, an invitation I’d personally delivered months ago, as the News noted. He ducked the challenge and the issues raised, including why he hasn’t condemned U.S. support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza — while at the same time he continues to drum up support for America’s proxy war with imperialist rival Russia over Ukraine. As for the claim that the Revcoms did “not engage in any sort of discussion,” some students did stay in the classroom, and a principled, substantive dialogue followed.

The News included a few quotes from me in the latter part of the article after framing the issue in terms of “evacuation” and “shouting” people down. But the article did not convey what motivated our emergency intervention: the immediate, extreme crises humanity faces — from Gaza to the stripping away of women’s reproductive rights, to looming Trump fascism, possible nuclear war over Ukraine, and a climate crisis careening towards catastrophe.  

The debate over the dangers humanity faces, and their real solution, is urgently needed — and the News can play an important role in fostering this. This is all the more important given the Yale administration’s vague restrictions on our presence on campus, despite promoting an “open campus” that protects speech and nurtures critical thinking. If the university acts to curb our presence, it would again shut down any debate over a real alternative outside the “acceptable discourse” of the current political and economic order.

RAYMOND LOTTA is an advocate for the new communism of Bob Avakian. Lotta has written and lectured extensively on the Russian and Chinese revolutions. He’s the spokesperson for Revolution Books, New York City. Contact him at: revbooksnyc@yahoo.com. 

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We soon learned Yildirim’s resignation letter was only the tip of the iceberg. Her Twitter includes statements like “Israel killed their own citizens on October 7th, there was no beheaded babies, there was no raped women, there was no babies were put into an oven [sic],” “all zionists must be institutionalized. they are a severe threat to all humans [sic],” and “zionists are the lowest form of human existence [sic].” Her conspiracies and race-science-like language about Jews speak for themselves.

As DEI Chair, Yildirim’s mission was to “represent the voice of underrepresented minority students and discuss ways to improve the support and retention of graduate students.” Her comments don’t reflect this ethic: “i truly deeply hate everyone who supports this genocide i hope they suffer from worse pains than they inflicted on palestinians. I don’t wish them death, i wish them an incredibly excruciating pain that would make them beg for death [sic].” 

All of these statements were made in the months preceding her resignation, which begs the question why Yale did not step in to remove her from her position in the first place. But this shouldn’t come as a surprise. Since Hamas’ Oct. 7 killing spree, Yale has done little to quell Jew-haters who empower Hamas.

In February, signs reading “No IDF on Campus” were hung across the walls of the Yale Law School. As with Yildrim, no action was taken by the Yale administration to address these overtly discriminatory acts — not even a condemnation. 

Later that month, a statement that graduate students delivered aloud to an administrative forum at the Yale School of Drama refers to the Israel Defense Forces as “IOF” — Israeli Occupation Forces — implying that all of Israel is occupied territory and must be destroyed. The statement claims that the deaths of Oct. 7 occurred “at the hands of the IOF,” and that the atrocities against Palestinians mirror “conditions imposed on Jews in Nazi Germany” — a Holocaust comparison that compares Jews to the people who made them dig their own graves before shooting them in or gassing them down. It adds that “Zionism is a form of white supremacy” — even though much of Israel is Arab, Middle Eastern, and Black — and puts out the conspiracy that Israel’s “colonial practice is first tested on Palestinians before being exported to the brutal regimes of the world,” beginning in the “four subdivisions of occupied Palestine.” Apparently, all of Israel is occupied Palestine, and these students want to destroy all of it. Again, these events speak for themselves.

Yale is fortunate that Yildirim resigned from her position at what she describes as “one of the most powerful educational institutions in a country directly enabling and funding this genocide.” She was disappointed by Yale’s unwillingness to “contribute to the ongoing efforts to stop the genocide of Palestinians” — efforts which, in her view, include human torture against Israelis. So she quit. But why did she have the option? 

Perhaps the answer lies in the fact that Yilidrim is no different from many of her colleagues in the American Studies and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies departments. And Yale will not speak out against this hateful swath of their community. Yale American Studies professor Zareena Grewal, for instance, posted on Twitter on Oct. 7, “My heart is in my throat. Prayers for Palestinians. Israeli [sic] is a murderous, genocidal settler state and Palestinians have every right to resist through armed struggle, solidarity. #FreePalestine,” and reposted on Oct. 8 a news video detailing the Hamas attack, with her own caption reading, “It’s been such an extraordinary day!” In the American Studies Department, which one of us passes daily to and from class, multiple faculty office doors were marked with maps of Israel covered by the words, “From the River to Sea Palestine will be free.” In the halls of the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies department, there is a poster with a caricature of Netanyahu eating a watermelon slice shaped like Israel, blood dripping from his mouth and hands, which rings of anti-Jewish blood libel. 

