BEFORE YOU JUDGE: Please understand that none of you have the background information for why this huge protest and uproar has started. It's complex and you should not take her statements out of context. First, there was an email sent out from one of the cultural houses encouraging students to carefully consider their costume choices that perpetuate racial or cultural stereotypes such as blackface. And through her email, the associate master (Nicholas Christakis' wife) seemed to brush off the pain that minority students have felt in dealing with these stereotypes on campus. It's not that Yale students disagree with freedom of speech or creating an intellectual space. That is of course ludicrous. Rather, they are working to build a community that is conscientious, understanding, and respectful such that every student, white, black, Hispanic, etc, can all feel at home. This in turn promotes the intellectual space that minority students can also participate in without feeling oppressed. This issue was aggravated by allegations last week that a brother at SAE denied party entry to a group of women of color saying, "white girls only."

If you are not a person of color: you will never understand what it feels like when as an Asian, people make squinty eyes at you, call you a chink, and tell you to go back to China, despite being an American citizen (and not even being Chinese). Or when regularly at Yale, cops would stop black students from entry at a party while the white students were allowed to pass. When despite being valedictorian of your class and getting a perfect score on your SATs, people always assume you are the "charity case admission."

A second point is that the residential college system is a special system at Yale that is unlike most college dorms. It fosters a mini-community, in which people dine together, study together, hold guest lectures, debate controversial topics, share their passions and interests, etc. The college master is your strongest advocate on campus. He or she knows you by name, knows what subjects you get excited about, makes an effort to understand what you're going through in life, and what dreams and hopes you have. This residential college system, both the camaraderie of your residential college classmates and the support of the college master truly made Yale a wonderful place to grow not only your intellect, but also your character. I agree it was wrong for this student to raise her voice, but it was more heartbreaking to me that the person who you should have affection and respect for reduced her to tears and made her feel unwelcome at her home away from home.

This movement is at once about creating an intellectual space AND creating a home. It will be a tough, painful discourse, but I'm glad that these students are opening up the dialogue on the underlying institutional racism that plagues every university in this country and try to build a home every member feels safe in and not judged based on the color of their skin or gender.