NEW HAVEN, Conn. — A pro-life group at Yale is the first student organization in recent memory to have been denied membership to a prominent on-campus social-justice center, despite being encouraged to apply by the center’s leadership.

And although the deciding vote was cast April 16, the denial of Choose Life at Yale’s (CLAY) bid for member status at Dwight Hall is still generating controversy on campus and across the country.

First Things and National Review expressed outrage over the attempt to stigmatize pro-life outreach as antithetical to social justice, and Commentary magazine attacked the center’s decision as an expression of “ideological bigotry.”

But no group is more disappointed than the one most directly affected: Choose Life at Yale.

Membership at Dwight Hall, the largest campus-based student-run service organization in the country, would have secured CLAY additional financial and logistical resources. Furthermore, it would have affirmed the pro-life group’s work on behalf of the unborn and mothers as a legitimate part of social justice, worthy of recognition and support by the Yale community.

CLAY had checked all the right boxes and jumped through all the right hoops in the lead-up to the deciding vote. As provisional members of Dwight Hall, they’d participated in all the required meetings and had even raised money on the social-justice center’s behalf.

Nonetheless, their efforts came up short. A voting body of about 90, made up of Dwight Hall’s executive committee and representatives from member organizations, voted against adding CLAY to their ranks. The votes were cast in secret, and final figures were not released, but people close to the situation say it was far from unanimous and involved a high number of abstaining votes.

“We are all obviously disappointed and frustrated with this decision, especially after having gone through this yearlong provisional process,” CLAY officer Courtney McEachon said of the results.

 

Recruited for Membership

Adding to the disappointment was the fact that CLAY had actively been recruited for membership by Dwight Hall’s executive committee more than a year ago.

“We got assurances from [Dwight Hall board members] that all was going smoothly,” McEachon wrote in a guest column for the Yale Daily New — published shortly after her group was voted down — that summarized the unexpected turn of events.

“Unlike the average Dwight Hall cabinet meeting, the week prior to [the vote on CLAY] featured an intensive whisper campaign,” said McEachon, an effort that she believed was partly orchestrated by a member of Dwight Hall’s executive committee, which is supposed to be nonpartisan.

The “whisper campaign” became public the day before the April 18 vote. Andre Manuel, Yale’s American Civil Liberties Union representative to Dwight Hall, announced in a column for the campus paper that he would be voting against CLAY’s membership — and other constituent representatives should as well.

“The pro-life, anti-choice agenda stands in the way of gender equity, and thus in the way of social justice,” he wrote. “If you come to see the importance of the movement for gender equity and reproductive freedom in any larger pursuit of social justice, then vote no on CLAY.”

McEachon said the events leading up to the vote and the vote itself were marked by “confusion,” as CLAY was not even informed what time the vote would take place and was given no meaningful opportunity to make its case before the assembled representatives.

Although the defeat of CLAY’s membership bid was aggravating enough, MacEachon was particularly disappointed that no one from Dwight Hall even spoke to CLAY leadership following the vote to tell them how to proceed.

“We thought it would at least be a sign of respect towards our organization and its efforts to have a follow-up after the announcement of the first failed vote in 10 years,” she said.

 

Executive Committee Disappointed

For its part, Dwight Hall seemed to be disappointed about how events transpired.

“[The Student Executive Committee] wishes to express its respect for CLAY and the manner in which CLAY conducted itself in its interactions with the Hall and sympathizes with their disappointment with the vote,” Dwight Hall said in a statement to the Register.

Also in the statement, the executive committee did not appear to question the legitimacy of CLAY’s claim to social justice and encouraged the pro-life group to continue its efforts and its interest in joining Dwight Hall.

However, some critics argue that institutional barriers will continue to hinder groups like CLAY from gaining member status to Dwight Hall, which selects its members through a process that includes voting by representatives of current member groups, including those committed to deeply partisan agendas.

“Dwight Hall members are hiding behind the fact that the decision to deny CLAY membership was democratically decided by the leaders of member groups, as though the fact that a particular procedure was followed ends discussion on whether the decision was just or correct,” argued Matthew Gerken, a former president of CLAY and a 2011 graduate of Yale. Gerken said it was “ironic” that an organization dedicated to social justice wasn’t more aware of the fact that a democratic majority doesn’t always make just decisions.

Dwight Hall did not respond to a request for comment on these issues.

McEachon has left open the possibility of another try for member status in Dwight Hall in a year or two. But, for the moment, CLAY will focus its energies on “broadening our initiatives on campus before undertaking this process again.”

 

A Conversation Starter

CLAY’s short-term defeat will be worth it, she concluded, if it leads to a “true campus dialogue about social justice.”

Early indications are that she’s getting her wish.

The online comment sections for Yale Daily News articles associated with the development have been a hot spot for this conversation. ACLU representative Manuel’s article, in which he claimed that “social justice means fighting injustice and discrimination and working to provide everyone with the chance to live a full and enriching life,” received extra scrutiny.

One commentor wrote that she finds Manuel’s definition of social justice hypocritical, given that “he believes CLAY should not be allowed into Dwight Hall because they oppose the killing of babies.”

“I cannot think of a greater social justice than saving the lives of the unborn, regardless of race, creed or color,” said another.

Even those who disagree with CLAY’s pro-life stance, including James Redden, the co-coordinator of Dwight Hall’s student executive committee, considered the Dwight Hall vote to be a wake-up call of sorts. In a piece for the Yale Daily News, Redden said that, despite the commitment of Millennials (those born from the 1980s to the early 2000s) to social justice and public service, “we at Yale have not reached a consensus on what those terms mean.”

Redden, who supports abortion rights but did not take part in the voting process that excluded CLAY, still commended the pro-life group for stirring debate and challenging “our definitions of service and social justice.”

Yale alumni have also become part of that dialogue. Gerken — now the client-services manager at American Philanthropic LLC — authored a short First Things essay, “Yale’s Agony Over Social Justice,” which examined the controversy and considered its relationship to the wider question of social justice.

Gerken wrote that “members of Dwight Hall’s Social Justice Network might be surprised to learn that the term arose from the writings of a reactionary Italian Jesuit,” but he also criticized those on the right for failing to realize that “social justice,” properly understood, is a worthy cause that should be championed by conservatives and liberals alike. CLAY recognized this problem and was actively broadening its outreach.

Gerken suggested that the fact that a group often associated with social conservatism was beginning to lay claim to social justice is possibly what led to CLAY being denied member status.

“Perhaps it makes some of [Dwight Hall’s voting members] — if only for a brief moment — rethink the meaning of the call to love and serve,” Gerken wrote. “That would explain why they have to push it away so quickly and quietly, because they know that this is how social-justice movements begin.”

Register correspondent Jonathan Liedl writes from Minnesota.