Yet Yildirim’s efforts are not reduced to two antisemitic departments. At the end of her resignation letter, she thanks her fellow graduate students for nominating and electing her and “for their support and leadership throughout my time as the DEI committee chair.” Yes, Yildirim was elected to the Graduate Student Assembly, a student government organization supposedly representing all of Yale’s graduate students. Rather than condemning her hate, Yildirim’s peers propped her up, and Yale’s administration continues to remain silent. 

Examples like these abound, but the message is clear: Yale fails to proactively condemn students like Yildirim — who encourage real violence against Jews — and remove them from their roles for violating university policy, instead cheering them on as champions of inclusivity.  Current university administrators are the last generation of academics empowered to shift the tide before these students take over in their roles. Without Yale’s intervention, all we can do is wait for Yildirim’s calls to come to fruition. We demand Yale not let us see that day.

SAHAR TARTAK is a sophomore in Pierson College. Contact her at sahar.tartak@yale.edu.

NETANEL CRISPE is a junior in Grace Hopper. Contact him at netanel.crispe@yale.edu

The post CRISPE & TARTAK: Yale graduate students deny Hamas’ responsibility for October 7 and compare Jews to Nazis — and it’s Yale’s fault appeared first on Yale Daily News.

What is the reason that the press has tiptoed around the motivation issue — except for Newsweek — I note that Ms. Perry voluntarily gave an interview to the “New Haven Register” shortly after the murder on the topic of her relationship with Mr. Jiang, so there is no privacy claim to shield her from press attention as to Mr. Pan’s motivation. 

Based on the facts I’ve been able to find, it seems to me that the causal and motivational details surrounding this murder are extremely relevant in today’s culture of violence and racial tensions. The underlying facts of this case are practically sui generis, yet as it has been reported, it’s just another mindless homicide. Your readers should be given the entire story.  

JAMES LUCE is a member of the Yale College class of 1966. Contact him at jaume@sbcglobal.net.

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Chess players have to study an array of openings to win. Popular ones include the Sicilian, the Caro-Kann and the Reti. But there is one opening that stands out to me like none other: the Queen’s Gambit. 

The Queen’s Gambit can only be used against beginner and intermediate players since most advanced players know how to defend it right away. Here’s how it goes: white moves their pawn to d4, black moves their pawn to d5 and then white moves a second pawn to c4. In doing so, white is offering up a pawn that can be captured with no collateral in return. When black accepts the Queen’s Gambit, they capture white’s pawn and automatically edge one point up in the game. 

When really digging into the opening, though, the Queen’s Gambit is a sacrifice that white makes to better their chances down the line. It’s a purposeful sacrifice; an intentional, thought-out one. It’s not a mistake to move that second pawn to d4. It’s a smart offering that allows for better positioning. All sorts of items will fall into place because of the sacrifice: white’s bishop diagonals become more successful and their attack on black’s kingside flank is improved. 

Success, to me, is a lot like the Queen’s Gambit. Yalies are ambitious. Half want to be president of the United States one day and the other half want to either run a private equity firm or be some laureate in physics and math in 20 years. But if you want to accomplish any of those things, you have to play life like you would the Queen’s Gambit. You have to make sacrifices. 

The biggest sacrifice successful people make is misery. Success takes hard work, and much hard work is incredibly, twistedly miserable. 

I got into Yale because I was a track star in high school. Then female, I was training for the women’s indoor two-mile, and my coaches made me do a painful workout: mile repeats. Mile repeats include five or six miles run only one minute apart from each other, and each mile should be run approximately one minute slower than your target mile race time. It was rainy and wet and miserable, and I ran the first repeat in six minutes. The second was at 5:55, then 5:50, 5:50, 5:45 and the last was 5:40. My coaches were yelling down my throat, and I threw up after. But I did at least 30 other workouts in that year that were just as brutal. 

Weeks later I clocked a 10:49 two-mile on an indoor track and became the third fastest two-mile runner in the state of Virginia. I graced Yale’s heavenly, Ivy-clad gates because of that time. Here’s the thing: misery — and I mean horrible, grand, sweeping misery — pays off in the long run. Misery is what builds success. Happiness doesn’t. But misery is an emotional sacrifice, just like the Queen’s Gambit. 

Scientists have long studied the dynamic between short-term and long-term rewards. The 1972 Stanford marshmallow experiment showed that children who were able to wait 15 minutes for a second marshmallow without eating the first ended up with higher SAT scores in later years. In 2011, researchers in the British Journal of Psychology found that a subject’s willingness to postpone receiving an immediate reward in exchange for future benefits was closely linked to their “health, wealth, and happiness.” Delayed gratification is so profound and well received that it has seeped into popular culture where self-help gurus like Tony Robbins push its philosophy onto audiences. 

Indeed, sacrificing short term happiness for longer term gains is what makes people successful. 

