Yale Prez Inaugurated Amid Protests

Yale has ​“endured,” said newly inaugurated university President Maurie McInnis, through ​“the breeze of public criticism” over the course of centuries.

Outside, that ​“breeze” seemed more like a storm — from frosts over federal funding at peer institutions to the thundering chants of pro-Palestine protesters across the street.

McInnis and the hundreds who gathered for her inauguration ceremony on Sunday morning couldn’t hear the protest from inside the gilded auditorium of Woolsey Hall, where multiple layers of security ensured that only approved guests could enter. 

The morning culminated three days of ​“inauguration” festivities celebrating McInnis’ installment as Yale’s 24th president. McInnis, who assumed the role in July 2024 after former president Peter Salovey stepped down, is the first woman to serve as university president at Yale. She was previously the president of Stony Brook University and a member of Yale’s board of trustees.

Inside the cathedral-like hall on Sunday, the event commenced with a ceremonial procession of university administrators and trustees, featuring color-coded regalia and flag choreography.

The Yale Corporation’s senior trustee, Joshua Bekenstein, adorned McInnis with a ceremonial gold and silver collar.

In her remarks, McInnis echoed the words of nineteenth century Yale President Noah Porter, who in his inaugural address spoke of ​“the breeze of public criticism blowing freshly through the halls of ancient learning.”

“Today, that breeze feels like a gale force wind,” she joked to a smattering of laughs.

She noted that 2025 is ​“a time when universities are increasingly viewed as irretrievably elite and out of touch.” She observed that students are experiencing ​“a crisis of division and loneliness.”

What McInnis didn’t directly say is that she is stepping into the role at a time of immense political pressure on university leaders, especially those at elite institutions, from President Donald Trump and his administration.

Since taking office, Trump has suspended billions of dollars in federal funding for other Ivy League schools such as Columbia, Brown, and Harvard, on top of broader funding freezes affecting medical research and projects construed as related to ​“diversity, equity, and inclusion.”

Meanwhile, the Trump administration has revoked the visas of multiple international students who voiced pro-Palestine opinions at Columbia, Tufts, and elsewhere, attempting to detain or deport those students despite legal challenges claiming that the actions are unconstitutional.

Columbia leaders decided to crack down on students who were vocally pro-Palestine: investigating students over posters and social media posts, while dis-enrolling at least one student protester whom ICE targeted for deportation.

Tufts, by contrast, is fighting the Trump Administration in court, defending a student detained by ICE for having authored a pro-Palestine op-ed. 

Thus far, as reported by the Yale Daily News, McInnis has prioritized behind-the-scenes advocacy to preserve research funding over public rebukes of the Trump administration. She has pledged to ​“follow the federal law” if ICE issues a warrant targeting a Yale student, without elaborating further on how the university would respond to such an incident.

On Sunday, McInnis proclaimed a ​“commitment to free expression” at Yale, and a priority of ​“ensuring that Yale is not an ivory echo chamber, but a place where curiosity is fostered and where people and ideas alike are free to flourish.”

As conservatives pillory the Ivy League for a purported cultural intolerance of right-wing views on campus, and as the Trump administration moves to deport left-wing students without warning, McInnis did not quite specify which threats to free speech she meant to invoke.

The event’s other speakers offered a medley of poetry, prayer, and formal ​“welcomes” to a national and global academic community, occasionally alluding to the ​“challenges” facing one of the world’s wealthiest and most prestigious academic institutions.

In the midst of his speech, Provost Scott Strobel fell silent, wiping away a tear, before declaring to McInnis, ​“Our community stands with you.” Slowly, the room stood up in applause.

Professor Jacqueline Goldsby read aloud the words of Toni Morrison’s essay ​“Moral Inhabitants”: ​“A reasonable man adjusts to his environment. An unreasonable man does not. All progress, therefore, depends on the unreasonable man.”

And Chaplain Maytal Saltiel offered a spiritual benediction: ​“Grant her courage,” she prayed, ​“on the most difficult of days.”

Students Protest For Israel Divestment

Meanwhile, across the street outside at College and Grove streets, around two hundred students chanted ​“Yale, Yale pick a side! Divestment or Genocide?” 

“Students and universities in Gaza are being destroyed because of the money that Yale uses and has, because of my tuition dollars,” one of the protest organizers told the Independent. 

Members from the Sumud Coalition, which includes Yalies4Palestine, Yale Jews for Collective Liberation in Palestine, and the Yale Endowment Justice Collective, gathered together, demanding Yale University divest from Israeli military weapons manufacturers.

One protester held a framed image of Dr. Abdel Nasser Al-Saqqa, a professor of Geography at Al-Aqsa University who was killed by Israeli bombs in January 2024. Another held a photo of 14-year-old music studies student Lubna Elian who was killed in an Israeli airstrike in November 2023. 

Organizers offered protesters masks to protect their identities given that over the past month, the Trump administration has targeted several pro-Palestine students in the U.S. On March 8, ICE arrested Columbia graduate student Mahmoud Khalil. On March 25, ICE detained Tufts graduate student Rümeysa Öztürk. At Yale, Helyeh Doutaghi, pro-Palestinian activist and former deputy director of the Law and Political Economy Project housed at Yale Law School, was placed on administrative leave. 

Many protesters asked for their names and faces to not be included in this article, as a result. 

Before the inauguration started, students delivered poems by Palestinian writers on the New Haven Green. One speaker presented The Olive Tree by Tawfiq Zayyad: ​“Because I cannot own a piece of paper, I shall carve my memories on the home yard olive tree,” reads the poem. ​“I shall carve the serial number of every stolen piece of land, the place of my village on the map, and the blown up houses and the uprooted trees.”

Following the poetry reading, protesters marched from the Green to Yale. The inauguration procession stayed on the Sterling library side of the Cross Campus quad, while the protesters remained near College Street. ​“In her inauguration speech, President McInnis said education belongs to all ​‘where the ivy doesn’t grow.’ Does it belong to the students living among the rubble in Gaza?” said Sumud Coalition organizer and Yale student Lakxshanna Raveendran in a press release. 

James and Sun Mullins came to New Haven to visit their son, a sophomore at Yale College. They were not aware of the protest or the inauguration but decided to pause their morning stroll and watch the proceedings on Sunday. ​“This is what a campus is all about,” said James. ​“This is about free speech and they’re expressing their viewpoints,” he said, referring to the student protesters.

Sun added, ​“What’s sad about it is they’re all wearing masks because they’re scared to be canceled or their visas to be revoked.” As an immigrant and a U.S. citizen for 30 years, she said she was disheartened to see so many students fearful of retaliation. Still, she is grateful the students are taking precautions. ​“I think kids are handling this better, with thoughtful debates, than adults in my generation, so there’s a little bit of hope,” said Sun. 

Yale police closed the sidewalks next to Sprague Hall and Cross Campus along College Street and between College Street and Grove Street. The permit granted by the New Haven Board of Alders for the inauguration authorized Yale to block off the streets but did not reference the sidewalk. According to Bess Connolly from Yale’s Office of Public Affairs & Communications, gating the sidewalk was always part of the plan for the inauguration. 

Taran Samarth said protesters were not expecting to see barricades on the sidewalks. Samarth told the Independent, ​“There were people here who were upset about the genocide at Gaza, were upset by Yale’s continued investment in weapons manufacturers, aid in the genocide, and [the police] do not want the trustees to face those students, as they have never faced them.”