The controversial dean of Yale Law School, who turned a blind eye to antisemitic concerns of students on campus, is now the “frontrunner” to take over as president of the prestigious Ivy League school.
Heather Gerken has been mired in a series of scandals at Yale since taking over the law school in 2018 — but is reportedly at the top of the list being considered by the president’s investigative committee, according to the Washington Free Beacon.
Gerken recently came under fire for advising Jewish students worried about a surge in antisemitism on campus after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel to seek counseling, the outlet said.
“He would be the worst choice out of all the current faculty,” one Yale student told the Free Beacon. “His handling of campus politics is bad.”
The controversy comes amid growing nationwide concern about rising antisemitism on college campuses, which has forced two high-profile university presidents – Claudine Gay at Harvard and Liz Magill at the University of Pennsylvania – to resign.
Yale’s seat is up for grabs because the current president, Peter Salovey, is stepping down — with Gerken now seen as the “front-runner” for his seat, sources told the outlet.
Heather Gerken has been at the center of a string of scandals since taking over as dean of Yale Law School in 2018. @GerkenHeather / X
Gerken, the first woman to head the school’s law school, is facing calls to step down in 2021 for insulting a Native American student who used the word “trap house” in a party invitation.
The head of the law school claimed the term had “racist connotations,” and school officials even drafted a letter of apology and forced the student, Tret Colbert, to sign it.
“I was told that things might ‘escalate’ if I failed to apologize,” Colbert blogged at the time.
“I was told that an apology would more than likely make things ‘stop’, and it implied there would be a lingering effect on my reputation because ‘the legal community is small.'”
Gerken sought to integrate diversity and inclusion programs at Yale, hiring a diversity coach in 2021 to conduct mandatory “anti-racism workshops” for incoming students, the outlet said.
Yale University President Peter Salovey announced that he will step down from the post at the end of the year. AP
However, when a conservative speaker, Kristen Waggoner, was booed while speaking on campus, Gerken took no action against the offending student — even though the school has a free speech policy.
Gerken also clashed publicly with law school professor Amy Chua, a conservative voice on campus who recommends promising students to clerk with right-leaning justices — including Yale Law School alumnus Brett Kavanaugh, who currently sits on the US Supreme Court.
The controversy prompted dozens of federal judges to refuse to accept clerks from law schools, including Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge James Ho.
“Yale presents itself as the best and most elite institution of legal education,” Ho wrote at the time. “But it is the worst when it comes to repealing the law.”
According to a subsequent lawsuit, Gerken removed Chua from teaching positions and pressured students to provide false testimony against the professor.
Then last year, Jewish students urged the law school to take a stronger stance against the antisemitism that exploded on campus following a silent attack on Israel by Hamas terrorists.
Heather Gerken became the first woman to lead Yale Law School when she assumed the position in 2018. @GerkenHeather / X
Gerken’s response was to have his secretary draft a letter that simply acknowledged that “these are very challenging times” and advised the student to seek counseling.
However, sources told the Free Beacon that Gerken had influence with the school’s administration because of his friendship with several wealthy alumni who supported his bid for the presidency.
Neither Gerken nor Yale’s presidential search committee responded to requests for comment from the Free Beacon, the outlet said.
The official list of candidates for the position has not been announced, but sources say Tamar Szabo Gendler, dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, is also in the running.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
