Ko Lyn Cheang photo
Hundreds of cars jammed the streets of Downtown New Haven from Hillhouse Avenue all the way to the Yale School of Medicine during rush hour Wednesday to demand that “Yale respect New Haven.”
Over 600 vehicles lined up in support of increasing the size of Yale’s annual voluntary contribution to the city of New Haven, which at $13 million this year is about how much Yale’s endowment earned each day in 2018, demonstrators calculated.
The event was organized by a coalition of local activist and labor-related groups called “Yale Respect New Haven.”
Yale union workers and New Haven residents called upon Yale to step up and help the city, which already faced tough fiscal times before the economic hit from the Covid-19 pandemic.
The university sits on billions of dollars worth of nontaxable academic property thanks to its state-mandated exemptions.
As they drove past the quiet President’s House on mansion-lined Hillhouse Avenue, demonstrators yelled from their cars, “Yale. Step up. Pay your fair share!” A chorus of car horns joined in the clamor, as public figures and activists made speeches.
Among those who spoke in support of the rally were Mayor Justin Elicker and New Haven State Rep. Robyn Porter.
“We live in a city that has had decades of segregated development. Our poor neighbourhoods suffer from the highest Covid-19 rates, but we also suffer from home foreclosures, asthma, childhood poverty, and hunger, violence, absentee landlords, and so much more,” said New Haven Rising’s Rev. Scott Marks, who grew up in Newhallville. “Today is the day we can feel the energy to roll back decades of segregated development. Today is the day that we are making it clear to Yale that this crisis can be different. Instead of stepping back, Yale can step up.”
Protesters reduced traffic to a standstill along Elm and College streets around 5 p.m. Jean Coriolan, who works in the Yale-New Haven Hospital Ear Nose and Throat Department, was heartened to hear other cars honk in solidarity.
Quanda Berkeley (left) and Jacquelyn Holmes (right).
Activists criticized the disparity between how much Yale earns from its endowment and how much it contributes to the city. New Haven Public Schools, funded in part by property taxes, have wrestled for years with a structural deficit.
UNITE HERE Local 34 President Laurie Kennington (pictured) recounted how her third-grade son’s Fair Haven elementary school had no soap in the bathroom during the early weeks of the pandemic. “There is no money. That is because Yale is not paying taxes and we are all suffering because of it,” she said at the rally.
Kiana Flores (pictured), a rising senior from the Cooperative Arts and Humanities High School, spoke of her firsthand experience with underfunding.
“In my school, I can name 12 rooms that do not have working clocks,” she said. “We have classrooms that do not have adequate desks and seats. We have cafeteria tables that have been broken for years. We have multiple windows that have been broken in and not repaired. You can see the strain on teachers to have multiple classes.
“Last I checked, we all reside in New Haven. It is home to all of us. It is time Yale show some respect to New Haven.”
Flores is also co-founder of the youth-led New Haven Climate Movement. She called for Yale to divest from fossil fuel investments.
“Its endowments are built on the backs of oppressive, destructive fossil fuel cooperations,” said Flores, her voice booming over the sound system. “We want Yale to divest from these companies, reinvest in these cities and the education, job-creating initiatives that propel New Haven to a more sustainable future.”
One of the demands of the union workers is for the university to guarantee job security and not lay off workers during the pandemic. During the 2008 sub-prime mortgage crisis, Yale responded by implementing a wage freeze, hiring freeze and slashing budgets. Union leaders said they hope that Yale will not repeat that history.
“It’s time to start putting your money where your mouth is,” said Board of Alders President Tyisha Walker-Myers, a leader in UNITE HERE Local 35, which represents Yale service and maintenance workers. She said that without the pot washers and plumbers, there would be no university.
“We’re not part of your city. You’re part of our city,” Walker-Myers said, demanding that Yale provide more jobs to New Haven residents.
Suzan Henriquez-Whitted (pictured) has a Masters’ degree and said she still makes “barely enough” working as a senior administrative assistant at the Yale Psychiatry Department. She said the problem is that “the people who make the decisions are not those who live in the city” and that many Yale administrators do not live in New Haven but in the suburbs.
Carrying a “Yale: Respect New Haven” sign and pumping her fist out of her open-top jeep, Tariana Ortega, who works at 55 Lock Street as a medical assistant, is afraid the University will slash workers during this time. She said she showed up because she does not want Yale to lay-off workers during this health crisis. “I don’t think that is fair,” she said. “We all have families to support.”
Yale University told the Independent that Yale is not proposing pay cuts for existing employees, and has paid its staff their full pay and benefits through the pandemic.
Tariana Ortega and her husband.
Sarah Miller, a local education activist, called Yale’s contribution to the city “pocket change” for an organization that is run like a hedge fund.
Yale’s endowment as of the end of the 2019 fiscal year was worth $30.3 billion. According to the university’s spending rule, Yale aims to cap its annual drawdown to 5.25 percent.
Most of Yale’s endowment is restricted to support core activities like financial aid, faculty salaries, and research and scholarships. Members of the undergraduate-led Endowment Justice Coalition argue that Yale could tap substantial funds that are not restricted in their use, including $709 million in cash reserves as of 2019.
Semilla protestors.
Yale President Peter Salovey said in an April 21 email that he had been asked why Yale cannot spend more of its endowment. “After all, isn’t this a time of true emergency?” he wrote. “The simple answer is that the endowment is neither a savings account nor a “rainy-day fund.”
Yale University spokesperson Karen Peart said that Yale’s voluntary payment of $12 million to New Haven in the 2020 fiscal year was the highest from a university to a host city anywhere in the United States, and represents a 44 percent increase from the payment that was made three years earlier.
“In addition to the $1 million increase in voluntary payment we committed to the City’s FY21 budget, Yale spends over $700 million annually directly on New Haven. This includes compensation to New Haven residents who work at the university and many programs and initiatives that we support throughout the city,” Peart wrote in an email.
She said that the university has supported New Haven during the pandemic by opening dorms to first responders, funeral home workers, and health care professionals.
The hundreds of demonstrators chanting in unison along the verdant Hillhouse Avenue in the heart of Yale’s campus Wednesday evening had a clear message: That the university needs to do more. Otherwise, Walker-Myers warned, “not only will we put gridlock downtown and around Peter Salovey’s house, we will shut this whole city down. We are not begging. This is reaping season for us.”