Neutrality Directive Raises Concerns for Yale Women’s Center

As Yale University weighs an institutional neutrality policy, administrators have ordered the university’s Women’s Center to adopt a stance of “broad neutrality” that has left some students wondering what that means for an organization that has historically been activist.

The directive from the Yale College Dean’s Office comes months after the Women’s Center was set to take part in a conference related to the Israel-Hamas war called “Pinkwashing and Feminism(s) in Gaza” but dropped out. Students at the Women’s Center told The Yale Daily News at the time that it had withdrawn from the conference (which went on with other sponsors) to de-escalate tensions with the administration after the center allegedly ignored requests from a student who requested a meeting to press for greater representation of Jewish women.

Though a student organization, the Women’s Center has university-funded employees, which appears to give the administration greater latitude in directing its actions.

‘Broad Neutrality’

In the unsigned directive from the Yale College Dean’s Office issued last month, administrators noted that the Women’s Center “holds a unique position” on campus “and within Yale’s organization structure” as “a student-run entity with a degree of institutional support.” While it is bound by the same rules as other student organizations, it also carries additional privileges; YWC board members and staffers are paid by Yale, essentially making them employees.

The letter outlined four expectations: that the Women’s Center welcome all students “regardless of their personal characteristics or beliefs”; that it “maintain broad neutrality in its programming and actions”; that board members communicate “regularly and openly” with a staff adviser and graduate assistant; and that it provide students with “opportunities for involvement.”

In an emailed statement to Inside Higher Ed, Melanie Boyd, Yale College dean of student affairs, wrote that the Women’s Center “needs to be a resource for the whole community” and that such long-standing expectations “periodically need to be reiterated.” She added that “the current conversation predates, and is distinct from” efforts to consider institutional neutrality.

As the directive has circulated online, it has raised more questions than answers, leaving students, alumni and outside observers wondering what a “broad neutrality” mandate would mean for a center with an activist history on abortion rights and access and other hot-button issues.

So far the administration has not specified—at least publicly—what it means by “broad neutrality.”

Boyd acknowledged by email that “the phrase ‘broad neutrality’ raised concerns for the current [Women’s Center] board members, and I have been working with them, as well [as] with colleagues, to clarify the intent and revise the language accordingly. The fundamental goal is that the Center’s programming, taken cumulatively, should not leave groups of students feeling unwelcome in the space.”

Inside Higher Ed reached out to multiple Yale Women’s Center board members for additional information; all either declined to comment or did not respond by deadline on Wednesday afternoon.

Some former Women’s Center board members, however, issued sharp public statements accusing Yale administrators of clamping down on student speech in support of Palestine.

“As a former Yale Women’s center board member, this is unprecedented. Admin did nothing when we excluded anti abortion activists or included all folks of all different genders. YWC has always been student-run and school admin are trying to censor pro Palestine speech,” Rita Wang, a Yale graduate, wrote on social media.

A Vague Directive

Experts note that the call for “broad neutrality” offers few policy specifics for the Women’s Center. And some worry that the vague nature of the directive could have a chilling effect.

Jonathan Friedman, the Sy Syms managing director of U.S. free expression and education programs at PEN America, argued that such nebulous guidelines about what individuals or organizations can say often lead to uncertainty, prompting people to self-censor out of fear of violating policy.

He added that it’s not apparent whether the “broad neutrality” directive has any teeth.

“I think what’s unclear to me is what force this directive has behind it,” Friedman said. “Is this a formal obligation? Is this just the dean’s office preference? Because when you get told to have a policy of broad neutrality, that can mean a lot of different things to different people.”

Friedman also suggested it would be unusual if the call for “broad neutrality” applied only to the Yale Women’s Center and not to other groups. (It is not clear whether others received the directive.)

He added that the desired goal seems to be to engage the Women’s Center in questions about its mission and the scope of its commentary. But even if the directive is a well-intentioned effort to spark dialogue, he said, its vagueness undermines that goal.

“It has the unfortunate side effects of appearing like an effort to chill Women’s Center speech,” Friedman said.

Steven McGuire, the Paul and Karen Levy Fellow in Campus Freedom at the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, also noted the unhelpful ambiguity of the “broad neutrality” order.

He said that even if Yale adopted a policy of institutional neutrality, as it is considering, it would not bar activist student groups from taking a position on political issues. At institutions that have adopted such policies, he added, campus groups with clear stances—such as Young Republicans and Democrats—still exist.

But he emphasized that such groups are supposed to welcome everyone, and he suspects that the Yale directive may be driven by underlying concerns about the Women’s Center failing to meet with a Jewish student, as requested, and the Title VI implications of that exclusion. McGuire speculated that the directive is intended to encourage the inclusion of all students rather than to clamp down on speech.

While he doesn’t see the matter as specifically related to institutional neutrality, he noted that as such policies gain steam elsewhere, they will raise similarly thorny debates—which he welcomes.

“As more institutions hopefully adopt institutional neutrality, there will have to be ongoing conversations about how to work out some of these issues,” McGuire said. “And I think that that is going to be a good and healthy conversation and will put American higher ed in a better place than it is now, where we’re debating over whose political view should be represented in an official statement of the institution or something like that. I’d much rather be having conversations about the finer details of how to operate under a policy of institutional neutrality.”

This article was first published by Inside Higher Ed on October 17, 2024.