Yelp reviewers are not known to be overly generous, but one Ivy League dean took her keyboard warfare to the next level.
Screenshots of reviews left over the past year by June Chu, Dean of Yale’s Pierson College, were leaked to the school newspaper on Saturday, revealing her bizarre habit of posting bitter reviews that targeted service employees and restaurant customers for their race and class.
After dining at the Koto Japanese Restaurant, Chu wrote, “To put it quite simply: if you are white trash, this is the perfect night out for you! This establishment is definitely not authentic by any stretch of any imagination and perfect for those low class folks who believe this is a real night out.”
Chu’s trip to The Mochi Store was similarly disappointing. “I guess if you were a white person who has no clue what mochi is, this would be fine for you,” she wrote.
Of her trip to a movie theater, Chu complained, “So what they have is barely educated morons trying to manage snack orders for the obese and also try to add $7 plus $7.”
She also resented being forced to “remain in line with all the other idiots.”
To the receptionist at a gym, who Chu identified the staff member by name in her review, she said, “I don’t care if you would ‘lose your job,'” adding in parentheses, “I am sure McDonalds would hire you.”
You can read the rest of the reviews leaked to the Yale Daily News here.
Chu emailed students an apology after the story broke. “My remarks were wrong. There are no two ways about it,” she said. “Not only were they insensitive in matters related to class and race; they demean the values to which I hold myself and which I offer as a member of this community.”
Apart from betraying a surprisingly poor grasp of grammar for a dean at Yale, Chu’s reviews also reveal an elitism that is characteristic of academia as a whole. To be sure, Chu is not alone — she was just silly enough to get caught.
Professors and administrators ensconced in bubbles of higher education are not regularly exposed to America’s working class in any meaningful way —and they do not hold blue collar workers in high regard, consciously or otherwise.
If you can’t meditate on the contemporary applications of Foucault, you are not worth their respect.
That’s hyperbole (in most cases), but pushing a generation of students through four years time on campuses run by so many people who share Chu’s perspective is instilling that same sense of elitism in too many young people.
It also creates a bias against careers in the trade sector that demeans people for whom jobs that do not require four-year degrees are a good option.
On another note — do not give Chu a burrito that contains undercooked rice. She will scorch you on Yelp.
Emily Jashinsky is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
