'Public relations ploy': Yale faces criticism over new 'Center for Law and Racial Justice'

Yale University Law School is launching a “Center for Law and Racial Justice” in addition to “the established units committed to the study of race and ethnicity.”

Yale President Peter Salovey explained in a letter to the Yale community that the Center “will be a hub for teaching, research, and policy work on legal aspects of racial justice, oriented around a successful pedagogical model of turning classrooms ‘inside out’ and enabling students to learn by doing.”

Salovey stated that students would “learn by doing,” as students will participate in “teaching, research, and policy work.”

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National Association of Scholars Communications Coordinator Chance Layton told Campus Reform that the Center is likely a “public relations ploy.”

“Criminal justice reform is an essential process in this country,” explained Layton. “While the new center at Yale appears to be a means of including the campus in this nationwide project, it’s clear from the article and Salovey’s own statements that this is simply a public relations ploy.”

Layton noted that Yale professors are already working on their own initiatives to contribute to criminal justice research. However, because Yale is being sued by the Department of Justice for racial discrimination, “Yale wants to own that research, portraying itself as a wholly ‘antiracist’ institution.”

In reality, Layton says that “the university has led the most aggressive neo-segregation of any campus in the United States and actively racially balances its classes. For Yale, reform must begin at home.”

As Campus Reform previously reported, the United States Department of Justice is suing Yale University for allegedly discriminating against White and Asian-American students.

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A two-year investigation from the Department of Justice found that “Yale University illegally discriminates against White and Asian-American applicants in its undergraduate admissions process, thus violating the Civil Rights act of 1964.”

The investigation also found that Asian-American students have a one-tenth to one-fourth chance of admission in comparison to African-American students with similar accomplishments.

Campus Reform reached out to Yale University for comment but did not receive a response in time for publication.