Menafee appearing on the “Democracy Now!” news program.
Yale should “find a way” not just to convince the state to drop charges against an arrested cafeteria worker, but also to give him his job back, Mayor Toni Harp said.
Harp made the remark on her latest “Mayor Monday” appearance on WNHH radio’s “Dateline New Haven” program.
She was responding to the recent arrest of an African-American cafeteria worker in Yale’s Calhoun College, Corey Menafee, who broke a window panel depicting a slavery scene. Yale police arrested Menafee on a felony charge, which is still pending. Menafee “resigned” in an agreement with Yale but is looking to get rehired. (These stories offer background on the case.)
“I’m hoping that Yale will do all it can to help exonerate this young man in the court and that they should find a way to give him his job back,” Harp said on the program. “He had one of those moments. And it sounds to me as if he now reflected on it and will probably never have a moment like that again.
“People are beginning to see that there are all these things that particularly those of us whoa re descended from slaves, little things that we are expected in accommodate in our world that are really very disrespectful of our struggle in this country.”
On the program, Harp also discussed a trip she made last week with city Controller Daryl Jones to a training session in Miami on municipal pension and health insurance plans. She said that she came home with a sense that the municipal employees’ retirement fund should diversify beyond stocks to guard against wild swings in the market; and that the city should continue to increase the money it sets aside for health insurance and annual pension payouts.
A caller named Bob asked Harp if she will run for governor after Gov. Dannel P. Malloy leaves office.
“It’s not really anything I’ve quite frankly given serious thought to,” Harp responded. “You really have to think about the job you’re doing now.”
Click on or download the above audio file to hear the full episode of “Mayor Monday” on WNHH radio, which also covered a new mayoral task force’s report on how to improve community policing, and her favorite song by En Vogue, which headlines on the Green Saturday.
Monday’s episode was made possible in part thanks to support from Gateway Community College.