When Nicholas Christakis, professor and housemaster of Yale’s Silliman College, stood surrounded by angry students on November 6, he still believed in settling differences through civil discourse, tolerating offense and soldiering on in the name of free speech—these “hallmarks of a free and open society” were valued and needed at Yale, he must have thought. Why else would he have reasoned with students, listened to them and respectfully endured an undergraduate’s violent demands that he resign?
Monday May 23, at Yale College commencement, Silliman seniors stalked past Christakis, refusing to accept their diplomas from his hand. The following Wednesday, he publicly announced that his resignation from Silliman, officially tendered days earlier, would take effect in July.
