#Yale announced that despite its $30 billion endowment, it will institute a faculty hiring freeze. @Yale hoarding its wealth is nothing new. And among academic workers, it’s always POC who pay the price. A thread. [1/]

#Yale often claims a commitment to racial justice. But scholars of color have long been underrepresented on campus. Last year Local 33’s Equal Rights and Access Committee (ERAC) sought to find out why. [2/]

The figures on #Yale’s race crisis are dire. One example: in 2016-17, only 4% of Faculty of Arts and Sciences ladder faculty and 2.9% of the GSAS were “Black or African-American.”

(Explore the data yourself - http://oir.yale.edu ) [3/]

#Yale often makes self-congratulatory announcements about diversity initiatives. They made a major one in 2005, another in 2015.

In '05 there were 25 black ladder faculty in the FAS. In 2017, twelve years and many kudos later, there were…26. [4/]

ERAC spent a semester researching the causes of #Yale’s failure to address its race crisis. It’s a complex problem, but one major cause became clear – Yale consistently fails to commit resources to real institutional change. [5/]

We see it over and over – #Yale’s commitment to Western Civilization studies while refusing to hire faculty in Af-Am studies in the 90s; Yale putting tens of millions into The Jackson School in 2018 while financially starving ER&M. [6/]

Those 2 examples happened in the midst of budget austerity. #Yale’s endowment lost value in the 2008-2009 crash, and the FAS Senate reports a 23% decrease in hiring from 2010-2015. [7/]

Would it shock you that #Yale’s endowment recovered quickly, increasing every year since 2009? Would it shock you more that Yale’s climate of austerity remained? Yeah, us neither ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯. But the consequences aren’t evenly distributed. [8/]

The FAS Senate reported that in the post-2008 austerity, “a shrinking portion of the limited resources that have been expended have gone to maintaining – let alone increasing – the diversity of the faculty.” http://fassenate.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/Reports/FAS%20Senate%20-%202016-05-19%20-%20Diversity%20and%20InclusivityFINAL%20copy%202.pdf [9/]

Scholars of color at #Yale have always produced world-class research. But they’ve been forced to do so in a climate of dwindling institutional support. Like marginalized communities everywhere, they bear the brunt of #austerity. [10/]

Thankfully, communities of color at #Yale – faculty, students, staff, and grad workers – have always fought back, and often won. ERAC’s report was built on generations of activism, and we were humbled by their efforts. [11/]

Part of why we fight for a union is to hold #Yale accountable to its stated values. We know from history that a hiring freeze will disproportionately harm scholars of color and those from other marginalized groups. [12/]

A hiring freeze is incompatible with a commitment to scholars of color, and unconscionable when #Yale hoards $30 billion. Yale must make a different choice. We can’t afford to wait – we need action now. [FIN/]

p.s. You can read the full ERAC Report, "A Failure to Commit," at http://www.local33.org/a-failure-to-commit/ for much more detail on @Yale’s long history of failure to meaningfully diversify the faculty. Please share it.

Be safe