Uri McMillan calls on Yale to better foster real diversity and equal opportunity:

This lack of faculty diversity affects my scholarship and my hopes of entering the academy. But this also affects all of the students here at Yale. In the Oct. 11 News article, the problem was expressed by Daryl McAdoo '05, who said that "there are very few black professors at Yale, so it's harder to find black academic advisors -- Everyone ends up asking [Assistant Yale College Dean Pamela] George." This is unacceptable and places a burden not only on the students, but also on the faculty. To address this crisis of mentorship, in April of this year, more than 300 graduate students from more than 29 departments filed a grievance with the University concerning the University's diversity procedures. In this grievance, we asked for 1) increased resources for the Office of Diversity and Equal Opportunity (ODEO) to allow it to recruit and retain more women and people of color in the graduate school, 2) permanent support for the now-defunct Center for the Study of Race, Inequality, and Politics (CSRIP) and under-resourced fields like gay and lesbian studies and area studies, and 3) the creation of an independent grievance committee to deal with issues such as hate crimes, sexual harassment and abuses to free speech. In filing this grievance, we highlighted legitimate concerns and used the University's own process to find concrete solutions for implementation. After all, wouldn't a university such as Yale want to pilot the academy, true to the word of former Dean William Clyde DeVane, who insisted that "it should not be the function of Yale to reflect American life but to lead it"? Right now, Yale isn't leading in diversity; it's being led.