This might seem intuitively obvious to most readers. But this isn’t apparent in post graduate life: tales of mid-tier managers running amok on strip club benders and stories of bosses succumbing to pyramid schemes abound. 

My addition to the delayed gratification field of academia is that misery – and I mean the pure, unadulterated, uninhibited kind – is actually beneficial over the course of many years and produces ecstatic, happy emotions once done in repeat.

Accomplishments don’t come from happy times or joyful memories. They come from desolate work sessions and strategic planning, just like the kind you find in chess. 

So, next time you think about achieving a goal, remember the Queen’s Gambit. Move your pawn to c4. 

You won’t regret it. 

ISAAC AMEND graduated in 2017 from Timothy Dwight College. He is a transgender man and was featured in National Geographic’s “Gender Revolution” documentary. In his free time, he is a columnist for the Washington Blade. He also serves on the board of the LGBT Democrats of Virginia. Contact him at isaac.amend35@gmail.com. 

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Funding for CSCU per student has decreased 21 percent since 2008, leaving schools that have been severely underfunded for longer than a decade. In order to prevent two community colleges from being shut down, the Connecticut Board of Regents (BOR) decided to merge all the individual colleges into one mega-institution, despite a opposition petition signed by 1,400 members of the CSCU community and joint opposition statements from all five unions under the CSCU umbrella.

The members of the BOR — former CEOs, venture capitalists and union-busting lawyers with no backgrounds in education — are running the CSCU system like a failing business, and it is no surprise that students and teachers are being punished the most. Tuition for students will be raised thousands of dollars, and more than 650 full-time educators along with 3,500 part-time employees will lose their jobs. The ramifications of this will mean great increases in class sizes and the cutting of special education and mental health programs, along with extreme burdens placed on professors who won’t be compensated for their increased responsibilities.

Meanwhile, Connecticut lawmakers are planning to swell the state’s “rainy day fund” from $3.3 billion to $4 billion by 2025 — apparently bailing out the state’s failing education system is not worthy of emergency funding. 

Austerity measures are taken periodically, because the contradictions of capitalism inevitably lead to underpaid workers, those who produce the commodities, not being able to afford the excessive amount of products and services they collectively create. This is called underconsumption, which induces a period of economic decline, and austerity measures are taken by governments at all levels. They raise taxes and cut government spending to balance a budget deficit. They create a vicious cycle of poverty for the working class. As the most vulnerable members of our society, austerity measures deny public goods which should be free or affordable to poor citizens, worsening their financial insecurity.  

Another example of austerity measures burdening the working class is after the 2008 recession in the United States. Forty-three states cut higher education spending, 31 states cut health care services and 44 states cut employee compensation. According to a 2020 study from the Center of Law and Social Policy, quite a few states used the budget crisis and lack of federal aid to underfund social security nets and “actively implement anti-worker policies.” The study highlights the Florida unemployment insurance system, which “was essentially designed to limit benefits and deny claims.” It continues, “Nine other states cut the duration of unemployment insurance benefits after 2011, leaving their systems woefully underfunded and unprepared in today’s crisis.” The report goes on to emphasize that the states with the worst unemployment services had the highest concentrations of Black and Latinx workers in low-paying jobs. Austerity measures are one of the primary factors that maintain institutional racism.

In the case of CSCU schools, rising cost of living and stagnant wages make it difficult for students of working class families to pursue public higher education as tuition increases. With college enrollment declining, the schools run deficits to cover the cost of under-enrollment and pass these costs back on to the working class by cutting education spending and raising tuition. These measures inevitably force more students out of the public higher education pool and perpetuates the cycle. Even worse, the CSCU spending cuts are not unique to Connecticut public universities. There is a nationwide trend of slashing budgets for higher education. 

Although it is very unlikely that the ruling elite who control the BOR have a shred of sympathy for anyone outside their wealthy clique, these austerity measures are not taken because of their disdain for the students and teachers being affected by their policies. They are taken because the government is an organ of class control: it is run by capitalists to serve their interests against the interest of the workers. Such is the nature of the state under capitalism. While thousands of students and teachers have been kicked to the curb, Connecticut saw its defense spending increase by $3 billion in 2022 per the orders of the White House, so more weapons can be sent to fund imperialist wars and genocides.

A system that is incapable of educating its populace or increasing their standard of living is not fit to continue. Let’s be clear: the resources are available to cover this $140 million deficit. Simply pulling a fraction out of the “rainy day fund” or public expenditure on defense could cover the deficit easily. It is time to stop begging the capitalists for piecemeal reforms to problems they can easily solve. Instead, we ought to consider who decides where state funds are disubstituted: the capitalists or the people who have to foot the bill for the problems their system created?  

SEBASTIAN WARD is a sophomore in Timothy Dwight College. Contact him at sebastian.ward@yale.edu.

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